A recent Brandweek article dealt with a topic that’s near and dear to my heart: a new trend in packaging. A very cool new trend in packaging for beverages. Aluminum bottles–not cans–bottles. And I’m not talking about small niche players, either.
Imagine Coca Cola going from its glass contoured bottle, arguably the most iconic package of all time, to metal! Yet, in 2008 the world’s #1 brand (according to Interbrand) will be testing Coke and Coke Zero on new aluminum bottles. In fact, Coke’s roll-out of its new Caribou Coffee line late last summer, features 12-oz. aluminum bottles.
The article points out that Budweiser, PepsiCo and Snapple are among a handful of beverage makers that have embraced aluminum bottles in the marketplace already.
As president and creative director of a package design firm, I’m aware of these, of course. My first experience with aluminum bottles involved a great product from a micro-brewery known as Iron City Beer, based in Pittsburgh, a couple of years ago. Loved the packaging then, and I still do.
The article quotes former Snapple CMO Michael Sands, who was the first to launch product in an aluminum bottle in the U.S., saying that “The bottles stay colder longer and look cool as hell.” Apart from that, there are real benefits. 
Aluminum bottles are real standouts on retail shelves, for one thing. For another, they keep beverages colder for longer. Lastly, sleek aluminum bottles allow marketers and package designers great graphic opportunities to enhance brand imagery. In today’s crowded marketplace, these are all winning reasons. Maybe those offer enough reasons to justify the increased cost of using aluminum v. glass.
Interestingly, Anheuser-Busch is using its investment in aluminum bottles to further innovate. The company has introduced its “Chill Chambers,” a retail cooler that can chill the temperature of beer in aluminum bottles to as low as 22 F without freezing, at stadiums, restaurants and other retail locations.
CCL Container based in Hermitage, Pennsylvania, produced the aluminum bottles for Snapple and Iron City Beer, as well as new offerings from Mountain Dew. I think CCL’s VP of Sales and Marketing hit the nail on the head in the article when he stated that, “I don’t see us competing with other forms of packaging. It’s not about unit cost. It’s a marketing tool. It’s more like marketers saying, ‘Should we buy another print ad or TV commercial or invest in the aluminum bottles.’”
Obviously, aluminum bottles aren’t for every brand and every product. What do you think of aluminum bottles? Have you seen them at retail? Have you purchased them because they looked cool or because they kept beverages colder longer? If you haven’t: would you buy them if you saw them? I’d love to hear from you.
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I can see some of these bottles becoming collector items, especially let’s say, Coke bottles around Christmas time.
Ted,
I care only that the packaging not interfere with the taste of my beverage. And if, as in the case of beer, the aluminum represents the same way as it does in cans, it will affect the taste. As for cold beverates, I also reject that concept, as lower temperatures interfere with taste. I drink my beer at 55 degrees. And I don’t drink soft beverages.
Guess I’m not the market for these products. Nice post Ted.
Paul,
You’re right. The unusual always appeals to collectors and let’s remember there is a whole collecting community for vintage Coke bottles and ephemera.
But I have a question: would you be tempted to try a beverage packaged in this manner? Would it at least attract your eye more in a store, given that there are so many choices?
Thanks for your observation, Paul.
I’d embrace aluminum as an alternative to plastic, but it seems to be positioned as an alternative to glass. Is that what you’re hearing, Ted?
Hi Lewis,
Thanks for your response. It’s well thought out, as usual. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I’m the opposite: I really like Iron City beer–the product–and like Iron City beer–the packaging–even more. The whole concept shows how a small specialty brewery can compete with the large producers at retail. Hey, and it must be working if Anheuser-Busch is going for it. Consumers must be responding enough to the unique packaging and its ability to keep beverages cold, or the largest soft drink and beer manufacturers wouldn’t bother with it, would they?
Thanks for weighing in, Lewis. I appreciate it.
Hi Ann,
That’s exactly what we’re hearing.
BTW: there’s a big issue with plastic beverage containers right now due to waste and recycling problems. Just take a look at the sheer number of bottled water packaging, for example. Manufacturers and packaging firms are looking for ways to reduce the amount of plastic being used. Lighter, smaller bottles use fewer natural resources and energy to produce and cut down substantially on waste over time. PLA bio-plastics are being used, but raw material sourcing might be an issue there, too. I’ll probably put a future post together on this topic. Stay tuned.
Thanks, Ann, for posing a great question.
I’ve seen them, but I’ve not been impressed by them, personally. If they work, great; my experience is inconsequential. But the packaging isn’t going to make me buy something I’m not already considering.
