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Left Research on how experiences with colour, texture, sound and shapes can affect the experience of drinking from a can has begun to filter into mainstream packaging design‘PACKAGING INFLUENCES TASTE… PEOPLE DON’T REALISE HOW PACKAGING IMPACTS ON THE EXPERIENCE AT HOME’ OLIVER SPENCE, PROFESSOR OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGYsupermarket. But often people change the shape without knowing why. We explain that there’s a reason why you might want to put a certain drink in a certain can. It’s an empirical question, and you can convey some functional benefit.”Spence has shown that a red container can make the contents taste sweeter and that extra weight added to cans or bottles makes consumers believe that the contents are of a higher quality. Strangest of all, sipping a drink while listening to high-pitched, tinkling sounds can make it taste sweeter, whereas low, rumbling sounds give it a bitter flavour. The neuroscience behind this isn’t entirely understood, but it works: you can try the latter effect as an experiment at home. These insights can be put into practice to achieve two separate goals, Spence explains. “Firstly there’s how to stand out on the shelf, and people use colour there to convey meaning and to capture attention. Then there’s the way that packaging influences the taste. Sometimes people focus too much on the first battle, and they don’t realise how the packaging impacts on the subsequent experience at home.”Crown thought about this experience when it designed its new CrownSmart technology. Launched in November 2015, CrownSmart allows brand owners to interact directly with consumers, delivering a wide range of content or experience via a unique code beneath the tab of a beverage can.Ardagh has also experimented with the sound that a can makes as it is opened, conducting research into cans that sound like zippers or chimes as the seal is broken. In the end, it didn’t put these innovations onto the marketplace, because the tweaks were too expensive to make the differentiation worthwhile, according to Ardagh Group Innovation Director Olaf Joeressen. And besides, he adds, “the can already has a strong identity with respect to sound. The audio experience is rather attractive, and it communicates this refreshing aspect of the carbonated beverage.”The way a drink sounds when it is 06 EUROPEAN CAN MARKET REPORT 2016 SENSORY PACKAGING