Spotlight: Metal Packaging

Special Edition Jersey Can Helps Victoria Bitter Move Ocean of Beer Down Under

The evolution of form-shaped aluminum cans continued with the lively Victoria Bitter beer can, introduced in a limited run over the last holiday season. With a raised area shaped and painted like a cricket jersey, the Victoria Bitter cans flew off the shelves in Australia, further aided by attractively designed carton. Each 12-pack carton contained 12 different shirt variations, giving consumers a chance to field their own “teams.”

The Victoria Bitter cans and carton are fresh examples of the trend toward on-the-shelf advertising, or marketing with packages, a.k.a. “markaging.” Consumer goods companies are realizing that advertising dollars spend at point of sale may sometimes be more valuable than dollars spent in traditional media outlets.

The Victoria Bitter cans used the latest aluminum can form-shaping technology by the longtime leaders in the field, Crown Holdings, Inc., located in Philadelphia, Pa. Crown has led the industry with patented technology from the early mechanical-shaping days, into the fluid-shaping days, and now into the air-shaping present. High-pressure, air-blown shaping is far superior to the old methods because the air never interacts with or damages the interior coating of the can.

Crown’s patented high-pressure air blow-forming process also allows greater freedom in unique designs. The printed aluminum preforms are placed in precision-engineered molds to create the desired shape. The preform is then blow-formed using high-pressure air, causing it to expand into the shape of the mold—and into its final form.

International event tie-in

Victoria Bitter, already a popular brand Down Under, launched the limited edition 12-ounce cans to coincide with the 2003-2004 Victoria Bitter Series One-Day Cricket International competition between Australia, India, and Zimbabwe. The can resembles an Australian One-Day Cricket Internationals jersey, and the raised area creates an easy-to-grip shape. On the opposite side of the can is the Victoria Bitter logo, also attractively embossed, and a gold lid with a wide mouth opening tops off the can’s appeal.

“Developing this special edition can is a great way for us to leverage our involvement with Australian cricket, differentiate the brand, and improve the consumer experience where it matters most—in the hand,” explains John Murphy, marketing and sales vice president for Carlton & United Breweries. This is the first time that Crown allowed another company to use their air-shaping technology. Amcor Limited, the premier can manufacturer in Australia, licensed the technology temporarily from Crown.

“We worked closely with Carlton & United Breweries to develop a package that would add value in the highly competitive beer market,” says Darryl Roberts, group general manager, metal packaging, Amcor Limited. “Consumer response was extremely positive, with the supply selling out between the Christmas season and the official start of the competition.”

Form-shaping market implications

The most visible use of this air-blown technology seen in the U.S. is the Heineken can shaped like a beer keg. Usually the cost of this technology allows for only short-run marketing blasts of a shaped can, but the Heineken can’s success convinced the brewery to extend that period indefinitely. Crown has also produced a soup can shaped like a barrel in Germany, and a beer can with soccer-ball imprints circling the cylinder in England. Most recently, Crown designed a WD40 aerosol lubricant can that is easier to hold and manipulate (see “Wow! What A Package,” Package Design, Jan./Feb.).

The WD40 can points to an interesting additional potential for this marketing tool. The WD40 Company wanted to reestablish their dominant place in the market for its 50th anniversary. Not only does the new WD40 can enhance brand recognition and user satisfaction, it also greatly discourages counterfeiting—a problem that can add up to many millions of dollars in lost revenue.

How Designer Gave Three-Dimensional Look and Feel To Shaped Metal Package for “American Trivia” Game

Studio Fun House (www.studiofunhouse.com) of Woodhaven, Queens, N.Y., is a small but versatile graphic design studio with capabilities in packaging, print ads, logos, corporate ID, trading cards, Web sites, 3D illustration, and licensing. Its package design projects include concepts for games, crafts, action figures, and children’s costumes.

A recent assignment for Cardinal Industries Inc., a Long Island City. N.Y., maker of board, card, travel, and trivia games, gave Studio Fun House an opportunity to add dimensional metal packaging to its project book. For Cardinal’s American Trivia product, Designer Reynir Hauksson proposed a metal container with a shape suggesting the rippling form of a wind-blown flag (see image). The lid was embossed to show folds and other detail, giving the tin a three-dimensional look and feel.

Hauksson designed the graphics in Adobe Illustrator, creating a path around the art that was saved separately and sent to the manufacturer as a guide to shaping the tin. To make sure that the embossing appeared in the right places, Hauksson also created a grayscale map from the combined art for the flag and the Statue of Liberty. The map enabled the package manufacturer to give the embossing the same detail as the original image. The illustration was a four-color process with a spot hit of white beneath the flag and the statue. The white spot hit was printed on the tin first, and then the four process colors were printed over the white. The result: a high-touch, high-concept package with nothing “trivial” about it in terms of design sophistication.