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The best examples of literature-inspired packaging
Product packaging is one of the most powerful means of communication available to brands: as well as making goods stand out on shelves and attracting buyers’ attention, it can also promote a company’s values or any projects it might be working on. In recent years, various brands have chosen to take inspiration from the literary world and produce packaging featuring excerpts from famous books, or illustrations reproducing their plot or characters.
This interesting blend of marketing and cultural promotion elevates the product experience and forges a deeper connection with consumers, working on both an intellectual and commercial level. In this article, we’ve put together some excellent examples of literature-inspired packaging, where food and drinks containers took on a rather unusual literary guise.
Bennet and its reading packs
The Italian supermarket chain Bennet launched its ‘Good to Read Packs‘ campaign to try to encourage customers to enjoy some great literary classics. The initiative was based on some startling statistics: while 94% of Italians read the nutritional information on food packaging, 60% do not even read a single book a year. And research shows that supermarkets are one of the top sales channels for books in Italy.
The brand therefore decided to add excerpts from famous novels to the packaging of various essential goods (milk, beans, rice, coffee, biscuits and tea), choosing texts that mentioned the product in question. As well as the quotation and usual product ingredients and preparation guidelines, customers were also provided with a QR code to buy the book or other titles directly from the Bennet website.
By exploiting a time – during people’s weekly shops – when consumers typically read the information on packages very carefully, the company turned the packaging for its products into tools for promoting culture. Featuring works by great authors like J.D. Salinger, Gustave Flaubert, Jack Kerouac and Fyodor Dostoevsky, the idea was that even less avid readers would realise that ‘thinking needs feeding’, as the campaign’s slogan went, and that books are essential for our mental wellbeing, as much of a necessity as a carton of milk. An activity as ordinary as doing the shopping thus became an opportunity to acquire new good habits and potentially even discover a passion for reading.
Bennet’s campaign provides an example of a very innovative way of promoting reading that also works from a commercial perspective. On the one hand, the publishing-inspired graphic layout is very original and draws consumers’ eyes to the shelf. And on the other hand, the effective (and unique!) cross-selling strategy encourages the customer to purchase the book in question, conveying the idea that food and literature go hand in hand.
Up Front Brewing: the beer cans inspired by Moby Dick
The Scottish brewery Up Front Brewing teamed up with the illustrator Stanley Donwood to create packaging inspired by Herman Melville’s iconic novel Moby Dick. Donwood used linocut to produce clear and contrasting monochrome designs with accentuated lines, perfectly conveying the experimental nature of Up Front’s beers.
Apart from a small space reserved for the obligatory product information, the rest of each can was transformed into a miniature canvas housing illustrations inspired by Melville’s book. They were then finished with a matt varnish, which highlighted the contrasts and made the cans feel pleasant to the touch, while the strong, bold Block Gothic Extra Condensed font instilled the designs with additional energy.
Up Front then decided to use augmented reality to animate the illustrations on the labels with special effects, offering customers an even more engaging experience. The result was something far removed from traditional beer packaging, making the product stand out and giving the brand a truly unique and memorable identity.
Bookish Tea House: teas for book lovers
What could be better than reading a book while sipping a steaming cup of tea during a well-deserved break? The Italian firm Bookish Tea House decided to celebrate this winning combination with a range of organic and vegan teas and infusions inspired by the world of literature. From an infusion that draws on William Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet to a blend of black tea and red fruits that pays tribute to Bram Stoker’s masterpiece Dracula, you can find flavours for all literary tastes in their Etsy shop.
The style of the packaging evokes the work each tea represents, and they are made of fully recyclable materials, in line with the company’s environmental commitment. Even the way each product is formulated is inspired by the atmosphere and plot of the book it is named after. For example, the page of the tea dedicated to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has the following description: ‘You can trust this label! This blend of white tea, rosebuds, pineapple and citrus fruit will not make you bigger or smaller, but will be the perfect complement for all your unbirthdays and will add the right flavour to your dreams and adventures.’
The aim is to offer customers a multisensory experience on the border between reality and fantasy, creating blends with an evocative and unique aroma. Judging by the customer reviews, the idea seems to work well: after all, what bookworm would not want to sip a drink that can take them to an imaginary world where they can relive their favourite stories?
Llavors Blanc: the label that recalls the pages of a book
Our final example of literature-inspired packaging comes from the Catalan winery La Vinyeta, which chose an excerpt from Núria Esponellà’s historic novel Rere els Murs for the label of its wine Llavors Blanc. The work is set in the Monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes in the wine-making region of Alt Empordà: according to some historical sources, the old monastery played a crucial role in the development of wine production in the area. But there was another reason for choosing the work too: the wine’s name – the Catalan word llavors, which means both ‘then’ and ‘seeds’ – is featured inside the novel.
La Vinyeta turned the label into a page from a book, using a sophisticated mix of wordplay and historical references to invite wine drinkers to stop and read it. All the other information was removed to leave space for the story, which turns consuming the wine into a voyage of discovery into the history and culture of the wine’s region of origin.
These examples all demonstrate how packaging can display a brand’s values and a product’s features while at the same time promoting a love of reading. Each item offers a cultural experience, creating a unique connection with buyers and strengthening their brand loyalty with unique and distinctive content.