Tiger Beer let its tiger out of the roundel in a JKR redesign to own 'Asia's beer'

First brewed in Singapore in 1932 in heat widely considered impossible for lager, Tiger had become a national treasure and Asian icon — but its equities needed to read bolder and more premium across cans, bottles and multipacks regionally.

Literally uncage the tiger from its orange roundel so it can prowl freely across the wordmark — the mascot's frame becomes the story of the redesign.

Singapore-based Jones Knowles Ritchie rebuilt the packaging around the freed tiger and the brand promise 'uncage your courage', evolving the existing equities rather than replacing them, with the new look rolling out across cans, bottles and multipacks.

The refresh rolled out regionally and made 'uncage' integral to the identity as well as the communications; coverage carried no sales or tracking figures.

In April 2017 Tiger Beer launched a packaging refresh handled by Singapore-based Jones Knowles Ritchie, aimed at consolidating the brand's position as 'Asia's beer' with a more heroic and premium identity. The design's central move was physical storytelling: as JKR strategy director Katie Ewer put it, the redesign 'literally uncages the Tiger from its orange roundel and allows it to prowl freely across the Tiger word-mark'.

Global brand director Mie-Leng Wong tied the design to the brand's character — 'the brand promise of uncaging your courage reflects its character... it was important that the uncage message was integral to our identity as well as our communications'. Ewer called the result 'a much prouder, more single-minded expression for the brand'.

The brief leaned on heritage rather than a reset: Tiger was first brewed in Singapore in 1932, the nation's first locally brewed beer, at a time when brewing lager in equatorial heat was considered impossible. The new design deliberately built on those distinctive equities and evolved them — bolder, more single-minded, more premium — with the new look rolling out regionally across cans, bottles and multipacks.

The design decision and the brand strategy were made the same gesture: the cage the tiger escapes is the old roundel, so the pack itself performs the 'uncage' promise.

It shows restraint in a heritage redesign — the roundel, wordmark and mascot all survive; only their relationship changes.

Positioning 'Asia's beer' through a regional rollout made the pack the media: every can on ice from hawker centre to convenience chiller restated the claim.

A heritage redesign can amplify what the brand already owns: freeing the mascot from its frame reads bolder without discarding decades of accumulated equity.

The refresh rolled out regionally across cans, bottles and multipacks from April 2017. Later Tiger campaigns — including the 2016-17 conservation work and subsequent brand platforms — continued to trade on the 'uncage' language the identity formalised; the trade coverage published no commercial results for the redesign itself.