Shortly after sign manufacturer Zeon acquired its first beer account with New Belgium Brewing in 2000, Zeon chief executive Alan Bloom met with a Coors Brewing representative in hopes of grabbing more business.
“If we ordered 10,000 signs from you, how fast could you deliver?” the representative asked.
“Yeah, about three years,” Bloom thought.
Zeon didn’t have the capacity to handle that order size back then.
It does now.
Bloom co-founded Zeon in 1980 in Boulder. Three decades later, he’s based in Louisville and creates 15,000 to 20,000 neon LED signs a year that hang on the walls and windows of restaurants, bars and retail stores across the country. The company employs 15 people.
Zeon creates signs for craft brewers of all sizes. Three large craft brewers — Boston Beer, Sierra Nevada Brewing and New Belgium — purchase most of their signs from Zeon, contributing to its 65 percent share of the craft-beer market.
Bloom reconnected with Coors in 2008 when Zeon used beetle-kill pine to make signs for the brewer’s “Tap the Rockies” campaign.
The UPS Store, Papa John’s and Denver-based PostNet are among the franchises that go to Zeon for their signs.
Zeon’s success is partly the result of a sharp rise in the number of craft brewers from eight in 1980 to 1,600 in 2010.
Longmont-based Oskar Blues Brewery grew from selling 13,000 barrels of beer in 2007 to 42,000 barrels in 2010. Oskar Blues is working with Zeon on an 18-by-24-inch backlit LED 3-D can.
Chad Melis, Oskar Blues marketing director, said placing signs prominently in stores, bars and restaurants is a crucial marketing tool.
Bloom said New Belgium’s iconic Fat Tire sign was just a matter of sizing the intricate red bicycle logo down so the company’s tube benders could reproduce it in glass. Bloom attributed the sign’s indelible image to its simplicity — and Fat Tire’s taste.
“Hey, if the beer (was bad), there would be no iconic sign,” Bloom said.
Craft-beer companies are smaller than their behemoth counterparts, and as they introduce new beers and enter new markets, they’re looking for more distinguishable signs to attract drinkers.
Eric Smith, director of sales and marketing at Fort Collins-based Odell Brewing Co., said his company orders 500 to 1,000 signs a year from Zeon.
“They have more than just cookie-cutter designs,” Smith said. “They do new designs with new materials, and they work with different lighting or wood or metal — something beyond plastic.”
Bloom said big brewers are more inhibited when it comes to creativity, wanting their signs to stick exactly to existing logo designs. He relishes the design creativity that craft brewers allow.
“Craft brewers (are) passionate about what they do. They give us creative license,” Bloom said. “They’ll say, ‘Here’s our logo’ or ‘Here’s what we’re trying to accomplish — what can you do for us?’ “
Justin T. Hilley: 303-954-1064 or jhilley@denverpost.com
