Founded in 2021 by Emunah Winer and Margarett Kerr-Jarrett, Columbus, Ohio-based Nihilo Agency has quickly established itself as a strong brand builder for spirits and beverage companies. Their approach focuses on uncovering authentic core ideas rather than just creating attractive packaging. Park Street University spoke with Winer and Kerr-Jarrett about their distinct approach. In this Brand Building Spotlight, they emphasized, “what we do is build businesses; how we do it is through brand.”
Our Interview with Nihilo Agency
What inspired the founding of Nihilo, and what is your approach to brand building in spirits and other beverages?
Emunah Winer: Nihilo was born out of a love for meticulously executed craft and a sincere desire to leave our mark on the creative world. Initially, we were also trying to find our place in the design world – alongside those that we admired most, creating the kind of work we admired most. Over time, we realized our true focus isn’t just making beautiful things; we love building businesses, and we’re good at it. Brand is simply our most powerful tool to do that. We like to say what we do is build businesses; how we do it is through brand.
Our approach to brand building starts with a core, central idea. There has to be an actual point of view at the center. Pretty labels and cool packaging are nice, but without every customer touchpoint tying back to a central idea, the whole thing can become irrelevant.
Unless we’re creating the product ourselves, our job as agency partners is not to “invent” that idea. Instead, we help founders uncover it. Sometimes, it’s just waiting to be discovered and built out. Other times, it’s been buried under too much design, too many voices, or too much fear, leading to brands that feel “safe” but don’t stand out or stand for anything at all. Without knowing it, those brands become a compilation of things they are not versus any one thing that they are.
A brand isn’t about any one part of the product but a central idea that ties everything together. Even if the flavors, ingredients, packaging, website, or target audience differ from one SKU to the next within a single brand, there has to be a unifying element throughout—a throughline. Consumers should immediately recognize what the brand is and what it stands for, no matter which SKU they pick up or which touchpoint they interact with.
The brand idea comes first, then the visual identity. The latter must serve the former, not the other way around. And by “idea,” we don’t mean heritage or founder narratives. It can be those, but it doesn’t have to be those. An idea can be an embodiment of a concept that consumers instantly recognize and connect with, an attitude they see themselves in, or a stance they stand with.
A great example of this is Ghia. Ghia is not positioned as a mocktail or an alcohol alternative. It’s positioned as “something to bring people together, to enjoy simple pleasures without the effects of alcohol.” Whether it’s through their effervescent photography, their unconventional label shape, their fantastical tone of voice, or their expressive typography – Ghia is always about joy.
Could you describe your process for developing a “full brand world”?
Margarett Kerr-Jarrett: Clearly articulate the core idea behind your brand or product. Then determine your consumer touchpoints, and where and how your audience will engage with your brand. Also determine which variables you have in your toolbox, in order to express your core idea. Typically these will be design elements such as logos, typography, color palette, photography, tone of voice, taglines, etc. These are your “tools” from which you’ll pull and push.
From there, design, write, and build consumer touchpoints (packaging, web, POP displays, etc.) to point back to the core idea, allowing for flexibility in tone and messaging depending on context. Practically, this means you’ll pull from the tools in your toolbox without using all of them at once, all the time.
Create a brand campaign or campaigns that drive home the core idea from a specific angle. This is where the most disruptive, wild version of your brand can shine and announce that you’re here to stay. Campaigns can be high-budget or low-budget – it doesn’t matter. They just need to have a point of view. And that point of view must always point back to your core idea.
Build a content and marketing stream that always ties back to the core idea while allowing for growth, change, and tonal flexibility. This goes down to the nitty gritty – even social posts should maintain, and never contradict, your core idea.
The hardest part: Don’t get distracted. Don’t dilute your brand out of fear. Be brave enough to stay true to who you are. Don’t fixate on competitors. Specificity breeds interest while trying to be everything to everyone does not. Keep going, keep pushing, don’t get complacent, be brave, and say your point of view out loud.
What are the most important aspects of a visual identity?
EW: There will never be a singular answer to this question, and that is precisely the point. What that means is: you get to decide. But whatever it is, you need to stick to that one thing. It can be your logomark (think Nike), it can be your bottle shape (think Patron), it can be your tone of voice (think Liquid Death), and it can be your color (think Coca-Cola). Pick the thing, make sure it represents your core idea, and build your entire brand world around it. In fact, you want the variability; you want the surprise. As long as there is one single thing that stays the same, play with all the rest. This builds brands that take on lives of their own, and that is ideal.
What brand elements beyond visual identity do you consider most important?
