Packaging takes flight – Hannover (Germany)

My visit to Germany saw a colleague and I take in the recently rebuilt PM2 at Sappi's location in nearby Alfeld, which you'll be abe to read more about in a forthcoming issue of Labels & Labeling.

Despite there not being as many examples of regional specialities, and as a result packaging, as I witnessed during my last trip of 2014 to Porto in Portugal, there were still some fine examples of products packed in cartons or decorated with labels you’re more likely to see when transiting through an airport.

This included some attractive Chloé perfume packaging, such as for its Love Story and Roses de Chloé products (below), with embossing and a simple two tone color scheme increasing shelf appeal.

Interesting beverage labels caught my eye the most on this trip, including shrink sleeves used by vodka brand Russian Standard (Русский Стандарт) (below, right) and bottles of white wine from William Fèvre (second on the image carousel, top).

In the case of the William Fèvre Hipster Chablis Chardonnay 2013 75cl bottles, the sleeve label is entirely decorated with ultraviolet ink and reveals hidden designs in black light. A transparent level indicator on the back of the bottle shows how much wine has been drunk.

Another spotted was the ‘no-look’ label used by South African cream liqueur brand Amarula (third on the image carousel, top). for its Gold product, with the translucent and partial print design creating a silhouette of an African elephant using the bottled spirit as the backdrop.

My sweet tooth also caught sight of travel-size jars of hazelnut chocolate spread product Nutella. Applied with miniaturized labels mimicking their full-size equivalents, these ‘diddy’ jars (below) are collated in groups of seven to provide travelers with a daily fix of the product. The carton they are packaged in features graphics indicating a number of international destinations to tie in with the ‘Nutella World’ name that they are retailed under. This includes a pyramid (synonymous with Egypt), the Eiffel Tower in Paris, New York’s Statue of Liberty, Elizabeth Tower in London (often referred to as Big Ben) and Atlantis, The Palm hotel resort located at the apex of the Palm Jumeirah in Dubai.

If you’d like to read the background of this opinion piece, please see here.