Bankers guzzling several bottles of Petrus and bragging about €50,000 restaurant bills might seem a distant memory — likewise, the party trick of the head waiter at La Voile Rouge in St Tropez, who sliced the necks off Cristal double magnums with a sabre — but the recession is not dampening the spirits of drinks branding expert Francis Michael Claessens. 


As competition gets more cutthroat, brands need to seize every conceivable advantage to secure market share. “I say to them, ‘there’s no point sitting in the corner and crying; you have to go on the attack’,” says Claessens, comparing his services to a sort of premeditated murder of a rival. 


Called in recently to strengthen Cuba’s leading rum, Havana Club, he immediately noted an inconsistent cap design throughout the range and a clunky tax seal positioned above a lacklustre label. By the time he was done, the seal had been transformed into a beautiful “certificate of authenticity”, the label colours were more vivid and the rum’s age was emphasised — subtle tweaks that bagged him a graphic design gold medal in the International Review of Spirits Packaging Competition. 


“My business looks dull to outsiders,” laughs Claessens, referring to the packaging award. “It’s not sexy like advertising,” admits the man who started his career at London agency Saatchi & Saatchi having left his native Rotterdam in 1976. “But getting it right every time is rarely sexy to outsiders.”


Moreover, the measure of success is not packaging awards — Claessens has racked up several other prestigious merits, including L’Ordre des Coteaux de Champagne — but sales growth. One of his earliest successes, he recalls, was repositioning Glenfiddich at a time when single malt was still a novelty as a whisky category. Sales soared 37% within the first year and Claessens’ design of the now iconic triangular bottle and gold label lasted 15 years before getting a makeover, an impressive stretch in an industry where brands come and go like mayflies. His recent graphic design award for Havana Club has also been supported by sales growth; since its rebrand sales have risen from two million cases in 2004 to three million in 2007, according to the Drinks International Millionaires list 2008.


Claessens’ road to drink was a product of chance. His first big job involved repositioning a whisky called Long John, which led to another for Laphroaig, and to commissions for Balvenie, Glenfiddich, Ballantines and Chivas Regal. By the early 1980s his reputation as a fixer within the industry was burnished. Buying the freehold on the impressive central London office he still works from, he began hiring graphic designers to finesse labelling, and experts in trades that are today dying out — glass, etching and bottle sealing. 


Now with a workforce of 35, and with a bulging order book, Claessens says that the current recession has increased demand for rebrands, as beers, tequilas and whiskies fight for market share while sales plummet. Naturally, he is too discreet to name names, but says business has seen a sharp rise so far this year. “What’s happening in the drinks industry is very similar to what’s happening to the broader economy. Virtually anything connected to the boom is declining, while familiar but neglected brands at sensible prices are enjoying a resurgence,” he says. 


Claessens notes that in a very short space of time it has become chic to drink Aldi Champagne and prosecco, while overpriced rivals such as Laurent-Perrier are finding it tougher after driving up prices to control spiralling demand as recently as last summer. Shipments of Champagne inside and outside France stumbled in 2008 for the first time since the turn of the millennium, according to French trade body CIVC. 


Under pressure as the industry starts to contract, Claessens admits that he has had to increase the amount of research into trends he conducts while travelling the world to meet clients, and gently interrogates bar staff in fashion-forward watering holes in LA, St Tropez, Ibiza, London and Paris. “When I sit down with potential clients they grill me,” he says, musing on a meal he recently had with a Heineken board member. “I have to know what is happening in the industry; I have to have a mastery of the details of individual brands, their positioning and their economics; and then I have to have a view on what a client should do.” It helps that he fluently speaks all the major European languages, including Russian, a factor he insists “makes a whopping difference”. 


Distilling his wealth of knowledge into a couple of throwaway predictions is not easy but Claessens is confident that the days of halo spirit brands fancily packaged and sold for a large sum as a ‘Limited Edition’ is grinding to a halt. And the biggest trend of the new era of austerity is the fall-off of new brands. “Instead of having 300 new vodkas coming to market each year, we’ll have just 30,” he smiles.