Ball Packaging Offers Beverage Cans with “Grippy” Design

Ball has launched a new era in embossing with the Skin Tech Advanced Embossing Technology. Embossing has long been used to bring out specific details like a logo or lettering in relief on the outside of a can, making design elements tangible to the consumer.

6 Dec 2010 --- Looks good, feels good, tastes good - that’s the latest in beverage cans from Ball Packaging Europe. New printing technologies produce cans that are not just great to look at, they also feel great in the hand, making for even better brand presentation. The first customers are already using the new technologies: The Polish Lech beer brand is decorated with the new Skin Tech Advanced Embossing Technology, while Heineken is marketing its beer in Poland in a ‘tactile’ can from Ball.

Ball has launched a new era in embossing with the Skin Tech Advanced Embossing Technology. Embossing has long been used to bring out specific details like a logo or lettering in relief on the outside of a can, making design elements tangible to the consumer. With the new Skin Tech Advanced Embossing Technology, it is now possible to create an embossed design over the entire can surface. Large areas can be made not only to look like, say, snakeskin or honeycomb, but to feel like it as well. By appealing to consumers through multiple senses in this way, the technology creates additional incentives to buy. As another benefit, embossing makes cans better to hold, especially with chilled drinks.

Lech Premium has been available in new Ball embossed cans since mid-July. “We have worked with the Polish brewer, Kompania Piwowarska, for many years,” says Tomasz Janowski, Regional Sales Manager North East Europe at Ball Packaging Europe. “Lech is the first beer can to be made in Poland with our new Skin Tech Advanced Embossing Technology. The result is an innovative package with added value. The can is good to hold and its distinctive embossing really makes it stand out on the shelf.”

Premium packaging with an added value
Consumers feel the difference in another way with ‘tactile’ beverage cans. An innovative coating gives cans a unique texture that is soft and pleasant to the touch. The contents also taste extra-cool and refreshing in contrast. The eye-catching design makes cans stand out on the supermarket shelf and highlights the premium quality of their contents. “The tactile printing process opens up a whole new range of marketing opportunities,” says Janowski. “We can now achieve an even closer fit between package and product. The producer of an orange or lemon-flavored soft drink, say, could sell the beverage in cans whose outside really feels like an orange or a lemon.” In the beer segment, distinctive designs are a key success factor in setting products apart among all the competing brands on a supermarket shelf. Ball recently began producing its first tactile half-liter Heineken can for Poland’s Grupa Zywiec S.A., making it the first vendor of these cans on the Polish market.

The tactile printing process and the Skin Tech Advanced Embossing Technology are just two of the many design options available to Ball’s customers. Beverage producers can also opt for digital printing to create photorealistic designs or market thermochromic cans that are temperature-sensitive. Ball develops these technologies at its research and development center in Bonn, Germany. The can maker also works continuously at the same facility to improve even further the environmental footprint of cans.