MJR Media Crafts a Striking Vendange Wine Rendering on Tetra Pak's Aseptic Prisma?

The popular Vendange varietal wines enter a new dimension with Tetra Pak's eight-sided aseptic Tetra Prisma? container.

Only after extensive product and market testing did the Canandaigua Wine Company introduce their Almaden Red and White Sangrias in Tetra Prisma® cartons early last year. The initial positive response to the sangria was enough for Canandaigua to start thinking about a much more ambitious packaging extension project for their very popular and affordable Vendange line.

These Vendange packages are eight-sided, 500 ml Tetra Prisma® aseptic containers. Not only does Canandaigua believe that the aseptic packages protect their wine as well as - if not better than - bottles, they also believe that the new eight-sided Tetra Prisma shape is an extremely attractive one for consumers.

Tetra Pak manufactured over 160 billion aseptic containers last year, with only a fraction of a percent going to the U.S., even though there is some indication U.S. consumers are ready for the change. When used for wine, the wine actually has less dissolved oxygen pickup than bottled wines, and blind taste tests often conclude that there is virtually no difference.

Mark Feinberg, marketing director at Constellation Wine, parent company of Canandaigua, stresses that the Vendange package design had to achieve a number of messages. The package had to be recognized instantly as a wine package, it had to be undoubtedly the Vendange brand, it had to distinguish variety with soft colors, it had to "put people at ease with the package," and it had to reassure customers that this new package contained wine that was just as good as the wine they knew in the bottle.

"We really need to make it as easy as possible for the consumer," Feinberg remembers the goal. There had to be an immediate comfort factor when seeing the package for the first time. Therefore, the Vendange logo was not altered for this package, as the wine was and is the same exact quality of wine that is offered in the bottles.

Creating wine in motion

The eight-sided Tetra Prisma package may carry a premium appeal to consumers, but it posed an unusual opportunity to create graphics that worked well on the angled surfaces. Constellation Wines went to MJR Media, a brand design firm based in Bellevue, WA, for the package's graphic elements.

Matt Luis, account manager at MJR Media, explains that they felt strongly that the best strategy would be to "follow the Vendange brand," and not drift too far afield. "With the new package shape, we wanted to ensure the consumer knew immediately it was wine," Luis emphasizes.

MJR Media chose an overall color palette with great care. Greg Simanson, senior designer and art director, says, "The goal was to create a package that is visually stunning, but you know which variety you have right away. The main thing I wanted to capture was the glass and wine in motion." A collage effect on several levels achieves this effect with two extra wine-glass rims floating above a full wine glass seemingly caught in dreamy mid-motion.

The images are each unique and have slightly different angles of the glass and motion. "We didn't want identical soldiers in a row," Luis explains. To simulate gold foil, they printed light beige on a metallicized layer with 3-color and process flexo printing. It was necessary, however, to scale back detail of "V" logo slightly to not risk the finest lines looking blurred on the final package.

Only 6 1/2" tall with screw cap, there was a definite risk that the consumer might not understand how much wine is there for the price. The package holds less wine than a normal bottle - 500 ml vs. 750 ml. MJR Media developed a simple but effective way to quickly express the amount of wine in the box. The "3+ Servings" indicator with three black wine glass icons on a white background is quickly understood.

Portable wine and aseptic trends

The quantity of good quality wine has grown to where some premium wines are dropping in price, and very good wines are becoming downright inexpensive. "Glass tends to send kind of upscale images with it," says Jeff Kellar, v.p. of strategic business development for Tetra Pak Inc. U.S. This upscale connotation may prevent products like fine wine from reaching all possible consumers in less formal shopping situations, and for less formal social occasions.

Winemakers can no longer pass up the opportunity to compete with beer where beer is usually sold and consumed, which should bode well for Tetra Pak. "Our packaging happens to capitalize on that trend," says Kellar. "We're just now becoming like the rest of the world."

Tetra Pak is also moving into nutritional beverages, milk products, and desserts for adults and kids in the U.S. For example, these packages allow flavored, natural, shelf-stable milk to compete in the normal supermarket aisles and market directly to kids. McDonald's has gone to a version of this product for its Minute Maid orange juice, again able to appeal more to kids. There is also the Horizon brand flavored organic milk being used by Starbucks, and available in 18-unit cases at Costco stores.

For milk and juice products, the aseptic Tetra Pak packages are rapidly heated to 280° F, and then cooled down in seconds to create a sterile product. This process causes very little flavor loss and is all-natural, requiring no preservatives and no refrigeration. Tetra Prisma containers are durable and feature new screw cap technology - called StreamCap - that is tamper-evident and allows the container to be resealed once it has been opened.