Fans of Australian heavy metal band AC/DC get ready to rock: Karlsberg Brauerei has completed the launch its newly designed cans for AC/DC Premium Pils. Under each tab is an individual code that fans can use to buy attractive devotionalia or bid for prizes. The precision-targeted promotion cans are manufactured by Ball Packaging Europe, one of Europe's biggest beverage can producers, and they are now on sale in Germany.
The new AC/DC can is a real point-of-sale eye-catcher, and not just because of its true-to-life Australian "pint" size (which equates to 568 ml or 19.2-oz. American). There is also its unique design. Against the can's jet black, matt printed background, the famous AC/DC logo is lit in almost luminous red. Just behind it is the silvery cover of the group's latest album "Black Ice." And the red metal tab on the jet black end completes the sleek look of this rocker beer-locker.
Aside from the design, the prizes that purchasers can possess are also destined to rock. Under each can tab is a code that gives its user 50 "lightning bolts," the currency of this promotional campaign. Bolts thus acquired can be used to either buy AC/DC fan shirts, music and the like, or to bid for attractive prizes in a series of auctions—with all transactions handled by the EMP Metal Mail Order Shop.
Individual design, audience-aligned marketing
The promotional codes are applied to the AC/DC cans by Ball using its "under-the-tab" printing technology. This involves the use of a laser, enabling numbers, graphics or symbols to be quickly inscribed within an extremely small area. But printing under the tab is just one possibility offered by the beverage can producer to its customers for individually marking such metal packages. With the Dynamark printing process, cans can be provided with up to 24 different designs in one production run. And the use of augmented reality or QR codes additionally allows customers to access offline or online reality experiences.
"Beverage cans offer enormous scope for effectively targeted, creative advertising or promotional campaigns—and are right at the cutting edge of the personalization trend," explains Benoit Hirszowski, marketing director at Ball Packaging Europe. "Not least because they are an ideal vehicle for communicating the brand identity of a product in an individual and strikingly modern manner."
Taking the AC/DC can around the world
The fact that AC/DC Premium Pils in a can has hit home with the intended target group since its launch last year is emphatically demonstrated by one particular fan response. Toward the back end of 2012, AC/DC fan Christian Spurk initiated a world tour for an empty AC/DC can. In the intervening period, the can has been right across Europe, through Australia and across the USA, as documented in a photo travelogue published on various social websites (see also: www.dosionair.de). And at the end of its globetrotting exploits, there is a place of honor waiting for it at the AC/DC Museum in the Austrian town of Ternitz.
