See me. Feel me.

There will soon be a new shape to a Pepsi bottle. This news was announced last week.  It’s been 17 years since the 20-ounce bottle has been updated. It is a piece of a wider effort to bolster the sagging soda brand.  The new bottle has an easier to grip shape and the label is smaller so that more of the soda is visible.  The current 20-ounce bottle of Pepsi’s main competitor, Coca-Cola, was introduced in 1993, and has undergone small tweaks over the subsequent years (Associated Press, 2013).

Reading this as “news” made me wonder how important the bottle shape, ease of grip and overall packaging are to a brand.  I’m not sure I’ve ever made a soda purchase decision solely on the bottle shape. I do remember picking up a throwback bottle but it was the drink inside I was after, the nostalgic bottle was just a bit of fun.

In looking for more information about product packaging and found an interesting article about the how touch has an impact on consumer purchasing decisions (Spence & Gallas, 2011).  There’s an industry focused on the tactile appeal of product packaging since after eyes, touch is often the next sense to interact with products and touch can triggers an emotional response.  Innovations in the coatings industry have allowed manufacturers of hair care products, for example, to create a silky coating on the bottle to trigger an emotional connection between the product and a desirable silkiness for the hair (Spence & Gallas, 2011).

It’s an interesting way to look at branding products.  That it’s not just the message, color and words on product packaging, but also how it feels in your hands and what emotional connections you can elicit from it.   Pepsi may have just revamped its bottle to create some buzz for its flagging brand and generate awareness.  It would be interesting to know more about the process the team went through in deciding how to remake that 16-ounce bottle.

References
Pepsi bottles get a makeover after 17 years. (2013, March 21).  Associated Press. Retrieved from http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2013/03/22/17415189-pepsi-bottles-get-a-makeover-after-17-years

Spence, C., & Gallace, A. (2011). Multisensory design: Reaching out to touch the consumer. Psychology & Marketing, 28(3), 267-308. doi:10.1002/mar.20392