The design team say they took their inspiration for the design from night time, stars and fireworks.
Flip the sequins
The Absolut Uncover Sequin bottle ‘comes alive’ with sequins which have a ‘hand flip effect’ where consumers can flip the sequins with their finger to create their own messages and Absolut Uncover Sleeve bottle has a colourful exterior wrapping that unveils a magical bottle underneath.
Markus Wulff, digital business innovation manager, Absolut Company, recently spoke at the AIPIA Congress 2017 (Active & Intelligent Packaging Industry Association) in Amsterdam (November 2-3) to talk about the designs.
He also talked about Pernod-Ricard (Absolut’s parent company) ‘Connected Packaging’ pilot which began last year to trial eight ‘connected’ products and services across the Absolut Vodka, Malibu and Kahlua brands with three concepts; ‘Mood’, ‘Home Life’ and ‘Provenance’.
Mood demonstrates how a connected bottle can interact with its surroundings to change the ambience. For example, illuminating flashes of colours, depending on which cocktail is being poured, and choses what music to play from wireless speakers.
Home Life focuses on personalising daily life, such as a weight-sensitive connected bottle that alerts nearby delivery drivers when the contents are running low and Provenance, which shows drinkers where the bottle came from, using QR codes to reveal its supply chain journey and how the alcohol was made.
Connected cocktail library
Earlier this year BeverageDaily reported on Pernod Ricard’s ‘world’s first connected cocktail library’ using the Opn intelligent system, which will be launched next year.
Opn is a user-friendly ecosystem of devices, applications and services which allows users learn and customize cocktail recipes, including coaching features and ordering spirits online for home delivery.
Wulff’s job involves finding disruptive services and technologies to pilot as possible revenue streams for Pernod Ricard. His current focus is the Internet of Things (IoT) and how that can be leveraged to launch products and services that drive the business and end-user value.
“Traditionally in our business innovation has been new flavors, packaging and how it looks not the functionality. My focus is on how can we deliver consumer value by adding technology and that could be either in the home, ontrade and offtrade,” said Wulff.
“For Absolute we shift about 110 million bottles a year, for other brands such as Malibu its 40 or 50 million. We thought about how can we use the static piece of glass and the packaging to interact with consumers.
“IoT is a new space for us to explore anything that is about adding value. When it comes to smart packaging and connected objects there is an ‘onboarding process’ right now for larger corporations.
“IoT is something you can feel and touch and creates an impactful experience but one part is the inspirational part, which is a great opportunity for the future but going from inspirational to execution is about creating opportunities to do things within different departments.”