- CPGs are returning to unique structures and graphics to reinforce a brand’s essence.
- When price and perceived product quality are equal, packaging can be the purchasing motivator and decision difference maker.
Construction Materials
- Clear blown glass from Ardagh. Metal screw cap. Embossing flexo and silk screened pressure-sensitive label.
Package Focus
Brand and Product Name: Absolut, Mango Flavoured Vodka
Primary Package: Glass
Closure Type: Metal screw cap with inner foam wad
Product Category: Alcoholic beverages
Package Innovative Factors: Another in a long, continuing line of unique graphics treatments over a proprietary and globally recognized structure.
During the past few years, more than a handful of brands across myriad end-use categories have rolled out newly redesigned packaging under the marketing hype and PR guise of “our new iconic package.” While they shall remain nameless here, I would vehemently challenge each one by saying, “You don’t instantly create an icon simply by saying it is so.” Icons earn their stripes, their wings, their reputations over the course of years, decades and in some cases, centuries.
In actuality, few brands globally can lay claim to actually having an “iconic” package – one that consumers, not the brand owner, sees as being synonymous with its brand. Toblerone. Kikkoman. Heinz Ketchup. Tiffany. And of course, Coca-Cola. Those brands have earned iconic packaging status. And now, to that list, I would most definitely add Absolut.
Even in its unadorned state, Absolut’s simple cylinder, soft, rounded shoulder, short neck and slightly oversized metallic cap needs no further introduction to get a shopper to pay attention to it on a crowded shelf. Yet, almost as if to bely its brand essence, Absolut has made a habit of making consumers feel less like vodka shoppers and more like a familiar and sophisticated drinking buddy. It has achieved that by delivering an occasional, consistently stunning and yet understated graphics twist over top of its iconic structure.
According to Mintel’s established Make It Mine trend, one-size-fits-all is dead. In certain categories, the assembly line approach, even to packaging, kicked the bucket a long time back, in some cases even decades ago. For example, it’s hard to remember when you couldn’t customize your car. More recently, it’s hard to fathom when you couldn’t customize your coffee. It’s the very pervasiveness of customization that makes the Make It Mine trend what it is today: an expectation. And one that consumers simply won’t do without. In fact, according to Mintel, 25% of luxury goods buyers say that they define luxury goods as those that offer the choice to customize or which are personalized. That proportion jumps to 38% for 18-24-year-olds.
In Absolut’s case, it has fully recognized that no two people are alike. In its Absolut Originality series a drop of cobalt blue was infused into each glass bottle. This colouring technique has been used for centuries in hand-made art glass, but never before has it been applied to create four million original bottles. Added just as the molten glass goes into the mould at 1,100°C, the drop of cobalt blue streams down inside the glass creating a unique streak of blue. At that temperature the cobalt is invisible, but as the glass cools off, a beautiful and unique blue infusion appears. On the shelf, the bottles created a family brand feel, but with each bottle being slightly different than every other. Consumers could choose which one they could make uniquely their own.
The brand’s “Absolut Unique,” project, in which like snowflakes, no two bottles were the same, required a complete re-engineering of the company’s production plant in Sweden. What was described as “carefully orchestrated package decoration randomness,” created 4 million bottles, each uniquely decorated, and made an equal number of consumers feel like they had “made an Absolut bottle mine.”
In a more subdued effort, Absolute Elecktrik, the venerable clear bottles were made available in metallic blue and silver. The decoration effort was a continuation of its Absolut Nights campaign, and personalized the experience for consumers by evoking a feeling of the energy of an electric light.
Most recently, its Absolut fruit flavours collections features stunning, yet again, simple graphics, while always maintaining its core package structure – that simple cylinder, soft, rounded shoulder, short neck and slightly oversized metallic cap. In so many ways, the Absolut package has become an icon of a segment, of a generation, and of the role packaging can play in empowering purchasing decisions by making every consumer feel like they’ve bought into something not only uniquely their own, but something Absolut-ly iconic.
Mintel Packaging Analyst’s Points of View
- Customization has to be consumer-led. Simply giving people more preset options doesn’t suffice—consumers expect to have a hand in the process and the results to be personal to them and their tastes, moods, lifestyles and mindsets.
- Am emerging expectation is to be able to ‘continuously customize’ goods. Watch for consumers seeking products that can be modified over time.
- Emphasize the enjoyment associated with buying or owning something unique.
Mintel is the leading global consumer market intelligence agency. David Luttenberger is Mintel’s Global Packaging Director. He has 25 years of diverse global packaging experience.