Latest / Through the Line: Packaging and Processing / Beautiful Vandalism, and the Problem of a Product With No Shelf: Packaging World

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Beautiful Vandalism, and the Problem of a Product With No Shelf: Packaging World · Through the Line: Packaging and Processing

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Through the Line, a podcast exploring innovations and information across the packaging and processing landscape.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: From topics impacting consumer packaged goods and healthcare packaging to the latest technologies in food processing operations.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Anne-Marie Mohan, senior editor of Packaging World.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: This AI-generated podcast talks about how Indian coffee company Black Poetry used its beautiful vandalism concept to give a new sparkling coffee line a distinctive packaging identity, combining classical portraiture, graffiti-inspired graphics, and a torn paper effect to balance disruption with clarity.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: Imagine trying to sell a hybrid car back in like 1990.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: Good luck with that.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_03: You have this product that's packed with incredible innovative internal mechanics, but the consumer, they have absolutely no baseline for what they're looking at.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and worse, there's no existing category on the lot to actually park it in.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_03: So today, in this deep dive, we're looking at a brand that faced exactly this problem in the beverage aisle.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: We're exploring how Indian beverage brand, Black Poetry, utilized a packaging concept called beautiful vandalism.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Such a great concept.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: It really is.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_03: They used it to visually define a completely new category of carbonated dairy-free coffee.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: Which is no small feat.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: Not at all.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: So for those of you working in the packaging and processing industry, our mission today is to dissect exactly how structural design, graphic architecture, and material choices can communicate complex product processing like carbonation.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: And doing it without relying on traditional advertising.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_03: So setting the stage here, Black Poetry was founded in India and they spent their first year building a uh highly credible identity as a premium artisanal ground coffee brand for homebrewing.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Which is really important context for what they did next.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_03: Because then in August 2026, they took a massive swing and expanded into the ready-to-drink market.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_03: So okay, let's unpack this.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: We are looking at a product that completely defies existing shelf logic.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: It really does.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: It forces the packaging to do an incredible amount of heavy lifting just to explain what's inside the can.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: And going back to that 1990s hybrid car analogy you used, it perfectly captures the core challenge they face because they weren't just putting standard cold brew into a can.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: No, the formulation is super specific.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's pasteurized, it's gently carbonated, and crucially for processing, it contains absolutely no milk.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: Which is huge.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: And if we look at why this formulation matters so much to the beverage processing sector right now, it comes down to engineering a product for a younger demographic living in a tropical climate.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, interesting.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: So they want something refreshing.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: These consumers are actively seeking a lighter, chilled caffeine hit that breaks away from the heavy, creamy profiles of traditional canned coffees.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: Aaron Powell That makes a lot of sense.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: And from a processing standpoint, completely removing the dairy accomplishes several critical things at once, right?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, definitely.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_03: Like it drastically simplifies the ingredient list.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_03: For one, it dramatically reduces the reliance on heavy preservatives.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it ultimately extends the product's stable shelf life, which is always a win.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: But delivering those tangible benefits requires a really highly specific controlled processing environment.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: And because all of that processing happens behind the scenes, conveying that unique value proposition to a shopper relies entirely on the final packaging execution.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: Aaron Powell And because the product formulation is so distinct, it creates this immediate dilemma for retail placement.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: The shelf strategy, yeah.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: Let's look closely at the product and processing specifics they launched with.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: So they introduced three distinct varieties: classic Twisted, Orange Spike, and Chocolate Fused.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Sounds good.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: All three are engineered to be intentionally low in sweetness, completely dairy-free, and they're packaged in a 185 milliliter slim can.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that specific 185 milliliter volume is a really critical detail for packaging engineers out there.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't arbitrary at all.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_03: No, not at all.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_03: It was carefully sized to precisely match the caffeine hit of a single traditional espresso.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: So it provides a highly specific portion size appropriate for one sitting while also creating this distinct physical footprint on the shelf.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: But behind that liquid formulation is a pretty significant processing challenge.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, absolutely.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: The founder, Rahul Gole, spent months engaged in intensive trial and error just to balance the pasteurization process with the carbonation process.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, just trying to get it right.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, all while retaining a traditional cold brew flavor profile.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: And they deliberately engineered the carbonation to be gentle.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: I think Gol described it as meant to be sparkling, not bubbly.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_03: Sparkling, not bubbly.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, but wait, I'm stuck on this shelf strategy.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, what about it?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: Because if this drink lacks the extreme caffeine content to sit comfortably next to a Red Bull.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: And it has zero milk and added carbonation, so it definitely can't sit with the conventional canned lattes.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_03: Where does it actually go?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's the million-dollar question.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: Doesn't securing a completely isolated shelf space ultimately kill the product's discoverability for you?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: The packaging professionals listening who are tasked with successfully placing new formats in dense retail environments?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: What's fascinating here is that this exact lack of category language is what forced their agency open strategy and design to turn the physical packaging itself into a primary media channel.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I see.