On the quest to define “Sustainability” for luxury brands
We know that Covid has been the subject of the year so far for 2020, rightly so. Caution about cleanliness and hygiene are at the top of agendas everywhere, so reservations about plastic and single-use packaging have taken a back seat whilst trying to keep the virus at bay. However, this does not mean that…
Active & Intelligent Packaging Congress – a moment in history?
Industrial revolutions don’t arrive with fanfares and red carpets. They start as small ripples, growing into unstoppable waves. Earlier this year, a former colleague recalled attending the first ever web 2.0 conference in London. It was early 2005 and the era of Bebo and MySpace and some time before we coined the phrase social media.…
Sustainability plays major role at IPACK-IMA 2018
Our Innovation Manager Susana Almeida enjoyed an interesting trip to IPACK-IMA 2018 in Milan last week. The IPACK-Mat halls provided a great insight into near-horizon developments for luxury brand packaging partners. This part of the show delivered a showcase for innovators in the Smart, Protective and Sustainable Packaging solutions. With sustainable packaging set to reach…
Postcards from London Fashion Week 2018
London Fashion Week 2018 has finished. As keen observers, we were pleasantly surprised to see sustainability featuring quite prominently above the glitz and glamour. As a luxury packaging supplier, we are always on the look-out for the latest innovations in sustainability, and we were delighted to have come across The Sustainable Angle, the award-winning, not-for-profit behind the Future…
Thinking inside the box – unboxing luxury packaging
It is undeniable that luxury packaging creates an opportunity for social sharing and user-generated content. A Google search for the hashtag #unboxing shows 107 million results. And with almost all social channels now allowing users to upload and share their own video content, unboxing videos are no longer the exclusive domain of YouTube. Unboxing videos…
Trends in whisky packaging: what 2018 holds
Think whisky packaging and what comes to mind? Tartan patterns, shades of heather purple, oak-cask browns, copper-still hues, images of stags, pipers, dirks, royal crests and misty mountains. Now think J&B, the fifth best-selling blended Scotch in the world, second only to Johnnie Walker, and what comes to mind? That iconic Emerald green bottle. No,…
Luxury spirits packaging that speaks to a younger audience
Whisky packaging has traditionally gravitated towards the staid and conservative. Many blended Scotch whisky brands are well over a century old and the logos, labels and bottle shapes associated with them are closely intertwined in the minds of their loyal, mostly middle-aged consumers. What design agency, for instance, would ever jettison the famous Johnnie Walker Striding Man,…
How to turn premium products into top selling gifts
Limited edition gifts are increasingly becoming a brand strategy in its own right. With an undeniable power to create added value in the eyes of the consumer looking for ‘exclusive’ or ‘unique’ experiences, limited editions gifts have the power to stimulate sales, extend the life of a product, and increase brand recognition. Consumer brands can be credited…
Premiumising the high street through luxury packaging
[4 minutes] Bottles of spirits look very eye-catching under the bright lights of a pub back bar, but nowadays they are more likely to be sold on an ordinary supermarket shelf than in the on-trade. In 2015 the off-trade generated nearly 80% of UK spirits sales, while the country’s six major supermarket chains— Tesco, Sainsbury’s,…
Where art meets packaging
[3 minutes] In the ultra-competitive world of modern retail first impressions are everything. The way brands package their products is an opportunity to put their best face forward to potential customers. To increase shelf standout further some brand owners are now enlisting the help of celebrated artists and designers for one-off editions and gift…
Advances in sustainable packaging
[4 minutes] A number of factors are driving brand owners to become more environmentally responsible when it comes to designing and producing sustainable packaging. National and international sustainability targets; the need to create cost efficiencies throughout supply chains, and perhaps most importantly of all, consumer pressure are pushing companies to make their packaging lighter,…
Gin: from rags to riches
[3 minutes] Could we be about to reach the stage of ‘peak gin’? Just a few years ago that would have seemed an absurd question to ask. Gin was the most neglected white spirit, outshone by vodka, and the antithesis of cool. Infamously derided as Mother’s Ruin, gin was more recently shunned as an old-fashioned drink…
Ditch the predictions, embrace the goals
[1 minute] An issue with relying too much on New Year predictions rather than on goal-based plans is that people can wrongly assume that by embracing an outside view, they are reducing the risk of introducing their own optimistic bias into their plans. What people seem to forget is that it’s not predictions that create…