Mountain Dew, in particular, has a few offshoots I don’t like. If it’s an unfamiliar package, I might not understand that it’s otherwise the same product, and that would scare me off.
Is it the same product?
Hi Cam,
Interesting take. . .I wonder how many consumers aluminum bottling might actually turn off. I haven’t seen the Mountain Dew aluminum bottle yet, so I’m not sure whether it’s the basic soft drink or a line extension. Maybe one of our Daily Fix readers out there knows about that one and can answer your question.
Thanks for your comments, Cam.
I commend Cola on their green initiative. The world is catching on, only I am not sure if it is just a trend. Cola and many other companies seem to be using this as a marketing tool.It would be interesting to see the results.
Ted I agree with the issues of the plastic water bottle fiasco.
Carol,
I think that given the heightened awareness among companies, and the general public, the green movement will be more than a fad this time around. Finding alternative materials to develop new packaging substrates, boosting recycling and cutting back on plastics are all viable. It’s happening, and signs are encouraging. Stay tuned, Carol, and thanks for adding to the conversation.
Hi Ted,
Great post.
I think there’s something classic and irreplacable about glass bottles, though; and I love knowing that my soda isn’t going to have that aluminum taste to it.
This might sound a little weird, but when I saw the words “aluminum bottle” and saw a picture, I immediately thought of something sharp. Obviously I know the bottle lip will be rounded and safe, but from experience with aluminum cans and how sharp their openings are, I somehow feel safer with glass.
Thanks for the post!
Interesting info, I never knew about it until now. Thanks for sharing
this valuable information.Great post. Keep it up!
Interesting point, Jenn. There are still plenty of consumers who prefer glass beverage containers to plastic or metal. Glass has always been a great packaging material to ensure the freshness of beverages. One thing I might point out though, it is heavy and expensive to ship because of its weight. With soaring energy costs, supply chain considerations are, if you’ll pardon the pun, a weighty matter for manufacturers these days. Thanks for adding your thoughts to my post, Jenn.
Thanks for the kind words, Daniel. I appreciate it.
I have to point out that aluminum is extremely energy intensive to produce. Given this, I wonder both why this is cost-effective and how this is environmentally friendly?
Here in the Pacific Northwest, aluminum producers settled here to take advantage of cheap hydro electric power. These firms are extremely sensitive to energy price increases and a number of gone out of business. I don’t know who is producing this aluminum now and where but they are using a lot of energy and, if it is not the Pacific Northwest, I doubt it is hydro.
Maybe coal fired plants in China are supplying it these days. I don’t really know.
Neil,
You raise another very good point. As I said in my post, aluminum bottles are more expensive to produce and cost manufacturers more. Many factors have to be considered when packaging products. Some packaging materials have higher raw material costs, or there are issues with finite supplies of precious resources. Others consume more energy to produce while others cost more to transport and cost more energy in that way. Bottom line: manufacturers and packaging experts are researching and experimenting with more viable options as they deal with all of these issues.
Thanks for touching on an important issue here, Neil.
I hate to be the bringer of bad news (if you have not read articles on this yet) but plastic bottles are bad news for your health as they contain endocrin disrupters. There is even a link between these endocrin disrupters and rising obesity.
http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2008/01/14/is_plastic_making_us_fat/
There are lots of other articles and studies on this topic. I just found this one with a quick search of google news.
Good point Ted, I think the manufacturers have crunched the numbers and figured out that the aluminum is cost-effective and the production costs perhaps even outweigh the high transport costs of glass.
There is a lot of discussion about the issue you raised about the health-related consequences of plastic packaging, Neil. There is another whole issue concerning the huge amount of plastic that is being manufactured from petroleum, for one thing. Then there is the issue of disposal–while so much of the plastics in use now are recyclable, a lot of it is ending up in landfills just the same. This is causing considerable environmental stress all the way around. PLA bioplastics are now being made from corn, but will most likely have to come from another source in future. With the stress on current corn crops due to Ethanol manufacture, available supplies are dwindling. All good reasons why researchers are working very hard right now to come up with viable alternatives. Thanks for adding important dimensions to this conversation, Neil. I appreciate it.
I am interested in the “green” side to the argument too – can they be recycled like other beverage cans? What are the relative energy inputs for manufacture?
I actually have a problem with the corn (biodegradable) plastic bottles because they can’t be recycled – and if there are too many, they will ruin the plastic that is collected for recycling.
Despite being a marketeer, I would prefer to see a restricted range of standard food packaging (sizes and materials) that would make sorting them post use (for recycling or reuse), and delivering and stacking them pre-use easier. Branding could still be driven by printed externals etc.
