How you can use material properties and design to differentiate your aluminium cans
Cans are becoming more colorful and extravagant every day. This is because we buy with our eyes. How are material suppliers helping you differentiate your aluminium cans? This is what is happening now, as we head into 2020.
The can is the ultimate point-of-sale advertisement for the goods inside – buy it, open it, drink it. As such, its design needs to attract consumers more than other beverage packaging containers.
You can do this with practical features, such as re-close or re-fill functions, as well as with shape and color. Red Bull’s slim can is an example, where the brand differentiated itself from the established shape.
Bottom line is that your cans need to attract more attention than those being sold by competing brands, and this is where aluminium canmakers and their suppliers, and packaging designers, come into play.
Focus on tabs and shells on aluminium beverage cans
A major change in the aluminium can industry is that all involved players, from material supplier to consumer, are focusing on the tab and the shell of the can, more than the body itself. Brand owners know how important it is to show a different and attractive look on supermarket shelves.
In the past, the primary focus was on the can body. Now the focus is on the tab and the shell. That’s the trend.
New ways to differentiate aluminium cans
Aluminium material suppliers are working with their customers and responding to this trend by developing a new generation of can-end aluminium.
How is this being done?
- New and colorful lacquers and primers
- Special lacquers for more color variety for can ends and can tabs
- Additional “shine” on aluminium can endstock
One company that is leading the way is the global company Ardagh. They added a new copper color to their colored tab and shell portfolio. The copper can end catches the eye and it differentiates the cans from any other existing color solution for aluminium packaging.
A can like this can also be effective when its design reflects the product inside.
