Creative agency M&C Saatchi has joined with textile group Australian Weaving to launch an absorbent cotton towel packaged in an unexpected format - a 2L soft drink bottle.
The message in this bottle is that the Australian Weaving towel is made from 100 per cent Australian cotton and can absorb up to two litres of water.
According to David Dahan, M&C Saatchi Melbourne MD, the team saw an innovative way to break the category convention by reframing the true benefit of a towel.
"The brand simply serves as an explanation of a product that is unique in terms of its function and most importantly, delivers on its promise," he said.
Australian Weaving marketing manager Sanja Lalic said many imported towels added chemical fabric softeners to hide “the harsh feeling of their low-quality cotton”, with softeners repelling water rather than absorbing it.
"We have developed the new 2 Litre Towel brand to educate people on what they're buying in an innovative way, and simply encourage them to go back to basics when it comes to the purpose of a towel – absorbency," she said.
M&C Saatchi client services director Rebecca Gregson told PKN the towel was “not the easiest product to fit into a bottle”.
“We had a robot designed to laser-cut 2.25L soft drink bottles that we got from Visy, our bottle supplier,” she said.
“We then put the rolled towel into each half, and fixed it together.”
The team personally hand-packed 5000 bottles for the product launch.
In the future the company is looking to have custom moulds made so the process is more efficient for large-scale production.
“The challenge for in-line packaging is that we would need to develop specific machinery at each stage of the process, as currently there is no existing in-line packing system within Australian Weaving’s own factory,” said Gregson.
