The September launch of Absolut Unique – the latest in a long history of limited edition Absolut Vodka lines – has broken new ground in the spirits industry by being the first in which every single bottle produced is unique.
Ardagh Group, which produces bottles for Absolut at its glass plant in Limmared, Sweden, says the project is “one of the innovation high points” in its long-standing relationship with the Pernod Ricard-owned Swedish spirits producer.
In what will doubtless be a multiple award-winning endeavour, each of the nearly 4 million bottles in the Absolut Unique collection is individually decorated by specially adapted machinery, with different colour coatings and patterns, as well as a uniquely numbered label.
Using coating inks supplied by Diegel and screen printing inks from Ferro, the process involved conventional decoration techniques of spraying and screen printing, using 22 colours for the coating, five for the splash guns and 16 colours for the fifty-one different pattern types.
Close to impossible
Eric Näf, Absolut director packaging development, describes Absolut Unique as: “The limited edition taken to the extreme.” Most people, he says, thought the concept was impossible, or very close to impossible.
“We had to re-programme the machines, and make them create variation and create randomness – whereas they were designed to create stability and control,” he says.
A system was developed as a combination of automation, semi-automation and manual effects and procedures for changing colours and screen patterns.
Fredrik Källqvist, development manager glass Sweden & Denmark at Ardagh Group, explains: “After a few meetings and brain storming sessions we developed a computerised valve and control system to automatically and continually change colours and spray patterns on the bottles.
“We also came up with a system to randomly add contrasting ‘colour splashes’ to the bottles during the coating process,” he says.
“We further introduced new functionality on the screen printing machine for randomising the print start for each printing station in the machine.
“And we also created a screen and colour changing scheme for the screen printing process balancing variation and productivity, and established systems to mix the bottles during and in between the process steps to further increase variation.”
‘But is it art?...’
Anna Bergfeldt, Absolut promotion development manager, says: “It’s about the brand being creative. We didn’t know the end result when we started – how would the bottle look, and could we achieve this at all?”
“All we did was to define the rules for how to design,” says creative director John Lagerqvist. “Then we left it to the machines to actually do the design themselves.
“Each Absolut Unique bottle truly is unique.”
The creative idea, concept, packaging, print and bottle for Absolut Unique were developed in cooperation with Sweden-based branding specialists, Family Business. While Ardagh Group owns the technology used, the concept and design belongs to the Absolut Company.
And for those who may have been wondering, a quality management professor from the Linköping University in Sweden, Mattias Elg, has calculated that Absolut could create more than 13 billion Absolut Unique bottles for each person on the planet before two similar ones would appear.
“Anyone can do one or two unique products,” says Absolut Company VP global marketing, Jonas Tåhlin. “But we’re making close to four million.”
Absolut Unique: nearly 4 million uniquely decorated bottles
