While it’s not quite here in Australia (yet) the UK is trialling label-less Sprite and Sprite Zero bottles this month.
The pilot experiment will see all 500mL bottles of Sprite and Sprite Zero replaced with an embossed logo at the front of the bottle and laser-engraved nutritional information on the 'back' of the bottle. The limited edition bottles will only appear at selected Tesco Express stores (think a mini Coles or Woolies) until the end of March.
The reason behind the trial? Consumers will be happy to hear that it is indeed a bid to reduce waste and simplify the recycling process. Currently, when the PET recycled bottles go to be put in the home recycle bins, you first need to remove the label. The label-less bottles mean it’s one step less in the home effort to be environmentally friendlier and also one less processing step on the manufacturing side of things.
It is also a means of less overall packaging. Dusan Stojankic, VP of franchise operations, Great Britain and Ireland at Coca-Cola Great Britain, commented: "We want to help create a future where plastic drink packaging will always have more than one life. Labels contain valuable information for consumers, but with the help of technology we can now try other ways to share this information while reducing the amount of packaging we use.”
Javier Meza, VP of marketing at Coca-Cola Europe, described the trial as a "milestone” for the industry, explaining that this new way of thinking is actually a "big shift” in the marketing industry’s current way of branding. This new trial could be the leader in the way all brands move forward. This could lead to a "big shift” from a marketing perspective, with potential to contribute to longer-term changes in the way brands communicate with their consumers.
What do you think? Personally when discussing this hot issue in the office we thought instead of laser engraving the nutritional and product information on each bottle, a QR code would further simplify the process. Over to you now, world citizens.