MKJ: Storytelling through language- often added as an addendum to design, we actually advocate for nailing a story and language before addressing visual identity and packaging. Words are incredibly powerful, they are an opportunity to say something unique and memorable but are so often underutilized in beverage branding where the package is the main brand touchpoint. Every place you have consumer-facing text is an opportunity to tell a story and articulate who you are without relying on the design alone to do all that work.
A brand that has done an incredible job leading with its story is Uncle Nearest Whiskey. It might seem strange to say, but this brand is outstanding, and the design, while well done, almost doesn’t matter. It checks all the right boxes: tradition, heritage, and quality. But that’s not what makes it compelling. The real power lies in the story. And this is a story that the founder, Fawn Weaver, was telling for years before she even created the brand. She wrote articles about the story. She wrote a book about the story. The story is the whole thing.
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How has the relationship between brand building and consumer engagement for beverage brands changed in the post-pandemic world, where contact and even purchasing are increasingly digital?
MKJ: People need to engage with your brand repeatedly – not just your product, but the full brand experience. That means offering multiple ways for them to interact, from organic social content that feels real (not forced) to in-person experiences that bring the brand to life. It’s not just about what you sell; it’s about creating a brand that reflects who they are or aspire to be. This means building cultural relevance – your product needs to fit into the holistic lives and cultures of the people buying it. From the way brands talk to the jokes they tell, to the memes they make, to the ambassadors they hire – it’s all one world and one relationship with the consumer. Most brands don’t take full advantage of the world they could build around themselves, but the ones that do are the ones people remember and return to.
Can you share a case study of a brand creation you’re particularly proud of?
EW: Casa Malka began as a brand before there was even a product. Nihilo created a visual and verbal identity that drew from a very different place than most heritage-focused tequila brands: high fashion, music, and culture. This immediately resonated, garnering interest from accounts and investors. The strong brand presence alone generated enough interest to push the founders to actually develop the product. This was a case of brand → demand → product.
Now, one year after its launch, Casa Malka is in five markets and was featured on the cover of The Spirits Business magazine. Its rapid growth and industry recognition validate the strategy, showing that a disruptive, culturally driven brand can drive both commercial success and market demand.
Looking at the spirits and functional beverage market specifically, which brands do you think are excelling at building comprehensive brand worlds, and what can others learn from them?
EW: Little Saints’ brand is very much reflective of the founder, Megan Klein. She’s hilarious and blunt, doesn’t take herself too seriously, and creates a real vibe around her non-alc, mushroom-based spirit. She shows up and demonstrates to her audience how to use her product (just like a regular spirit), when, and where. She weaves her personal life into the brand in a way that’s endearing and authentic and makes you want to be a part of it.
Madre Mezcal’s story is solid and their personality is consistent. So much so, that they’ve even been able to segue into tequila, and it still feels Madre. They say “Madre is a celebration of Mother Earth.” This core idea feels true in everything they do – from their natural colors to hand-drawn illustrations to their down-to-earth personality. They’ve engraved their ethos into the minds of their consumers so deeply that they can pivot and build in all different ways, and still feel like themselves.
Hendricks Gin’s brand is built around curiosity. Visit their website, and it feels like Alice in Wonderland. The bottle feels like a potion. Their language feels like a discovery. While any one element alone seems simple, the combination of all of them leaves the consumer with a feeling of mystery, a wondering, a questioning. This perplexity is exactly what Hendricks intended.
As we look ahead, what emerging trends or technologies do you believe will have the biggest impact on how brands build and maintain their presence in the marketplace?
MKJ: Brands need to address objections head-on. Is the world drinking less? Talk about that. Don’t ignore it. Is AI changing the entire face of the planet? Yes, it is. So what does that mean for your brand? If you aren’t thinking about these things, you are going to be left behind.
There is an upside to all this change, though. And it’s that you can never replace human connection with anything. Is everything becoming more digital and AI-centered? Differentiate yourself from the masses by being more personal with your audience—more real. You can meet them face to face in the places they hang out and introduce them to new places and people. You can give them something authentic—a brand that lives and breathes and has a sense of self. That’s a brand people can connect with.
Stop looking at what all the other brands are doing and start looking inward. Ask yourself: is my brand saying what I think it needs to be saying? Or am I really expressing my full authenticity? Am I afraid to look “weird”? Good. Weird is good. There’s enough pretty sameness to go around, you don’t need to create more of that. All you have to offer – and the only thing that is not replaceable – is what’s inside your head. Own it.
For more insights from Nihilo, follow them here:
Website: https://nihilo.agency/
Substack: https://nihiloagency.substack.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nihilo.agency/
Contact: hi@nihilo.agency