Themed printed packaging; winter wonderland – part 4

As I research printed packaging for this blog, I’ve been trying to remain calm and collected so I don't rush documenting all the Christmas-themed packaging I see in one go, but I lapsed this weekend and splurged during a shopping trip.

 

That’s not to say that I filled my trolley with all the exciting cartons and flexible packaging printed with images of Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer or snowmen, and the products they package. Rather I was moving up and down the aisles for a good hour scouring the shelves for anything particularly new and exciting to add to this blog.

 

As ever, a large volume of what I photographed came down the confectionery aisle, as brands like Cadbury, Nestlé, Mars and more always heavily link their products to focal points in the diary, like Christmas, Easter or Halloween, with themed packaging.

 

Products brought to market by Kinder, part of the Ferrero confectionery range, are a fine example of this. Along with more conventional cartons printed with Christmas graphics, like Santa Claus, Christmas trees and presents, on sale are gift packs coupling chocolate with a toy.

 

The traditional Kinder Surprise sweet is a chocolate egg with a toy inside, but the packaging pictured left houses both the toy and the chocolate.

 

The carton is creased and folded in a way that allows it to taper at the top, where a hole has been cut to allow the head of a cuddly toy, a reindeer or polar bear wearing a Christmas hat as pictured, to poke through. While the physical body of the toy is contained within the carton, a likeness has been replicated in print on the outside.

 

Ferrero Rocher, another product from the Ferrero family, is also tieing its packaging into the gift market, although designed for the more discerning adult buyer. This includes a Christmas present carton (pictured, above right), complete with bow and ribbon, housing a selection of the chocolates, and a carton shaped like a Christmas tree and finished with stars and tinsel details. The Christmas tree carton has a further Christmas tree shape cut from the center of the front panel to showcase the treats within.

 

Christmas trees are a popular shape to mimic at this time of year, and Thorntons has done just that, although this time the confectionery itself is molded into a tree shape and housed in a conventional six-walled carton. The primary packaging for the hand-decorated Thorntons Continental chocolate tree is manufactured completely from plastic, without any fiber-based material, and printed with text, swirling patterns and a black border to frame the chocolate within.

 

ChokaBlok, a luxury range of chocolate and ice cream, is offering a series of chocolate slabs in the shape of Christmas trees, decorated with extras such as nuts and mini marshmallows. The Christmas tree shape is replicated on the packaging, with the traditional design cut from the carton and replaced with a plastic window, with a foil trim to accentuate the outline of the Christmas tree.

 

The cartons themselves, in different colors to match the different chocolate trees available, are printed with snowflake shapes.

 

Cadbury has featured heavily in all the blogs I’ve written over the last six months on the themed, shorter run packaging that can be seen on store shelves, and Christmas is a time of year that really allows it to crank up the attachment between its printed packaging and an event.

 

Selection boxes featuring an array of its brands, like Wispa, Twirl and Curly Wurly, are printed with more Christmas tree shapes on a snow white background with presents in the foreground.

 

Speaking of Wispa chocolate bars, they can be bought in a large format, featuring multiple bars collated in one oversized wrapper printed with the slogan “Stuff the turkey, have a Wispa”.

 

Like Cadbury, Nestlé retails a number of its brands, like KitKat and Smarties, in a selection box decorated with festive images, although it has used the archetypal Christmas character that is Santa Claus riding his sleigh to illustrate its cartons, with images of the bars printed as if presents to be delivered.

 

And like Cadbury with its giant Wispa wrappers, Nestlé Smarties are being retailed in a “Super Tube”, featuring multiple standard sized tubes packaged in an outer carton decorated in the usual Smarties design but with the addition of white areas to signify snow and bows to make it feel more like a gift.

Swizzels Matlow selection tubes have also been supersized, housing a range of its more famous confectionery brands in one carton.

 

The Coca-Cola TV commercial is used by many to mark the start of the holiday season, with the famous “Holidays are coming” song accompanying a train of Coca-Cola trucks on their journey to spread the holiday message.

 

The trucks in the commercial are decorated with the company’s famous Santa Claus image, which first appeared in Coca‑Cola advertising back in 1931, and it is this image that can be seen across Coca-Cola’s packaging as Christmas approaches.

 

From shrink sleeves, cartons and labels, and whether standard or diet variants, the image of Santa is omnipresent across the current Coca-Cola packaging (see below).

 

His face even appears directly printed on cans, where he can be seen drinking a bottle of carbonated drink. 

 

And I’ve not only seen Santa’s face staring back at me from Coca-Cola packaging in the UK, as I also spotted him while on a recent trip to Germany (see right).

 

As well as soft drinks, alcoholic drink brands are looking to capitalize on Christmas. While Coca-Cola’s use of Santa is historical, and its TV commercial connects the brand directly to the holiday season, Mateus, Echo Falls and Ernest & Julio Gallo are looking to take a slice of the small gift market with wines sold in packs combined with high-end chocolate brands Guylian and Lindt.

 

The Gallo/Lindt gift set, which also includes a wine glass, is housed in a conventional carton design, with a large window cut from the body and replaced with plastic to display the contents.

 

The Mateus/Guylian gift pack, also with a wine glass, again features a large panel cut from the front of the carton and replaced with a see-through window, while the creasing and folding of the carton allows it to taper at the top.   

 

The Echo Falls/Lindt carton houses a small bottle of wine and some Lindt Lindor chocolates, with windows cut from the main structure to allow the contents to be seen and fit the neck of the wine bottle. This cut-away detail differs from the others as it doesn’t involve the removal of one single piece, but rather three different sections to create a more complex design.

 

One of my big hopes for this themed Christmas packaging blog was that pets would get in on the action, and the manufacturers of the food and treats would give their cartons and flexible packaging a festive feel.

 

I’ve not been let down, as you can read in earlier blogs, but I’m still getting very excited when I see such packaging in supermarkets.

 

The Armitage cat and dog advent calendars as detailed in a previous blog may well be the pinnacle of how far pet food manufacturers can go with this theme, but Armitage’s Good Boy “Letter to Santa” dog treats could run it a very close second.

 

The flexible packaging for the treats is printed with details that give it the impression of airmail, including the traditional red and blue stripe and fake stamp, along with the word “urgent” and the date of December 22, the last posting date in 2012 for special delivery letters when sent via Royal Mail to reach their destination by Christmas.