Packaging can do far more than protect a product. The right colour, shape, opening mechanism or material can make a pack easier to use, instantly recognisable and closely associated with the brand it represents.
Tiffany & Co.’s Blue Box, Heinz’s upside-down ketchup bottle, Apple’s unboxing experience and Coca-Cola’s contour bottle took very different routes to becoming packaging icons. Together, they show how purposeful design can turn an everyday container into a lasting brand asset.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Their success rests on four different strengths: colour, functionality, experience and shape.
Tiffany turns colour into a brand asset
Few packages are as recognisable from colour alone as the Tiffany Blue Box. The story of its distinctive colour dates to 1845, when Charles Lewis Tiffany selected the shade for the cover of Tiffany & Co.’s Blue Book catalogue.
The colour subsequently became closely associated with the jewellery house and its packaging. Tiffany says its Blue Box was introduced in 1886, the same year the company launched its Tiffany Setting engagement ring.
What distinguishes the packaging is not simply the choice of blue, but the consistency with which Tiffany has used the colour as a visual asset over generations.
Tiffany trademarked the colour in 1998. In 2001, Pantone standardised it as a custom shade known as “1837 Blue”, referencing the year Tiffany was founded.
The result is packaging that can communicate the brand before the product inside is revealed. Colour becomes more than decoration: it performs an identification function normally associated with a name or logo.
Tiffany has also updated its packaging materials without abandoning its distinctive visual identity. The company says its current Blue Boxes contain 75% recycled paper, while its blue bags are made from 100% recycled paper. Both are FSC-certified.
The broader lesson goes beyond colour selection. A distinctive packaging element can become a valuable brand asset when it is recognisable, consistently applied and closely connected to the product experience.
Tiffany also shows how packaging materials can evolve while a core visual identity remains intact.
Heinz redesigns the bottle around consumer behaviour
Heinz took a different route, using packaging design to address a familiar usability challenge.
The upside-down Heinz Easy Squeeze bottle was introduced in the US in 2002. Its squeezable PET body stood on its closure, keeping ketchup close to the dispensing end and making the product easier to dispense. The design incorporated a dispensing valve to help control the flow.
The significance of the design lies in the way it responded to consumer behaviour. Rather than asking people to change how they handled ketchup, the package was redesigned around the way they wanted to use the product.
The format also illustrates the importance of treating packaging as a complete system. The bottle body, orientation, closure and dispensing mechanism all have to work together for an inverted pack to perform effectively.
The broader principle remains relevant to packaging development today. Innovation does not necessarily require an entirely new format. Removing a small but persistent point of friction from an established consumer routine can change the way a product is used.
The Heinz bottle also shows how functionality can become part of brand identity. Its unusual orientation makes the package distinctive on the shelf while giving consumers a functional reason for the design.
Apple makes opening part of the product experience
Apple has approached packaging from another direction, treating the act of opening a pack as part of the overall product experience.
A 2012 report in Packaging News, based on reporting from Adam Lashinsky’s book Inside Apple, described a dedicated packaging room where Apple designers developed and tested prototypes.
The report said designers repeatedly opened prototype boxes to refine the experience of revealing the product.
The package shapes the sequence in which a customer encounters the product: the exterior, opening mechanism, internal arrangement, accessories and, finally, the device itself. Opening therefore becomes something that can be deliberately designed rather than simply a means of accessing the product.
That approach remains visible in Apple’s packaging engineering work. The company’s packaging engineering roles have referred specifically to developing the “unboxing” experience and testing packaging as part of the introduction of its products.
This places seemingly minor details — such as the resistance of a lid, the position of a pull tab and the order in which components are revealed — within the wider product experience.
Pack architecture and opening sequence become design considerations alongside protection, logistics and material efficiency.
The principle is particularly relevant to e-commerce, where consumers may encounter a physical product for the first time when a delivery arrives at their home. Packaging can provide a controlled brand interaction immediately before the customer begins using the product.
Apple’s example shows how packaging can extend product design beyond the object inside the box. When the opening sequence is considered deliberately, the pack becomes part of the consumer’s first interaction with the product.
Coca-Cola turns bottle shape into brand recognition
Coca-Cola’s contour bottle demonstrates how structural packaging design can become a powerful form of brand identification.
In the early 20th century, Coca-Cola and its bottlers faced competition from imitation products. In 1915, the Coca-Cola Bottling Association sought a distinctive bottle that would differentiate the drink from competitors.
The brief called for a design that could be recognised by touch and identified even if broken. The Root Glass Company in Terre Haute, Indiana, developed the resulting bottle. It was patented in November 1915 and entered production the following year.
Its distinctive fluted form was inspired by an illustration of the cacao pod. The designers had been looking for imagery associated with ingredients they believed were connected with Coca-Cola.
The structural design did more than differentiate the product on the shelf. Its silhouette gradually became a shorthand for the brand, demonstrating that recognition does not have to depend entirely on graphics, labels or logos.
The contour bottle was later granted trademark protection in the US. Coca-Cola has also cited a 1949 study in which fewer than 1% of Americans surveyed were unable to identify the bottle by its shape alone.
The history illustrates how structural packaging can acquire value over time. A bottle developed in 1915 to distinguish a product from imitators had, within several decades, become recognisable enough for its physical form to function as a protected brand asset.
More than a century after its development, the contour form remains part of Coca-Cola’s visual identity. The company marked the bottle’s 110th anniversary in 2025, highlighting the longevity of a design originally created to distinguish the product from imitators.
The contour bottle demonstrates that structural packaging can do more than contain and protect a product. In the strongest cases, the physical form of a pack can become as recognisable as the branding applied to its surface.
Four routes to iconic packaging
These four designs took different routes to becoming packaging icons. Tiffany used colour and presentation to reinforce its identity. Heinz used functionality to address a consumer need. Apple made experience part of the package. Coca-Cola used shape to create distinctive brand recognition.
Their longevity points to a common principle: memorable packaging is rarely distinctive for appearance alone. It solves a problem, shapes an experience or creates recognition.
For today’s packaging designers and brand owners, materials, technologies and sustainability requirements will continue to evolve. The underlying challenge remains much the same: packaging must perform its practical functions while giving consumers a reason to recognise it, use it or remember it.
The strongest examples show what happens when those objectives come together. The container does not simply carry the brand. It becomes part of the brand itself.
