Building Shelf Appeal In Beverage Packaging

By Noel Ward

Your Very Own Coke

The latest poster boy for what can be done with digital label printing in the beverage segment is a program Coca Cola did in conjunction with HP, placing personalized labels on Coke bottles across Australia, then replicating the program in Europe. Consumers could walk into a supermarket and find Coke bottles bearing their own name or those of friends, colleagues and family members. The personalized bottles were snapped up as fast as they could be produced.

Although the labels were essentially many short-run batches of first names, it was not a simple process. It involved thirty-five nations, hundreds of names, five alphabets, a couple dozen languages, local-country labeling requirements, and HP customers in several countries. But for Coke, it increased sales and brand recognition, especially among non-Coke drinkers—the objective of the campaign. Is this a trend in beverage packaging? No. Was it cost-justifiable? Hard to know, but it demonstrates how far the envelope can be stretched with digital printing for labels and packaging.

Productivity issues highlight some of the potential. On many conventional presses, changeover time between jobs can keep productivity per machine below 50 percent. By comparison, digital presses can produce labels in short and moderate run lengths with no on-press changeover time. This can fulfill the needs of jobs for niche products, regionalized offerings (think local wineries and craft brewers), different languages, test marketing and promotional offers.

Obviously, the potential reaches far beyond the beverage market. The advantage is for brand owners eager to grow awareness and expand share. If localizing packaging, targeting a specific audience, or having a personalized label as a promotion will help, many brand owners will listen eagerly to their ad agency and a capable print provider or converter who can give them an edge on retail shelves.

It’s a safe bet that the majority of beverage labels and packaging will continue to be produced on analog presses for another decade or so. But digital presses will continue to up the ante, be more productive and carve out a larger share of the label market in beverages and other categories. The conversion side of the equation is not being ignored, either. Most of these digital devices can be equipped with in-line or near-line options for trimming, scoring and diecutting, often in highly automated workflows that further reduce costs and increase efficiency.

You go to the store to buy some liquid refreshment for the big game, the weekend party or just to restock your fridge and are assaulted by a barrage of colorful packaging from a host of beverage companies, sometimes as soon as you walk in the front door. In the beverage aisle itself, walls of choices reach out to you, hoping to engage you with team logos, lifestyle and flavor preferences, brand allegiances and more, all seeking the moment of truth when you pull a case of your chosen beverage off the shelf and dump it into your shopping cart.

Most brand owners of soft drinks and beers, frantically chasing an uptick in market share, hope that moment is aided by the "billboard," the logos and branding on the secondary packaging that enclose the actual product.

"Companies come to us looking for innovation and differentiation," says Bill Cecil, vice president of machinery and operation at MeadWestvaco, a major player in packaging and packaging solutions. "Beverage packaging is flat or declining, especially in developed markets, which includes North America and Europe. Making a package stand out is critical."

This decline is driven partly by costs and is hardly limited to the beverage sector. The volume of product in many consumer packages is declining, even as the physical package and the retail price stay the same. And while some brand owners claim this shift has more to do with to standardization of sizes, cost remains a real driver, paving the way for the retail price to rise so consumers pay more for less. But this is hardly news.

In the beverage sector, many firms are offering more sizes to appeal to a broader range of customers. Perhaps taking a cue from purveyors of energy drinks and consumer preferences in other countries, soft drinks are becoming available in more sizes than ever before. The mainstay in the retail sector remains the 12-ounce can or PET bottle—the go-to size for soda and beer, with 16-ounces as the super-sized option. But now there are taller, skinnier and shorter cans ranging from six to ten ounces, catering to certain consumer preferences and to differentiate products, control costs and offer attractive retail price points. Presenting these choices at the retail level is job of the paperboard container.

These containers, referred to as secondary packaging, support the functional aspects of the package such as carrying handles and ease of opening and dispensing—but also serve as signage in the store. There's significant value to brand owners when 30 feet of an aisle in WalMart is a six-foot high wall of Coke and Pepsi products. And these billboards can add revenue too. These containers provide the space for all types of cross-over promotions and tie-ins to sports, new movies, related products and more.

Cecil notes that MeadWestvaco produces both the packages and the packaging machinery, which makes it easier to add new package designs at minimal cost. "This gives our customers the agility to take advantage of short-term opportunities in a given market." When a NFL team is heading to the Superbowl for example, there's a lot of enthusiasm in the market. Agility lets a customer produce paperboard containers with team branding on it and get it on store shelves quickly."

Rigorous environments

Shelf appeal is one thing. But once those cases leave the store, the packaging still has to perform as expected in a wide range of temperatures and withstand abrasion and humidity. To achieve this, MeadWestvaco produces its own paperboard using primarily virgin fibers. This ensures it has the strength to stand up to the expected rigors of consumer abuse without tearing or otherwise failing.

