Custom essays, dissertations, coursework & essay help from the UK's original custom essay writing services provider
Free Essays - Marketing Essays
Design and Packaging in Wines and Spirits
1 Introduction
Wine and spirit packaging has a large number of elements which affect the overall design. These are:
- bottle shape, size, colour and material
- winebox colour, graphics and carrying, opening and pouring mechanisms
- labelling, by adhesive label, on-bottle printing, shrink-wrap bottle cover and winebox printing
- bottle stoppers such as screw cap or cork (made of cork or plastic) held in place with wire or with a wax seal and/or lead or foil capsule
- presentation box or tin for bottle
- casing for multiple bottles such as Bailey's Minis
Packaging's functions can be divided into three main categories: protection, convenience and communication. The protective aspect is to prevent damage during transportation, display and purchase, to prevent deterioration of contents and to reduce the likelihood of tampering. Convenience covers the functionality of the packaging - how it is opened and used e.g. opening a perforated section of a wine box to extract a tap. Communication includes practical labelling of the product, what it does and its specifications (often legally required) plus elements of brand personality and aesthetics to attract the attention of the target market. The elements of packaging often fall into all three categories simultaneously:e.g. vintage Famous Grouse whisky can be purchased in a decorative presentation tin which has aesthetic qualities, communicates details of the contents, has a functional lid and protects the bottle inside with a corrugated cardboard lining. Many of the elements of packaging demonstrate similar multiple functions.
2 The Importance of Design and Packaging
All elements of packaging and design contribute towards brand, which represents the image or even perceived 'personality' of a product. Brand can be defined as
a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of these, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors.
However, the activity of branding goes further than this:
a brand is a complex symbolThe challenge of branding is to develop a deep set of meanings or associations for the brand.
A survey of wines and spirits reveals certain trends among different categories of product:
Straight-sided wine bottles identify wines from France or Italy; squat, bell-shaped bottles represent some Portuguese wines; tall, tapered bottles suggest wines that come from German regions.
Characteristics such as these draw a consumer towards a display from a distance: the shape of the bottle can give clues to its contents without being close enough to read the label. With a huge array of wines and spirits competing with each other in licensed and non-licensed outlets, every aspect of package and design offers the chance to stand out against competition, and the different elements identify a product to consumers without the time or inclination to read many labels.
Patterns can be seen in shop displays: plastic bottles for table wine, but never for mid-range or premium wines; eclectic design for spirits but far more consistency of packaging amongst wines; presentation tins and boxes for premium whiskys and cognacs, and occasionally champagnes, but rarely for other wines and spirits.
Packaging design, although flexible, is subject to these types of conventions. For example, corks are associated with premium wines and screw top caps with Lambrini, a budget wine. Some mid-range and premium wine producers have begun to use screw top caps, but a survey by Wine Intelligence found that 60% of the 1150 subjects disliked wines having screw caps, even though the bottles are easier to open and close, flavour is as good and corked wines are avoided. This shows that a logical approach to functionality can affect brand perception: the cork is not just a closure but an element of the brand. However, 250ml bottles of wine almost always have screwtop caps. A cork is impractical, as many of these bottles are sold at stations and consumed on trains, where a traveller rarely carries a corkscrew: the dislike of screw tops is overridden by other priorities.
Other elements of packaging have functional and aesthetic aspects. Wine bottles are often clear so that the clarity of the wine can be seen. In some kinds of wine, there should be no sediment, so clear glass allows the purchaser to check this, but visibility of the product could also be considered an aesthetic quality of the packaging.
3 Options for Design and Packaging
By looking at the range of designs adopted by various brands, some of the many design options can be considered in the context of branding and consumer influence.
Malibu uses white and brown, the same colours as a coconut (it is a coconut and rum mix), and white covers the entire bottle, which is more eye-catching than a stick-on label (the white bottle is part of the registered trademark). There is a distinctive palm tree logo to evoke the Caribbean. Although the drink has been made since 1893, the lettering and clean, minimal design elements are modern, creating a contemporary brand image rather than one of a traditional drink.
European wine labelling operates to a set of conventions. It refers to regions, grape types and lengths of aging through specialist terms: books are available to decipher their meanings. Producers, grapes and regions listed on the label brand the product and graphics are minimal. In contrast, New World wines are more inventive with branding. Wolf Blass wines all have the distinctive eagle logo but with different coloured labels: black means premium, yellow means classic and red means blended. Thus the bottles are distinctive and eyecatching to potential new customers, while existing customers can easily differentiate qualities. The success of New World branding has led the French wine industry to reduce the information required on French wine labels. This shows the influence of a growing market of wine buyers who do not understand traditional French wine labelling. An Experian survey in December 2005 found that more than half of wine buyers buy wine that has a simple-to-understand label.
Although some information is required by law, much of the information on a drink package is arbitrary. Nutritional labelling is not required, but does appear on certain brands promoted as lower calorie (Weightwatchers' Riesling, for example), giving a slimline brand credibility in a specific market. The Weightwatchers' white and blue branding is the same for its wine as for a whole range of grocery products, prioritising the consumer's recognition of a diet brand rather than the wine's other qualities, differentiating it from other wines.
