packagingnews.co.uk

Benjamin Punchard:
Why pack designers should think local, not global

A Coke can featuring Barcelona’s biggest tourist attraction makes Benjamin Punchard ask why more brands don’t produce hyper-local packs.

I’m just back from a short holiday in Barcelona. The weather was lovely and as usual I indulged in too much local food and (nearly) too much Estrella Damm, the local beer.

This time I also had some local cola. Not some locally produced new cola, mind, but a can from that global mainstay, Coca-Cola. The difference was that this came in a can with a local flavour.

Produced by Ball Inc, the can was 330ml in a slimline shape sporting colourful representations of the region’s best known landmark, the Sagrada Família. To make sure you knew what brand this was, the image was outlined with the classic curved bottle shape – giving brand recognition from every angle.

This is a great marketing strategy in a city that is one of the leading European tourist destinations. Annually, about 18 million people pass through Barcelona, a city with 1.6 million inhabitants, so when it comes to identifying who’s drinking what, you can be sure that tourists are going to be there in high concentration. Giving your brand the ‘tourist treatment’ can really make sense.

So why don’t we see this here in London (or Leeds, or Glasgow)? It’s estimated that 15 million tourists pass though London annually. That’s an audience worth targeting, and one that we’re promised will grow next year with the arrival of the Olympics. And with digital printing and fast turnarounds, why not packaging with a local flavour that can respond quickly to events? A Wills and Kate Coke bottle, perhaps?

It’s not just visitors for whom this strategy could strike a chord. My view is that consumers are tiring of the global. Now that we have the world at our fingertips we’re remembering how to value the local. It might be a good time for brands to let us know that they can think locally too.