Closures top off beverage bottles' impact: the closure is becoming a hotbed for decoration and functionality. Best results occur when the closure is part of the total design.

Beverage closures are evolving from being merely the "thing" that caps off the bottle. They're increasingly working with the package to create a total dispensing team.

Closures are becoming part of the container design at its earliest stages to provide marketing impact on the shelf and convenience in the consumer's hand.

Two developments are driving this trend:

* Closures are beginning to embrace decorating techniques such as the vibrant colors, embossing and debossing that have splashed across other elements of the package.

* Beyond form, functionality is taking center stage as the closure increasingly reflects the product positioning. Increasingly, the closure designs are taking the product's target consumers--especially kids and teens--into consideration.

These developments reflect beverage closures' evolution into more sophisticated marketing tools. Considering the glut of beverages on the store shelf, an attractive, functional closure may provide the deciding factor in whether your brand or a competitor's lands in the shopping cart.

Decorating trends

Decorative effects underscore one trend that's driving a new generation of beverage closures. One "hot" decorative area in closures is embossing and debossing. Closure manufacturers cite this rule of thumb: Any surface you can print you can also emboss or deboss.

Marketers are using embossing and debossing primarily to highlight brand logos. Consumers associate embossing and debossing with perceptions of higher product quality.

Chilled juice reflects the growing popularity of this trend. Tropicana and Minute Maid both emboss their name on a flat closure on their bottles.

Both closures are stock items, but it was important for each brand to bring the supplier into package-design discussions early on to get the best results, explains David Beckmann, Vice President of Owens-Illinois' (O-I) Food and Beverage Closures Business Unit. O-I makes the closures for the Minute Maid and Tropicana juice bottles.

"There's this presumption that, 'We'll just put a closure on it,'" Beckmann observes. "If the bottle is not working with the closure, you're not optimizing the system," especially when using a plastic bottle.

If you're considering embossing or debossing your closure, several Closure manufacturers recommend that your volume should exceed 50 million units per year to make the higher tooling costs worthwhile.