World Cup winners

Much like some of my earlier blog series, I plan to spend the coming weeks looking at all the packaging that makes the most of the goodwill being generated by football fans, primarily in the UK but also overseas as travels permit, while their teams contest the World Cup in Brazil this summer.

June 2

There are 10 days until the World Cup gets under way in Brazil and there's plenty of event-specific packaging already on the shelves to see and buy.

June 3

Nine days until the big kick-off at the World Cup 2014, and today's football-themed packaging examples are doozies.

June 4

Snacks food have been a key category looking to use football-themed packaging as a draw for consumers before and during the World Cup (such as the rebranding of Pringles crisps as Pringooals, as pictured to the right), but beverage brands have also been big exponents of this, none more so than Lucozade, which has a number of shrink-sleeves on shelves to tie in with the forthcoming football festivities.

June 5

With just a week to go until the World Cup, I've gone back to snacks, with M&M's packaging efforts grabbing my attention (and tickling my taste buds with a cup of tea). It has taken the colors of the Brazilian flag, yellow, green and blue, to create a limited edition variant of its share bag. The only real deviation from this theme is the inclusion of the brand's Red "spokescandy" on the front of the pack. He appears with Yellow, another "spokescandy", who is also on the back directing consumers to a unique code printed on the inside of the pack using variable data as part of a contest to win a Brazilian themed party. M&M's has also continued the yellow, green and blue theme through to the sweets themselves, with these three colors making up the contents of the pack.

There is also #TeamBabybel, six-pack nets of mini cheeses with red (natural), white (reduced fat) and purple (cheddar) wrappers designed to give the appearance of footballs.

June 6

Less than a week to go now and if you're not already stocking up on snacks and treats to see you through the games, and the mealtimes that don't coincide with kick-off times, then there is plenty of choice in UK supermarkets.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so the advice goes, and cereal packs are often one of the first to capitalize on cross-branding opportunities, such as with the London 2012 Olympics. This year's big sporting event, the World Cup, might be taking place on the other side of the world, but that hasn't prevented Kellogg's from offering in-pack giveaways with a number of its brands to lure consumers.

For those of us with more of a sweet tooth, doughnut specialist Krispy Kreme has chimed in with a special 12-pack carton that can be turned into a "pitch", once the doughnuts have been consumed of course, for a quick game of finger football. With a creased and die-cut design to allow the carton to be easily transformed, the grass pattern print will bring the excitement of the World Cup straight into your living room. Almost.

In case doughnuts don't sate your hunger, or you have less of a sweet tooth than I, there is plenty of other World Cup branded packaging to catch your eye. Students favorite Pot Noodle has added a special Brazilian BBQ Steak flavor offering the chance to win 'Braziliant prizes', and Walkers crisps has used its link to retired England striker Gary Lineker to redesign its multipack packaging with a football theme.

June 9

After a weekend of final pre-World Cup international friendlies, and a good quality charity game between an England XI and a Rest of the World XI featuring a mix of ex-professionals and celebrities, I am very much in the mood for the World Cup to commence on Thursday. The volume and variety of themed packaging is also ramping up in anticipation of the big kick-off.

Tap it and unwrap it was an early marketing campaing for Terry's Chocolate Orange, but for the World Cup the brand has tried to tie its association with the orange to football's half-time period, where the orange is a quintessential part of the 15-minute break and was regularly used to refuel and re-energize players.  

On the school lunchtime theme again, Mattessons and others have products designed to capitalize on the association with South America, football and the World Cup, although not explicitly making reference to the forthcoming football festivities. 

Peperami's 'Win a Fanimal' competition and branding is replicated across its different prodcuts, from the already-seen Original to Hot and Minis multipack pouches, so creating a scenrio whereby we could see the brand's different products go head-to-head in the knockout stages of my packaging World Cup.    

Another piece of packaging I saw this weekend was for Johnsons Lawn Seed, and again while not explicitly linked to the FIFA World Cup, the use of a football and mini goal to highlight the hardwearing nature of its Tuffgrass product is sure to have helped consumers make a subconscious link to the action on the pitch and the wish for children (and a few adults too) to replicate what they have seen on the TV in the garden. 

June 12

The start of World Cup 2014 is fast approaching so best of luck to all 32 competing nations, all of whom, much like the consumers enjoying this Doritos' on-pack competition, will be looking to score and win. The nation's vary from the current world and European champions Spain, the 2014 red-hot favorites Brazil and the ever-optimistic England, down to the likes of Costa Rica, Iran and Honduras, so there's likely to be some high-quality football on show as well as a hatful of surprise results as the underdogs look to upstage their more illustrious rivals.