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because when you're launching a completely novel product that simply doesn't fit into the established architectural logic of a supermarket chiller, you cannot rely on adjacent products to explain what your beverage is.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: Because if you sit next to an energy drink, consumers expect an energy drink.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: If you sit next to an iced latte, they expect milk.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: So the packaging had to instantly earn consumer curiosity without generating consumer confusion.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_03: Which is a really fine line to walk.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: It couldn't depend on external advertising campaigns or celebrity endorsements or traditional contextual clues.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: The physical can had to communicate the entire brand premise on its own.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: Within a matter of seconds, it had to visually declare that it was premium coffee, demonstrate that it was physically behaving differently than standard cold brew, and explain exactly what those unfamiliar processing techniques meant for the liquid inside.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: So to solve that retail discoverability problem, Open Strategy and Design had to create a visual architecture that forces consumers to recognize the brand's disruption immediately.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_03: And they developed this overarching design concept that they call beautiful vandalism.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, I love that name.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's great.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: This concept draws heavy inspiration from a practice known as des Torres Mall.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: Destour Mall.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, which involves reworking existing highly familiar images to create entirely new, often subversive meanings.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_03: And they also looked heavily to street artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Herring, artists whose work heavily incorporates intervention, graffiti, and appropriation.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell Taking something classic and messing with it.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: And to physically execute this on the can, they broke the visual real estate into three distinct layers.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's break that down.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_03: So the upper portion represents the revered layer that features classical formal portraiture that instantly signals premium craft coffee tradition refinement.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, setting a very specific mood.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: Then, slicing horizontally right to the middle of that portrait is the rupture.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's a ragged, visually aggressive torn paper edge.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: It really cuts right through it.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: And below that tier sits the rebellious layer, where the exact same portrait subject is continued, but it's rendered in chaotic graffiti, marker drawings, and these bright street art textures.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: They use that torn paper edge to separate the classical portrait from the graffiti.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but I have to ask, does a ripped piece of paper really communicate carbonation to a shopper?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: Especially when the design deliberately avoids drawing any literal bubbles on the can?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: If we connect this to the bigger picture, the answer is a resounding yes.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it represents a brilliant application of packaging psychology that goes far beyond literal illustration.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: How so we have to consider what carbonation actually represents in this specific processing context.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: You're taking a traditional, highly refined, almost polite ingredient, artisanal cold brew coffee, and you're actively disrupting its standard physical state with a modern processing technique.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: Ah, the carbonation.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: The structural juxtaposition on the can perfectly mirrors that physical processing reality.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: The classical polite world of the upper portrait represents the traditional unbothered cold brew coffee.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, I see where this is going.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and the aggressive, jagged tear and the resulting chaotic street art below it, that represents the carbonation physically disrupting that liquid.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: That is actually really clever.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: It is.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: By utilizing abstract disruption rather than drawing literal bubbles, the packaging avoids looking like a standard sugary soda or a cheap sparkling water.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_03: It keeps that high-end feel.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: It maintains its premium specialty coffee cues while successfully communicating that the liquid inside has been fundamentally altered by a disruptive energetic process.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so they have this incredible vandalized label to conceptually communicate carbonation.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_03: But as anyone who has managed a production line knows, a bold graphic design is completely useless if the consumer can't actually read what the product is.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, 100%.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_03: Or if the physical materials can't support the artwork without distorting it.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's the real challenge.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: So to ground this highly unfamiliar imagery, open strategy and design anchored the wild graphics with a strict conventional information hierarchy.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: They had to.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: The words sparkling coffee sit prominently near the top of the can, which serves as an immediate category anchor.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Telling you exactly what it is right away.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: And down at the base, there's a very clean, solid white band that acts as a container for all the critical functional claims.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: Which you need legally and practically.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_03: This is where you find the flavor name, the product descriptor, and the necessary call-outs like no milk, calorie counts, and low in sugar.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: And here's where it gets really interesting.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: Ooh.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: The packaging architecture acts exactly like a strict dress code at a punk rock gala.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_03: A punk rock gala.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: The underlying grammar of the can, the placement of the logo, that solid white band at the bottom, the central placement of the portrait, it's entirely fixed and non-negotiable.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so there's a strong foundation.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: That rigid structural base is exactly what allows the individual artistic elements to go absolutely wild without the product ever losing its brand family resemblance or overwhelming the shopper with chaos.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_03: That makes total sense.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: And for those of you specifying materials for new production lines, the exact specs are really vital to note here.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yes.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_03: The brand uses imported aluminum cans that are decorated with digitally printed shrink sleeves rather than utilizing direct-to-can printing.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: And these shrink sleeves are manufactured from 40 micron PTG.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_03: And finally, just to round out the specs, the product itself is filled and packed in Bangalore by their partner facility, Mahavir in Inc.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: And the choice of that 40 micron PTG shrink sleeve is a highly critical engineering decision.