In recent years, as one of the popular categories in the domestic beverage market, ready-to-drink coffee has been favored by a large number of urban consumers, especially young consumers, with the advantages of refreshing and convenient consumption, and has high consumption rigidity.
According to incomplete statistics, the packaging types of ready-to-drink coffee include bottled, canned, cup, boxed and bagged. Among them, bottled ready-to-drink coffee occupies the top spot with about 70%, and canned ready-to-drink coffee takes 20%. % or so followed closely. Regarding the origin of canned ready-to-drink coffee, one theory is that Yoshitake Miura, who runs a coffee shop in Hamada City, Shimane Prefecture, Japan, took inspiration from the canning factory and made the world’s first canned coffee in 1965. Four years later, Tadao Ueshima, the founder of Japanese coffee manufacturing and sales giant “UCC Ueshima Coffee”, developed canned coffee based on the idea of allowing people to drink coffee anytime, anywhere, and successfully cultivated this best-selling product. .
In the past few years, coffee manufacturers in East Asia have launched some canned ready-to-drink coffees with very marketing characteristics, such as: landing various characters in life on the can body, and combining animation works to make the can body IP, just like Art-like can body design, custom cans (bottles) related to festivals, events, seasonal themes, etc…. In a word, under the ingenuity of packaging designers, canned ready-to-drink coffee is displayed in front of consumers with a unique image of high quality and interest. While achieving the goal of packaging drainage, it also makes metal packaging sound a bit obvious. Cold words seem to have temperature.
IP of the can body
Japanese coffee manufacturers seem to be very keen on this. They often cooperate with famous IPs to launch 20 or 30 kinds of products with various flavors, and the drainage effect is remarkable.
28 Dydo “Ghost Slayer” CansIn September 2020, the well-known Japanese beverage brand Dydo, known as the “World Coffee Champion”, celebrated the 45th anniversary of the launch of “DyDo Blend Coffee Original”, and the popular anime “Ghost Slayer” In the joint cooperation, a total of 28 185ml limited canned coffees have been launched for the three flavors of “Classic Original”, “Extraordinary Slight Sugar” and “Extraordinary Olle”. Judging from the pictures released by some media, a total of 16 products in the two flavors of “Superior Micro Sugar” and “Superior Olle” should use two pieces of coated iron DWI cans, and 12 classic original coffees use three pieces. Tin packaging.
20 WONDA “Attack on Titan” cans Following the launch of IP cans in cooperation with the anime “Lupin III” and “Oolong Police Station”, WONDA, a coffee brand under Japan’s Asahi Group, will join forces with “Attack on Titan” in August 2020. There are 20 IP cans with a capacity of 185ml per can and a total of two flavors. Judging from the released pictures, its cans are somewhat similar to the aforementioned Dydo “Ghost Slayer” cans, which are packaged with two coated iron DWI cans and three iron cans respectively.
Character jars and “buy get free” co-branded products, cheer up every ordinary you with humor
Nescafé Coffee 10 Lucky Cat Cans In March 2021, following a month ago, the two cans are printed with a golden lucky cat pattern with a red hat (for boys) and a bow tied with a bow (for girls), as well as “New Year’s” , after the limited edition fragrant coffee with the words “Refreshing” was launched in Hong Kong, Nescafé took advantage of the trend and launched 8 new limited edition coffees with lucky cats inspired by daily life. Travelling wage earners, construction workers in hard hats, game experts with gaming headsets in their ears, office white-collar workers in suits, students in graduation caps, those with “tea notes” sewn in their pockets and pencils inserted. Tea restaurant employees, working women with handbags at work, and “goddesses” with makeup on their faces are here to cheer people from all walks of life.
It should be noted that the above 10 Lucky Cat limited edition coffees are all packed in 250ml chunky tin cans.
At the same time, Nescafé also cooperated with Sou·Sou, a well-known design brand in Kyoto, Japan, to design a series of limited-edition small life items with lucky cats and Sou·Sou classic Japanese prints, including carry bags, face towels, storage You can get these small items as a gift when you buy a few cans of coffee. SOU・SOU is said to be good at using lively colors with unique Japanese-style weave patterns, finding a balance between showing Japanese traditional culture and creating a fashionable new aesthetic.
