Aluminum Bottle Beer Edit
The U-Glow Effect

Ever since the introduction of aluminium bottles in Japan in 2000, beverage industry observers have agreed that demand in North America for aluminium bottles was only limited by the industry’s willingness to invest in the necessary technology to create and sustain the market.

The first generation aluminium beverage bottles were novel simply by virtue of being made of aluminium. The next generation of aluminium bottles promises to bring fabulous form and even greater function to the category.

Chill-retention, re-sealability, recyclability and durability - plus a wide range of decorating and shaping options - are the reasons why a growing number of beverage industries package their brands in an aluminium bottle. They own the rigidity of glass but are unbreakable, cool faster, and some independent testing shows that they defy science and stay colder longer than other packaging material.
To that end, CCL Container introduced the first two designs in its new Aluminex line of “full-body shaped” aluminium bottles. The Aluminex technology platform promises to unlock the design possibilities for aluminium bottles like never before, offering the added advantage of proprietary, food-grade, internal and external linings to protect product taste and purity. Aluminex bottles are 100% recyclable and although recent studies have proven otherwise, beverages in aluminium bottles have the image to cool faster, and stay colder longer than in glass.

CCL’s first two standard designs: the “Roadhouse”, an American icon - the longneck bottle, its popularity being the logical choice - and the second, known as the “Tailgater”, featuring a full-contoured body.

As the technology does offer the possibilities to create custom bottle designs as well, it did not take long before Cerveceria Nacional Dominicana (CND), the Dominican National Brewing Company, went the way of so many beverage products, and put its flagship in an aluminium bottle.
However the introduction of the pride of the Dominican Republic, Presidente premium beer, in the 16-oz (475 ml) alu-bottle made by CCL Containers, is not simply a slavish following of the trends in the beer market. Presidente uses the UV-(black-light) graphic option to create a new life-style aimed at refreshing the young-adult market.

The new U-Glow effect is central in a marketing strategy, which not only reaches the top 14 bars and discos, where the lights go down as black lights show off the glowing logotype on the new Presidente alu-bottle, but featuring also the entire all new Presidente’s web site, devoted to the U-Glow marketing initiative, with interactive games and special chat rooms.

And all this for a brand that owns 70% of the market and from a 100-year-old company that accounts for 96% of all the beer in the Dominican Republic. It is clear that Presidente with its U-Glow alu-bottles has its eyes glued far beyond the shores of the Dominican Republic.