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: It directly enables the brand's entire design strategy.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: Because of how it shrinks.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: When you use a premium high shrink film like 40 micron PTG, it possesses a very uniform shrink curve.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: This specific material property allows that critical rupture, the jagged torn paper edge, to extend flawlessly 360 degrees around the full circumference of the can during the heat shrinking process.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, so without warping or distorting the line at all.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: If they had treated that tear as just a front panel graphic or used a lesser material that distorted under heat, the illusion of physical disruption would be entirely lost the moment the consumer rotated the can in their hand.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: That would completely ruin the effect.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: It would.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: By wrapping the design entirely around the cylinder with high fidelity PTTG, the relationship between the classical upper section and the vandalized lower section remains highly visible from any angle on a crowded, visually noisy chiller shelf.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_03: That's a great point.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: Furthermore, the shrink sleeve format allows the required nutritional copy and barcode on the back panel to be cleanly organized into defined architectural areas while the jagged tear continues directly through the background behind that text.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, so it just keeps going.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: This ensures the design narrative never breaks, regardless of how the consumer physically interacts with the package.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: Incredible.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: So with the physical materials dialed in and the basic visual grammar established across the substrate, the final step in the brand's rollout was differentiating the three specific SKUs using proven eye tracking principles.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: They needed variation.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: And the agency built variation throughout the product line through deep character development rather than taking the easy route of simply repeating a single image and swapping out the background colors.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: Which a lot of brands do.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_03: So for example, the classic twisted flavor features a portrait of a woman and utilizes a brighter, more expressive overall aesthetic.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: The chocolate fused flavor features a portrait of a man moving into a much darker, richer visual world that strategically reflects the deeper vanilla and hazelnut tasting notes of the liquid.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: Makes sense.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_03: And finally, the orange spike flavor features a portrait of a cat dressed in elaborate Elizabethan clothing.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, yes, the cat.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, utilizing a warmer palette and a lighter overall graphic profile.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_03: But, okay, I have to challenge this specific choice, especially regarding that Elizabethan cat.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: I figured you might.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_03: If you spend your entire first year in business carefully establishing an artisanal premium positioning in the highly critical specialty coffee market, doesn't put a cat in period clothing on your ready-to-drink packaging fundamentally undermine that premium status.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: This raises an important question about how premium brands can evolve and introduce novel formats without alienating their core consumer base.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: The strategic purpose of the feline subject is actually quite sophisticated when you analyze the packaging psychology.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, walk me through it.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: According to the agency's logic, the cat introduces a vital sense of absurd formality.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_03: Absurd formality.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you only use serious traditional human portraits across the entire line, the classical world on the top half of the can risks becoming entirely too polite and stuffy.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I see.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: And that severely blunts the visual impact of the graffiti on the bottom half.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: So the cat, posed with the exact same classical lighting, historical costume, and composition conventions as the human portraits, provides a necessary internal tension.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's actually brilliant.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: Furthermore, it perfectly matches the liquid profile of the orange spike flavor.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's a lighter, more playful, citrus forward beverage compared to, say, the heavy, dark richness of the chocolate-fused variant.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_03: Aaron Powell That makes a lot of sense.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: It proves to the beverage industry that irreverence and humor can successfully coexist with premium positioning, provided the physical execution remains extremely high quality.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_03: The execution is key there.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: And from a shelf strategy perspective, this directly ties into the eye tracking studies the agency conducted in dense supermarket environments.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, they did eye tracking studies.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: They discovered that the dark overall palette and the traditional typography are what successfully hold a shopper's attention from a distance, cutting through the bright colors of typical sodas.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: Because it contrasts so much.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: But as the consumer approaches the chiller and their vision focuses, the localized variations like suddenly noticing the regal portrait is actually an Elizabethan cap create, the up close curiosity and amusement necessary to drive a trial purchase of an unfamiliar processing format.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so we've seen exactly how black poetry aligned a novel, challenging processing technique with a highly strategic, material-driven packaging design.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: They really nailed it.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_03: They did, successfully carving out an entirely new space in the Indian beverage market.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_03: So what does this all mean for you as professionals in the industry?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: The big takeaway.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_03: It means that when you are launching a completely new processing format, your packaging must act as its own dedicated media channel.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: You have to carefully balance disruptive emotional cues, like a 360-degree simulated tear on a high fidelity PTG shrink sleeve, with a rigid, highly functional information hierarchy, like that clean white band at the base.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_03: Ooh, I love a good final thought.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: If a strategically placed torn paper edge on a 40-micron KTG sleeve can successfully replace the literal depiction of bubbles to communicate the invisible internal process of carbonation, how much further can the packaging industry push abstract graphic design?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: Think about the complex invisible processing techniques you work with daily in your own facilities.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: How might we use structural tension, substrate choices, and material architecture to visually communicate processes like pasteurization or advanced fermentation or cold extraction without ever writing a single explanatory word on the label.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to Through the Line Packaging and Processing.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: You can listen to more episodes on all streaming platforms.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Be sure to visit us at packworld.com, profoodworld.com, and healthcarepackaging.com for more packaging and processing news.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast was edited by Bree Guns.