Product differentiation can be simple: Rosemount wines can easily be found in displays as their square labels have been rotated to become diamond-shaped on the bottle.
4 Re-packaging
(a) Blue Nun
Blue Nun was a popular brand in the 1970s but had acquired a 'kitsch' image. A radical overhaul of the product and packaging was undertaken and the brand was relaunched in 2000. The core product, a Liebfraumilch, was upgraded to a Qualitätswein and its sweetness reduced: the labelling on the bottle was changed to the appropriate description. The bottle, previously a tapered brown Hock-type bottle, was changed to a blue tapered bottle with less strong associations with German wine (which has been subject to 'wine snobbery'). The logo: Blue Nun in pale type on a blue background with a picture of a nun in a rustic landscape, was kept. However, the brand was extended to include not just German Riesling but wines such as Spanish Rosé and French Merlot, creating a range of 11 wines and a ready-to-drink product, 'Slinky'. Only the Qualitätswein had the rustic landscape: other products featured the same nun contextless, or just used the blue banner with Blue Nun text.
The aim of the manufacturers was to target female customers in their late 20s wanting easy-drinking wines, who see themselves as having more sophisticated tastes than alcopop drinkers. The nun graphic and logo suggest the designers hoped to attract those who also drank the wine in the 1970s, but the target market are unlikely to remember the product. Very recently, the Qualitätswein has again been rebranded, and now features a subtle line drawing of a nun's head and shoulders and the labelling 'Blue Nun Original' (despite the recipe change). The cream label with gold borders and gold and blue print suggests the retention of the 1970s logo was failing to give the product as contemporary an edge as did its bottle: the rustic landscape does not suggest the sophistication the target market aspires to.
However, the relaunch has been a success for the company, which now sells more units than in the 1970s - 5 million in 2005, with an annual growth rate of 11%.
(b) Beefeater Gin
Beefeater was identified by its owner, Allied Domecq, as a brand whose market was ageing. A rebranding exercise was launched to introduce the product to a younger market.
However, the brand still needed to be easily recognised by its existing market, and a radical redesign was not appropriate. The changes were subtle: the Beefeater illustration was given a brown hair and beard instead of the original grey, and the paper label was changed for on-bottle printing. Printing directly to the bottle is more common in brands aimed at a younger market - Absolut vodka, for example. The prominent 'London Distilled' text was changed to 'Dry Gin': a clear move to engage a younger audience. The former text implies quality to the existing, more technically-minded consumer, but with no clear explanation of what the product is, the new customer would be less likely to try it.
The new look Beefeater was launched in 2000, and UK sales increased by 76.7% to October 2001 (compared with 0.6% for the category as a whole). Market share in Spain increased by 2% in the year to August 31 2001. However, it is not clear how much of this can be attributed to the target market, and the exercise's success was described by Allied Domecq's chief executive as mixed.
5 Conclusion
The difficulty of packaging alcoholic drinks for an appropriate target market is demonstrated by the Beefeater case above. It could be argued that the partial rather than complete success was due to the brand trying to appeal to too many market segments, each of which responds to different packaging codes.
The success of the Blue Nun relaunch may perhaps be attributed to their opposite approach: targeting a very specific demographic. The recent change in logo to the line drawn nun suggests that the use of the original graphic of nun and landscape was not provoking 'nostalgia' buying by Blue Nun drinkers from the 70s, and for younger consumers unaware of the product's history, the logo offered little to identify with.
For successful packaging, the producer of alcoholic beverages must be aware of:
- subtle codes contributing to branding: e.g. the picture of Queen Victoria, reference to Bombay and copperplate text on a Bombay Sapphire Gin label infer Victorian colonialism, with grand living in exotic, warm locations while preserving elements of Britishness, while Beefeater gin shows the Beefeater, a more lowly character than Queen Victoria. The implications are that Bombay Sapphire acquires the image of a more premium product.
- practical considerations of functionality: e.g. will the bottle open and dispense well-preserved contents for the purchaser?
- changes in the drinks market: e.g. French response of changing labelling requirements to appeal to a growing market with limited wine expertise.
- target market aspirations: seen in the most recent changes to the Blue Nun Qualitätswein label.
The number of competing products means that errors of judgement can compromise sales: the repackaging cases in section four - with Blue Nun undertaking further rebranding and the Beefeater's repositioning still under question, suggest that the original rebranding could have been more effective. Despite the experience and resources of the brands' owners, both brands could achieve more, underlining the challenges for designers and marketers.
Marketing Essays - Find your free marketing essays...
We have a large assortment of free essays available to use as research material. Visit our marketing essays from our free essays section.
All of the essays in the "Free Essays" section were written by students and then submitted to us to display and help others. Thanks to all the students who have submitted their essays to us. You should not hand in our essays as your own. We do not condone plagiarism!
UK Essays Sitemaps
UKEssays.com RSS Feed
