Ardagh produces bottles in varying colors for Absolut.
ABSOLUT UNIQUE, a concept which challenged the whole
team behind the brand and its packaging, including the bottle’s manufacturerArdagh
Group(www.ardaghgroup.com), is a limited edition of nearly four million uniquely designed and
individually decorated bottles.
Each bottle in this collection has a different color
coating and pattern as well as its own unique label number, giving consumers an
opportunity to choose a truly personalized and individually packaged product.
To make close to four million unique bottles, ABSOLUT used twenty-two
colors for the coating, five for the splash guns and sixteen colors for the
fifty-one pattern types.
For Ardagh’s team at its glass plant in Limmared,
Sweden, the success of the project can be regarded as one of the innovation
high points in its long-standing relationship with Absolut.
The development team soon realized the challenge of the project; namely
the need to adapt a decoration process that had been engineered to minimize
design variation into something that needed to deliver the exact opposite.
Fredrik Källqvist, development manager glass Sweden
& Denmark at Ardagh Group explains, “After a few
meetings and brain storming sessions we developed a computerized valve and
control system to automatically and continually change colors and spray
patterns on the bottles. We also came up with a system to randomly add
contrasting "color splashes" to the bottles during the coating
process.”
“We further introduced new functionality on the screen printing machine
for randomizing the print start for each printing station in the machine. We
also created a screen and color changing scheme for the screen printing process
balancing variation and productivity, and established systems to mix the
bottles during and in between the process steps to further increase variation.”
The effort and dedication to delivering a striking end
result was shared between Ardagh and The Absolut Company.
“ABSOLUT UNIQUE is a daring concept, even for a
company as passionate about creativity as ABSOLUT,” says Jonas Tåhlin, vice president,
global marketing at The Absolut Company. “Anyone can do one or two unique
products but we’re making close to four million,” he adds.
“Our customers are all unique,” continues Tåhlin, “so
we wanted to give each of them a ‘one of a kind’ bottle to reflect their
individuality. We loved the concept. Making it happen was the hard part. Along
the way we doubted whether this would be at all possible. Well, guess what? It
is.”
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