Maybe I am a luddite, or a hippy, but that is my tuppenyworth! Oh – and I am British. I throw that in because I don’t know what levels of recycling are like in the rest of the world – I only know we are running out of space for burying trash in the UK!
Hi Andrew,
Thank you for making several terrific, pertinent observations.
To answer your question, in this country we generally have consumers return aluminum cans by having them pay a deposit on them. These cans are recycled and reused. I’m no scientist and I’m not sure how much energy it takes to manufacture aluminum vs plastic or glass.
You’re right: bioplastics are not recyclable. The rationale for this material: it biodegrades quickly.
From a marketing perspective, there are merits to your argument, and as I said, many new avenues are being explored that were never considered in the past.
As to running out of spaces in landfills, I am aware that the problem is becoming acute in the UK. We share your concerns about that, as well. Many of us on this side of the Atlantic care a tuppence about it, too. Thanks for writing, Andrew. Great stuff.
Ted,
Great post and amazing feedback. I’m not sure why the bottles would stand out that much more than cans, other than they are not stackable. They may have an initial “wow” factor but my guess is that it fades in 12-18 months.
And things back in the Midwest must have changed over the years. Iron City was considered a low-end local beer (with Schmidts and Pilsner on Call/POC) not a micro- brew. My hats off to either their new brewmaster or the marketing company that raised their profile.
I’m curious if there’s any sustainable advantage in using this bottles. Would the printing on metal be preferable to using plastic bottles and labels? With plastic, the caps and bottles are of different grades. I’m curious about this topic, after having read ‘Cradle to Cradle’. I know this is a relatively new approach to bottling; any thoughts would be insightful.
NW Guy,
I’m not sure whether the aluminum bottle concept will fade out as quickly as that. We’ll have to see. Iron City beer has raised its profile substantially product and packaging wise; the company has even gotten demands for export. Personally, I like the product and love the packaging as I’ve said before. We’ll have to see how it does over time. Thanks for writing, NW Guy, and thanks for the kind words.
Hi Mario,
As I was saying earlier, aluminum is recyclable, just as plastic is. As you pointed out, there are various kinds of plastic and not all of the caps on plastic bottles are recyclable, for example. Kudos to you for reading “Cradle to Cradle”. For more information, and answers to specific questions you might have, you might want to to to the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s web site: http://www.sustainablepackaging.org. I highly recommend their work. Thanks for weighing in, Mario. Your comments and questions are always appreciated.
After reading DF readers’ comments again, it occurred to me that some of you might be interested in reading an article I published in Brandweek in April 2007. “Packaging that Works for the Planet” is posted on the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s web site and can be accessed by going to this link:http://www.sustainablepackaging.org/news.asp. This article may help to shed more light on this important topic.
I am guessing that the aluminum cool cans is about demographics. They can make all these cool designs and attract the very young beer, pop, energy drink fans.
You probably have something there, Neil. Aluminum bottles are hip and new and marketers are using cool graphic designs on them, as you point out. Great observation. Thanks, Neil.
yeah, apparently there are even people who drink Red Bull (and other energy drinks) and Vodka mixed. Yikes.
Talk about Cuba Libre. With a bit of lime, a drink like that would really give you wings. I just hope not car keys.
Though I don’t drink it normally, Red Bull saved me once. I was on a very long bicycle ride last summer and exhausted, about spent.
As if from a dream, two women appeared wearing Red Bull bottle back packs. They asked if I wanted a Red Bull? I gasped yes, yes.
I gulped it down and was able to finish. Thank the lord for Red Bull. No more will I disparage energy drinks…
I sat on the sidelines for a while with this post, but I see it’s gotten a lot of comments, so I figured I’d chime in.
First, there’s no easy way to know (without them admitting it) whether the reason for the change is 1) cosmetic/marketing related 2) social responsiblity related or 3) cost related.
1) If it’s a marketing thing, it will eventually fade whether it’s months or years. If it works it will get copied and if it doesn’t it will get dropped.
2) With regards to people who just throw out the glass and plastic bottles anyway: Aluminum is easier to separate from garbage, so for those not recycling, just put a big electromagnet over the trash and rip the bottles right out of the trash. Also, there hasn’t been a clear winner in packaging. We want it all: lightweight, strong, safe, tasteless, odorless, good looking, and sustainable, biodegradable or easily & cheaply recyclable.