Cecil explains. "The strength comes from long paper fibers, an inherent characteristic of virgin paper. When paper is recycled, the fibers are chopped up, making them shorter, resulting is a less sturdy container if too much recycled material is used. Using a lot of recycled material works fine for applications that won't be subjected to moisture or have to support much weight. But if you use shorter fiber paperboard to hold 12 or 24 cans of soda or beer the package will fail or the handle will pull out."

Brand owners understand this, too, and recognize that putting beverages in a secondary wrapper that has handles that aren't finger-friendly, is annoying to use or that fails when wet can ultimately shift the purchase decision—to another brand.

Packaging matters

A recent MeadWestVaco study found that packaging matters a great deal to brands, consumers and retailers alike, and can influence purchase decisions. Second, packaging also influences satisfaction throughout the product lifecycle. That's why the "fridge-pack," which facilitates dispensing of 12-ounce cans in a refrigerator, has been adopted by multiple beverage companies. It makes the product easier to use.

Such preferences are why plastic films are generally less popular as the secondary packaging for beer and soft drinks. "It's a lower cost option that you see in the club stores—32-can packages of soda—but it is generally not very popular in the U.S.," explains Cecil. "It's not a preferred type of packaging because it has no handles or dispensing options. It's just a cardboard tray with a wrapper."

Where plastic films do show up more often in beverages is wrapped around juice drinks, often using a conformable film that holds several cans or PET bottles together for easy transport. Printed using flexography, the wraps can feature vivid colors and help achieve something akin to a billboard effect to help them stand out on a crowded shelf.

Drinking outside the box

While cans, PET bottles and glass may be the containers of choice for soda and beer, other options are in play in for juices and some dairy drinks. Spouted stand-up pouches for beverages are occupying an increasing share of real estate in many grocery stores primarily replacing PET bottles. Already popular in Europe, some U.S. retailers, including big players such as WalMart, Whole Foods, Target and others, are telling brands they want more soft flexible containers.

Stand-up pouches are common in the United States for dried goods such as fruit and nuts, pasta, cereal, and baking mixes but have been slow to gain traction in the beverage segment. But this is changing, and look no further than the juice aisle in your grocery store for proof. Juice boxes and PET bottles still occupy most of the space but spouted pouches are taking up more and more of the real estate. Made of multi-layer barrier films, virtually unbreakable and with a host of spout options (including child-proof styles), stand-up pouches will be taking up more space on store shelves.

"Spouted stand-up pouches are here to stay," affirms Dave Marinac, founder and CEO of standuppouches.net, a leading producer of stand-up pouches.

Brand owners appreciate the ability to print high quality images. At standuppouches.net, pouches can be printed on 10-color rotogravure presses—and the ample space on the packaging provides room for a wide range of product and company information that can help build a brand. Then there's transportation. Weighing far less than equivalent capacity bottles, pouches are less expensive to ship, an advantage in an age of ever escalating fuel costs.

"It's your product," emphasizes Marinac. "Package it properly."

But wait, there's more

Pouches are also edging their way into adult beverages. At the moment this is primarily for drink mixes that are either non-alcoholic and ready for an infusion of alcohol or pre-mixed drinks that can be stored in a refrigerator or cooler. But the straight stuff in a pouch may be coming to a liquor store near you.

While liquor store shelves are packed with bottles containing every spirit imaginable very few are in pouches, at least for now. There are certainly images that brands of spirits seek to convey through their packaging, one that could be diminished with a pouch. But with glass bottles weighing up to 20 times as much as a standup pouch, the economies of shipping and handling could win out over image, at least in some cases. Plus, with pouches breakage concerns all but vanish. Some distillers already offer products in PET bottles, so a logical next step is pouches. And when you factor in the ability to visually command a store shelf with an array of products in colorful packaging, stand-up pouches will almost certainly find some space in liquor stores.

And then there's beer and wine. Redi-2-DrinQ Group of Sarasota, Florida, a leading provider of stand-up pouch machinery and beverage pouches, offers pouches designed specifically for beer and wine. Again, the branding capability of the substantial printable space on a stand-up pouch is likely to appeal to brands looking for a way to command a little extra attention.

Even if pouches don't take over in wine and liquor stores, PET is punching above its weight when compared to glass. According to wineanorak.com, PET bottles are lighter and require less space than the same amount of wine, so more cases of vino can go on a truck. The downside is that PET allows more oxygen ingress than glass, so wine in PET has a shorter shelf life. Some critics also cite potential health concerns, although these seem unfounded with respect to PET. And with wine there's the issue of image Wine in a plastic bottle? Really? But with even some French wines now using synthetic corks, anything is possible, at least for everyday wines.

So what really matters for consumers seeking that quick decision when buying beverages? It mostly comes back to a package that is convenient to buy, use and which stands out on a store shelf so the consumer can know it on sight and not have to think much about what they are getting—at that moment of truth. pP

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That 'Moment' of Truth: Building Shelf Appeal in Beverage Packaging