PepsiCo : R&D Designed Mirinda Bottle Spurs Sales Volume Growth in China

Consumer research and product design combine to improve bottle function and user experience.

We recently posted a story that told how PepsiCo employees worked together to develop a new Tropicana container that satisfied consumer demands for clear, functional and elegant packaging.

The Tropicana story shows how consumer-preferred packaging innovation can drive sales, brand value and profitability.

We found another interesting example in China, where PepsiCo's R&D team developed a new Mirinda bottle that has been well received by Chinese consumers.

In 2012, the Mirinda marketing team said they wanted a new Mirinda bottle that differentiated the product and satisfied Chinese consumer preferences, said Dong Ying, associate director of packaging for PepsiCo's Greater China Region.

"We had a detailed discussion about the attributes they required, and our team was commissioned to come up with a new bottle," he said.

The packaging team began by discussing design ideas that would complement the Mirinda brand. 

"Mirinda is about fun and flavors, and the team came up with the idea of a vortex drawing fun and flavors into the bottle. So we started to build on that concept," Dong said.

The team created several variations of the vortex design and the final version was selected for consumer testing against the previous Mirinda peel design bottle and the competitor's bottle. The vortex design tested was favored significantly over the other bottles in consumer preference and purchase intent scores.

This design became known as the "vortex" bottle. It is clear, tall and slender with a twisting, spiraling design wrapping the bottle.  Texture, similar to an orange peel, was added to the surface to enhance the swirl and the interactivity of consumers with the package.

A large label appears off-center towards the top of the bottle to enhance its appearance and attractiveness to consumers. And the base was specially designed to increase stability during the production process.

The new 600 milliliter vortex bottles are made using the pre-form resin tubes (tubes that are heated and inflated within a mold to produce the bottle) that were used to make the previous 500 milliliter bottles. So while the vortex bottle weighs the same as the previous bottle, the vortex holds 100 milliliters more product.

All of the design and development work was performed at PepsiCo's new Shanghai Research and Development Center .  There, packaging specialists tested the vortex bottle for shelf life (carbonation retention), physical attributes, compliance to global standards, and the robustness of the bottle to load and handling.

To reduce costs, the new bottles are shrink-wrapped, so the bottles have to be strong enough to withstand local shipping and handling without the use of pallets.

The Mirinda vortex bottle was launched in China a year ago and has been well received by consumers, who prefer the taller and slimmer design. Three new local Mirinda flavors developed especially for the Chinese market - white peach, smoky sour plum and red apple - are also helping to drive volume growth.

The packaging team is proud of the vortex bottle and the success it is having in the marketplace. Recently they built on their success by completing efforts to reduce the weight of the Mirinda 600 milliliter bottle without compromising bottle performance or the consumer experience. 

Reducing bottle weight reduces the amount of plastic used in the production process, which minimizes our impact on the environment and reduces production costs.

The new, lighter-weight Mirinda bottles are currently making their way to shelves in China stores.