Knockout instills “jewel-like quality” into Bombay’s fruit-flavored gin debut with translucent bottle label

14 May 2021 --- UK design agency Knockout has provided Bombay Sapphire with a translucent premium bottle design for its newest fruit-flavored gin, Bombay Bramble.

The new sub-brand blends Bombay’s vapor-distilled London Dry Gin with a rich fruit infusion made from freshly harvested blackberries and raspberries, giving the gin a deep ruby color.

To make the gin’s quality and flavor clear to consumers – both literally and metaphorically – Knockout swapped Bombay Sapphire’s traditional paper label with a translucent PET label on the bottle.

“It was a fantastic challenge to create a new sub-brand within the Bombay portfolio. We wanted it to be understated yet sophisticated – and a bit classic,” Knockout founder Dominic Burke tells PackagingInsights.

Bombay Bramble launched in the UK in March 2020, followed by Australia toward the end of last year. The staggered global launch is now reaching the US and South African spirits markets.

Different, but elevated
Bombay Bramble’s design retains the consumer’s familiarity with the original brand’s visual architecture, notably the signature rectangular label and thin golden line frame. 

“Rose gold is a new color in part of the brand’s visual identity and complements the red of the liquid very well,” Burke explains.Knockout allows the gin’s “captivating crimson color” to stand out in the all-clear bottle.

In an eponymous visual move, Knockout weaves a rose-gold berry bramble through the frame around the brand name and logo. However, the new bottle sheds its paper label for clear ones to “add a jewel-like quality.”

The final touch is a two-toned, deep red cap in scarlet ink featured on the closure and neck label.

Playing with alternatives
Knockout also supported the creation of a limited edition artist bottle as part of the Bombay Bramble Ripe For Discovery campaign. 

These designs cloak the bottles in canvas-resembling paper labels with artwork from three up-and-coming British creators – fine artist Alfie Kungu, print artist and painter Charlotte McDonald and printmaker Rose Electra Harris. The limited edition was available exclusively at Selfridges over the Christmas holiday.

While these bottles showcased a colorful paper label alternative, Burke highlights Knockout was briefed to “celebrate the rich red liquid” specifically.

Bombay Bramble launched a limited-edition bottle during Christmas featuring paper labels.“These artist labels are super cool, but they’re fun in a different way,” Jo Peirce, clients service director at Knockout, tells PackagingInsights. “We didn’t need to cover up that much. We were framing what was already beautiful.” 

Social media influences color trends
Pink gins are increasingly finding favor with younger, female audiences, intrigued by the gin’s creative uses in cocktails and Instagrammable color palette.

“Age of the Influencer,” pegged as a top F&B trend for 2021 by Innova Market Insights, is a nod to social media platforms and how consumer behaviors change as a reflection of online presence. 

However, Bombay Bramble’s stand-out distilling process gives the gin a richer, deeper color than conventional flavored gins. These are typically associated with being “sugary sweet” and “not premium,” Burke asserts. “It was important to Bombay that we didn’t go down that path.”

Bombay Sapphire previously championed artistic creativity for its gin bottles in an art exhibition collaboration with UK Design Museum. The gin brand’s artist-designed limited edition bottles aimed to bring color to everyday grocery shopping, selling out within two days.

By Anni Schleicher