- Becky Ebenkamp

The idea: The new bottle for Svedka imported Swedish vodka had to be bilingual: It needed to speak  to younger scenesters who consider themselves “in the know” and hang out at trendy nightspots as well as an older, more affluent consumer who likes to have a drink at home. This meant the packaging had to look equally attractive lit up on the back-bar of a hip club as well as lining a club store’s shelf, said Marina Hahn, svp, marketing for Spirits Marque One, Svedka’s U.S. importer. 

How was it created: The Svedka bottle redesign hinged on a combination of two simple details, a glass “collar” that rests underneath the cap and a tapered body. Together, they “create a sophisticated look subtle enough to allow the bottle to stand out at any chic bar while retaining its mass market appeal,” Hahn said. Innovations in technology allowed the brand and its design agency Established, New York, to create a sleek shape  to reflect a more-premium look. This minimalist aesthetic also echoes the brand’s Swedish (read: quality, imported) heritage. The design also boosts brand name visibility. Showcasing “Svedka” against a colored band ensures that it can be read regardless of one’s environment or liquor level.

Results: For consumers, the bottle stands out from the competition, yet it doesn’t appear to be too aloof for their wallets. “The new design is easier to handle, looks more premium and I’m charging the same for Svedka as I do for Absolut and Stoli,” the head bartender for the Gaslamp Tavern in San Diego’s Gaslamp district wrote Hahn. “And it’s based on how good the bottle looks behind the bar.” Sushi Samba, a national account, created a striking bottle display in its Las Vegas unit to show off the new look. “It just looks so much more modern and sophisticated . . . than some of your competitors, whose packaging looks so outdated,” a buyer said.

BEFORE
Back to the future: Svedka needed a more modern-looking bottle that would appeal to its dual target audience. The design needed to jive with the brand’s futuristic fembot “SVEDKA_Grl” featured in its ads. To achieve this it moved the Swedish flag to the bottom of the bottle, streamlined its fonts and selected a more appealing tapered body bottle shape.

THE FINAL DESIGN       
Blue Swede shoo-in: The company believes the new package perfectly reflects Svedka’s “cheap chic” positioning, which Hahn described as a high-quality, premium product with a hip brand image sold at an affordable price. “Our packaging hadn’t had a facelift in 10 years and the time was right,” she said.

A little color: Vibrant color bands for flavors Citron, Vanilla Clementine and Raspberry were designed to create a billboard effect to give the bottles more pop on shelf. In focus groups around the country, the final bottle design (left) was the clear winner.