3) As long as the drink is going to consist of mainly water, the only way they can reduce shipping costs is to make the container out of fairly impermeable, lighter-weight and stronger per unit of measure materials. Using geodesic domes is structurally sound, but doesn’t fit in a cup holder very well. Likewise, containers made from post-consumer paper waste don’t hold up very well.
There’s no panacea for this problem. The biggest thing YOU as a consumer can do for the environment and your own body is to drink water (filtered or not) that comes from your tap–and of course use a well cleaned resuable bottle to have portability with greatly reduced waste.
Kudos, Michael, for making a number of excellent observations. Let me just say that there is no panacea for the bottling of beverages–yet. I’m glad you touched on something that hasn’t been discussed yet in point #3. Bottled water manufacturers are currently working on using lighter weight containers. For example: Nestle Waters North America is beginning to package its bottled water brands (Ozarka, Arrowhead, Poland Springs, Deer Park, Zephyrhills) in new 12.5 g Eco-shaped bottles that are about 30% lighter than competitors’ ½ liter plastic bottles. BTW:Nestle had also already moved to make the labels on its water brands narrower, saving an estimated 20 million pounds of paper in the process. Coca Cola will also be cutting the amount of plastic in its Dasani bottled water line by 7% over the next five years. In some cases, bottled water and other beverage manufacturers are also reducing the footprint and overall size of their containers. We are beginning to go in the right direction but it will take time to find solutions to a number of problems associated with the packaging of consumer goods. We’ll also have to find effective ways to use post-consumer paper waste; another point you raised.
Thanks, Michael, for posting such articulate insights on this issue. Very much appreciated.
Michael – I love your input on this topic. #1 especially resonantes with me.
Totally beside the point, but unfortunately, aluminum is paramagnetic.
It would take a strong magnet, indeed to separate your garbage!
Ted and Cam,
Thanks for the very positive feedback, I appreciate it.
I also thought about the aluminum/magnet situation before it was mentioned (I’m actually a degreed scientist, not marketer) and thought that might be easily solved by making an alloy with just enough something that has a little more “stick” to it, if you will. (Though I admit, I’m not a metallurgist.)
Anyway, thanks again!
By the way, I consulted a friend who is a chemical engineer. In terms of your health, he told me those single-use plastic water bottles are bad news. The Nalgine bottles for using over and over are bad news as well.
He did say that the sort of cloudy plastic water bottles for using over-and-over are okay. Some forms of plastic do not have the chemicals that leach into the water (or other drink).
He made the point that heat and plastic is *especially* bad (no surprise there). Also, using a plastic bottle over-and-over helps. That is because the bad chemicals leach into the water (or whatever drink) and you have sort of cleared them out with repeated use.
Thanks, Cam, Michael and Neil for jumping in with your comments. Neil, you’ve made some great points in your last comments concerning plastic chemicals leaching into beverages. No matter how minute those particles might be, they are a cause for concern. Another good reason for chemists to push for more bio-sourced materials that might be turned into plastic. Thanks for adding a lot to this conversation. I appreciate it.
Thanks Ted, I appreciate it.
The truth is people are always going to need portable beverage containers and they are going probably going to be made of some sort of plastic.
I use plastic for my bicycle, hiking, etc., water bottles.
The plastics industry could provide some massive benefits for themselves and consumers if they move full steam ahead with Research & Development. At the risk of being trite, it would be a win-win as it always should be in our capitalist system.
Aluminum bottles do look “cool as hell” and they are great to drink from! As a graphic designer, I see and appreciate really striking packaging but also understand the need for practicality. I am a consumer of soft drinks and beer, and I will admit that when I first heard of aluminum bottles it sounded very weird. However, after drinking a cold Anheuser-Busch product in 2 different venues where glass containers are banned due to safety concerns (a concert and a cruise) I was sold. They are beautiful and very functional. From an environmental standpoint, people are accustomed to recycling aluminum cans and the facilities to do so are widely available. I think these aluminum bottles are winners on several different fronts.
“The truth is people are always going to need portable beverage containers and they are going probably going to be made of some sort of plastic.”
Agreed, Neil. We just have to make future packaging and containers better and smarter. Or let’s say: safer, requiring fewer virgin natural resources, less energy, sourced from renewable resources, recyclable or compostable, etc, etc. It’s a tall order, but as you point out, work is being done to find viable packaging solutions.
Thanks for writing.
I smiled when I read your comments, Robyn. We designers love to find solutions that offer a perfect mix of aesthetic appeal with functionality, don’t we? As I found, and you so eloquently stated, aluminum bottles seem to achieve both. Thanks for weighing in. I appreciate it.