Cocktail hour: connected packaging gets German and Austrian consumers’ creative juices flowing

Food processing and packaging company Tetra Pak has taken advantage of connected packaging by using it to inspire customers to create personality-based drinks.

In partnership with creative technology studio Appetite Creative, the campaign is centred around a leading European fruit juice producer and is geared towards creating a fun and interactive smart packaging experience to help educate and inspire its customers.

Customers can uncover the best drink to fit their personality type by scanning a QR code on the smart packaging of select juice flavours and be taken to a web-based app connected experience which includes a personality quiz.

The experience generates alcoholic and non-alcoholic recipes tailored to the quiz results to inspire users to mix juices and create new bespoke beverages or cocktails that will be just right for them.

There are both summer and winter versions of the connected experience with seasonal specific content that can be swapped out in real-time, giving users different options depending on their geography and the time of year.

Real-time interaction

The web app also tracks real-time interactions, such as buying habits, product preferences, average engagement time, age, location, scan rate, number of visitors, return visitors and social media shares, including GDPR-compliant personal data, to enable the brand to optimise its marketing and better understand consumers.

Tetra Pak’s initiative highlights the variety of ways in which performance channels can be used to gain a leg up on competitors. In this case, marrying connected packaging with personalisation allows users to discover new drinks they otherwise may have never been prompted to create while the brand gains valuable consumer insights from first-party data.

Farahnaz Mohsenin, Regional Marketing Manager at Tetra Pak, emphasised: “The use of digitally connected packaging is an effective way for our customers to enhance the consumer experience and build brand loyalty. By using carton packaging as a touchpoint to scan QR codes, our packaging partners can deliver personalised content, fun experiences and exclusive promotions that deepen the relationship between their customers and the brand.”

Jenny Stanley, Managing Director at Appetite Creative, added: “This connected experience combines the best of interactive shareable content with new and exciting ways to taste test a product range, while collecting data and getting deeper insights into customer preferences and behaviours. Offering a summer and winter version demonstrates the versatility of this media channel to adapt to changing brand needs for longer-term campaigns.”

To increase awareness, the campaign is supported by in-store shelf wobblers and other point of sale materials as well as digital and social media creatives. Users are also being incentivised to complete the quiz and share their new drinks on social media to enter a raffle to win a Thermomix TM6 all-in-one blender.

The campaign will run in Austria and Germany until the end of May.