Nescafé Coffee’s 7 Cold Humor Character Jars The character jars and co-branded products of Nescafé Hong Kong have been traced for a long time. In September 2020, it cooperated with the Japanese illustrator KEIGO (Keigo Kawajiri), who is known for his cold humor works, to design 20 stories of “NESCAFÉx KEIGO Migrant Work Theater”, of which 7 stories are presented in 7 cool humor characters. On the version of the smooth canned coffee can, they are: the giraffe bus driver whose head must be stuck on the upper deck, the crocodile fitness instructor who uses his long mouth to block the cat’s weightlifting, and the sloth who is carried by the delivery uncle because he runs too slowly. Staff, a squid roasting chef with multiple tentacles slicing and roasting meat at the same time, a crocodile site worker who needs to wear three helmets, a mobile phone man who is fully charged with canned coffee, and a bunny student who is blocked by a giraffe from the blackboard. These scenes, drawn with unexpected ideas, are heartwarming.
The above 7 coffees are packaged in 210ml slim tin cans
In addition to canned coffee, a series of limited-edition “buy your coffee and give it away” items are also available, including KEIGO XNESCAFÉ® co-branded canvas bags, soft FIGURE, and storage boxes.
The body of the can is like a work of art
Taiwanese coffee manufacturers have put a lot of effort into the design of the cans, and many of the finished cans are like works of art, which are highly respected by white-collar workers.
In January 2021, Nie Yongzhen, a well-known visual designer in Taiwan, cooperated with coffee brand Shancheng Yanghang to launch a super-beautiful canned coffee packaging. In addition to the beautiful blooming and simple design, it is worth mentioning that the packaging font also uses a newly developed The empty Ming Dynasty style, elegant and revival of the classical font looks quite textured.
“Empty Ming Dynasty Style” is said to attach great importance to details. The font thickness is moderate, the font is slightly foamed, but the outline is kept fresh. Its strokes are all open from the inside to the outside, and when you read it, you feel that the text has a sense of air, like flying attitude.
It is reported that “empty Ming Dynasty style” has included 7600 commonly used characters, Arabic numerals, Chinese phonetic symbols, and related punctuation marks. With the expansion of fundraising in the future, it is also expected to expand the common Chinese characters to 15,000 characters.
Themed jars for festivals, seasons, events, etc.
Starbucks Christmas limited ready-to-drink coffee In November 2019, the Starbucks ready-to-drink family followed the tradition of more than 20 years and put on “red clothes” to create a festive limited series of canned Xingbei alcohol and cup Xingyi cups. .
Two different flavors of Xingbei Alcohol cans are printed with an owl wearing a Christmas hat and wide-eyed, and a little fox symbolizing cleverness and wisdom.
The Xingyi Cup™ series still prints pandas, snowmen, bears, and cute rabbits in winter clothes on the cups, which are full of cuteness.
Nestlé Bottled Spring Sakura Soufflé Latte This is an example worthy of reference for canned ready-to-drink coffee. In March 2021, the Nescafé coffee ready-to-drink series silky latte was exclusively designed and packaged by the Japan Illustrator Association Gold Award Artist Tasuro Kiuchi, and launched a bottled spring limited flavor “Sakura Soufflé Latte”, which is said to be with its intuitive image Sex, a real sense of life and the appeal of beauty create a comfortable and healing cherry blossom season experience for consumers.
Munedaran said the creation of the new packaging was inspired by Nestlé’s silky latte Sakura soufflé, as well as the rich, multi-layered comfort. He not only created the limited spring packaging for Nestle Silky Latte, but also specially designed the matching spring cherry blossom viewing items – limited gifts such as artist joint decorative paintings, canvas bags, fabric tissue boxes, Airpods earphone shells, decorative paper tapes, etc. Let the artistic sense created by Sakura Soufflé be presented in more small details of life. At the same time, Nestlé has also increased the added value and social buzz of its products by shooting documentaries and creating interior designs for the cherry blossom season in subways and supermarkets.
Epilogue
Data from Euromonitor International shows that in 2020, in the context of the decline in the domestic beverage market due to the impact of the epidemic, the growth rate of ready-to-drink coffee is still very impressive. It is expected that the domestic ready-to-drink coffee market is expected to exceed 14.9 billion yuan in 2021. The business behind a can of ready-to-drink coffee is so huge, and the can body design full of marketing ingenuity has no doubts about the expansion of this market.