June 13

A consumer survey in the UK has revealed how brand owners associating their products with the World Cup are likely to benefit, but could also suffer, this summer. The survey found that over a quarter of people will try Brazilian influenced food and drink during the World Cup, with 18 percent saying that they would be more likely to choose a product if it showed a World Cup promotion. Have you deliberately or inadvertently bought into the World Cup through your household shopping? Let me know on LinkedIn, Twitter or via email at dpittman@tarsus.co.uk.

June 15

So it has been quite a start to World Cup 2014, with plenty of goals and surprise results. Today sees France enter the fray and in honor I'm adding a couple of World Cup/Brazilian themed packaging I saw on  a recent work trip. This includes 'Édition Limitée' M&M's, similar to those seen in the UK with a yellow, green and blue color scheme extended from the packaging to the sweets themselves.

Also spotted were Haribo with a decidedly Brazilian feel, with both the packaging and the contents again sharing this theme.

June 17

A quick non-packaging update as today I've been directed to this Wall Street Journal infographic that details how the FIFA World Cup would play out if the 32 countries contesting the tournament were competing on things other than soccer/football, such as education spend (won by Ghana), cheapest gasoline prices (with Algeria coming out on top in this scenario) and the biggest eaters of meat (where Argentina beat France in the final). View the full Wall Street Journal World Cup of Everything Else infographic here.

June 22

England might have fallen at the first hurdle of World Cup 2014, but packaging is helping soften the blow and I continue to find products whose short-term branding has been modified to reflect the World Cup and attempt to influence consumer buying behavior. Sweets and treats have been big protagonists in this theme over the last few weeks, such as the below from Swizzels Matlow and Rowntree's.

The Fabulous Bakin' Boys has used flags of the competing national football teams to decorate the carton for its World Cup-cakes, which it is also marketing as being great for a half-time snack.

June 25

So the knockout stages are taking shape, with half of the groups now locked in after concluding their games and other countries having taken control of their group in the first two games and already confirmed their passage to the latter stages. This means Brazil, Mexico, Holland, Chile, Colombia, Greece, Costa Rica, Uruguay, France, Argentina and Belgium are already in the knockout stages. They are likely to be joined by Germany and the US, although Portugal could yet turn it around in Group G.

This means my thoughts have turned to which packaging I will attribute to which country, with the likes of Brazil, France and Belgium easy picks, but Costa Rica and Colombia a little trickier.

If you’ve seen and/or bought any World Cup-themed packaging in countries around the world, I’d love to hear from you and see it. You can contact me directly at dpittman@packprintworld.com or on Twitter via @D_Pittman84.

Knockout stages

Once the 16 teams qualifying from the eight groups are known, I plan to associate each one with the most appropriate World Cup packaging I've seen, so allowing the real-life competition (and lottery of penalties, no doubt) to decide my World Cup packaging winner.

The draw has now taken place and you can see how the knockout stages of my packaging World Cup has panned out here. I'll still be updating this article as the World Cup continues, although late entrants will be added as "fans", with the following competing to be named the winner in my 2014 packaging World Cup: Um Bongo football edition, Lucozade - The Brazilian, Peperami - Original, Peperami - Hot, Babybel, Krispy Kreme, Pot Noodle Brazilian BBQ Steak, Terry’s Chocolate Orange, limited edition Mattessons Fridge Raiders, Haribo Brazil P!K, limited edition M&M’s (UK) , édition limitée M&M’s (France), Rowntree’s Randoms football mix, The Fabulous Bakin’ Boys World Cup-cakes, Walkers crisps multi-pack bag, Pepsi eight-pack collation wrap.

Fanzone

With the group stages now over and the knockout competition about to get underway, World Cup packaging added to this blog will now feature in the "Fanzone", where they will act as support for those competing in the latter stages of World Cup 2014 and in my packaging World Cup contest. Jaffa Cakes cartons are a great start - 'GOOAAAL!' as the packaging says.

We're into the last week of World Cup 2014, with a few "fans" still cropping up in supermarkets in the UK. One of those is Honey Monster, the Sugar Puffs mascot, who although not directly promoting an on-pack World Cup competition, is offering "cool football prizes". 

With the FIFA World Cup final just a few hours away, "fans" are still be seen on supermarket shelves, such as Gillette's limitded edition packaging for its shaving products, as pictured below.

Tesco Finest sausages have also been given a makeover for the World Cup, with this sleeve outlining the credentials of its limited edition, Brazil inpsired Feijoada sausages. Feijoada is a stew of beans with beef and pork often cooked and served in former Portuguese colonies, such as Brazil. The sausages themselves are a blend of pork, black beans, chorizo and beef stock, while the packaging's sleeve features a Brazilian flag to identify the product's origins and a pot representative of its parent dish being a stew.

Brazil as a nation might have fallen at the final few hurdles in the World Cup, finishing fourth after losing to Netherlands (Rowntree's Randoms in the packaging World Cup) in the third place playoff, but packaging is making sure the party carries on right through the final.