Making Metal Packaging Personal – Part 1: Meet Demographic Needs

Adapting metal packages for different markets and occasions is becoming ever more important in today’s world. Driving this trend are a number of factors, including:

• Growth in private labels versus major brands;
• Increasingly crowded retail space (and therefore far greater selection for shoppers to consider); and
• Growing expectation from consumers that they deserve specialized products how and when they want them.

As such, brand owners are faced with the need to increase brand acceptance and connect with consumers in a more personalized fashion.

Metal Customization Creates a Unique Experience

Customization is an effective tactic to overcome the challenges associated with targeting consumers in a marketplace abounding with options, for one key reason – it offers consumers a unique experience. Against this backdrop, there are a number of ways to approach personalization, particularly as it relates to product packaging, to create more valuable engagement with customers.

In this series, we discuss four different approaches brands can take to personalizing their metal packaging.

Address Specific Demographic Needs

Targeting the unique needs and preferences of particular consumer segments is an effective way brands can customize their products.

Personalization is becoming not only necessary but expected, especially among millennials, who desire far greater input on what they purchase than earlier generations. With this fact in mind, brand owners are seeking to differentiate and excite this consumer demographic through packaging.  

Printing Makes Metal Packaging Stand Out

One approach – particularly in the beverage can space – is through the use of new variable printing techniques, which allow brands to fill pallets with metal packaging that features multiple graphic designs – from subtle nuances in design to bold changes in graphics and text.

Digital printing, in particular, is growing in popularity for markets that require specialized decoration and designs that need to be updated frequently, with smaller brands such as the craft brew industry or those that have multiple label designs benefitting the most. There are a number of metal printing options now available to meet this need.

Get the Most Out of Your Design with Two-for-One

At Crown, our Two-for-One solution integrates a double imaging plate into the decorator so brands can have two different designs that feature similar ink usage. The system allows for two analogous graphical treatments with subtle differences and is a practical solution for conveying, for example, a different slogan or change in facial expression.

Get Two Designs per Pallet with Duo-Deco

Duo-Deco printing, meanwhile, is achieved by splitting the production line at the decoration stage. In this way, cans are divided and run through two different decorators that print entirely different designs before being mixed back together at the end when palletized.

Create a Printed Metal Keepsake with Accents™

For greater variety, Accents™ variable printing technology allows up to twenty-four different designs – such as words or graphics – to be printed on a single printer. This process creates a range of cans for brands seeking to encourage customers to view their products as a collectible set or to personalize cans with their own name or messaging.

Personalize Using Technology

Personalization can also extend beyond decoration to address how consumers interact with one another. Crown’s GiftTagTM technology allows customers to assign a custom-recorded message to an individual metal package that is then accessible by another. Through the use of unique visual codes that can be read by mobile devices, the “giver” is able to scan a code and record a video message that is recovered and enjoyed by the “receiver” when their gift arrives.

Learn more about how you can make your metal packaging more personal.