Ugly Mug Coffee

Ugly Mug Coffee, out of Memphis, Tennessee has a humorous print advertising campaign that I came across last semester while looking for inspiration. The campaign uses copy to identify the point of connection between strong coffee and morning experiences of caffeine addicts.

After seeing these ads, I really want to try the coffee and I can only hope it is as good as the team who came up with this campaign- Young & Laramore, Indianapolis, with creative director Charlie Hopper, associated creative director/copywriter Bryan Judkins, associate creative director/art director Trevor Williams, photographer Gary Sparks and typography designers at Yee-Haw Industries.

Naked Juice

Lately I have been obsessed with Naked Juice. So, I thought I would share my obsession with you.

First, a little background:

Naked Juice was establish in 1983 in Santa Monica, California as Ultimate Juice Company, changing its name to Naked Juice in 2001. As of January 5, 2007, Naked Juice operates as a subsidiary of PepsiCo, Inc. According to their website, www.nakedjuice.com, their philosophy is “We are dedicated to creating the best all-natural, 100% juices and juice smoothies, made from the finest bare-naked fruits, with no added sugar and no preservatives- ever.” You can get Naked Juice at grocery stores and convenience stores. The juices and smoothies are also divided into “Functional Families” consisting of “Superfood,” “Antioxidant,” “Protein,” “Well Being,” “Bare Breeze,” “Probiotic,” and “Pure Juice.” Distribution is nationwide in the US and Canada and has also reached parts of the UK.

 In July of 2009, Naked Juice launched its reNEWabottle, which is made of 100% post-consumer recycled (rPET) plastic. The tweak in packaging was predicted to reduce plastic consumption by 7.4 million pounds per year- that’s like eliminating 12,700 cubic meters of landfill space, enough to fill five 50-meter swimming pools. The new bottle is also entirely recyclable itself. This new plastic bottle allows Naked Juice to turn their bottles back into bottles, while most recyclable plastics can only be turned into things like carpet fiber and auto parts. The old bottles have been phased out over time and now all of the Naked Juice bottles are reNEWabottles.

 Naked Juice offers many flavors of juice and smoothies, and recently launched Naked Coconut Water. It has nothing added to it; the only ingredient is 100% coconut water, all-natural, fat free, cholesterol free, gluten free from Brazilian coconuts. Brad Armistead, Director of Marketing at Naked Juice explained, “We’re nuts about our Naked Coconut Water. Just like all the fruits in all of our other juices and smoothies, we think the liquid from coconuts is perfect the way it is, bare naked!”

Flavor Rundown:

 Antioxidant family:

Pomegranate Acai, Pomegranate Blueberry

 Probiotic family: contains beneficial active cultures that help promote a healthy digestive and immune system.

Tropical Mango

 Protein family: has 30 grams of protein in every regular sized bottle

            Protein Zone, Protein Zone: Double Berry, Protein Zone: Mango

 Pure Juice family:

            O-J, 100% Coconut Water

 Superfood family: “these blends are supercharged with fruit and boosts to help revive, renew and maintain immunity.”

            Power-C Machine, Berry Veggie, Red Machine, Blue Machine, Gold Machine, Green Machine

 Well-Being family:

            Orange Carrot, Mighty Mango, Orange Mango, Berry Blast, Strawberry Banana

 Another similar product is made by Odwalla, another juice/ smoothie company founded in 1980 in Santa Cruz, California.

 Resources:

www.nakedjuice.com

www.businessweek.com

TEA!

Who says "tea time" has to be boring?
 I've been going a little crazy with the product packaging lately, but here are some cool tea bags that make drinking tea that much better.

Origami tea bags designed by Natalia Ponomareva from Russia:

Tea bag inside of a stirrer. No spoons needed:

Tea bags designed so drinkers associate tea with a healthy lifestyle:

There are people in your tea:

Creative tea bags by Soon Mo Kang are shaped like T-shirts with a hanger that hangs on the tea cup:

Small paper boats attached to tea bags by Elisabeth Soós:

Fill your yellow submarine with loose tea leaves:

These aren't tea bags, but they are cups made for tea. You put your tea bag in the cup and loop the string around the button:

My favorite:
Tall polyhedral infuser tea packs by Peter Hewitt, each with a disarmingly natural-looking leaf/sprout tag:

Green Product Packaging

I was recently surfing the web and came across some pretty awesome product packaging that is environmentally friendly, thought I would pass them along.



360 Paper Bottle
A bottle made out of recycled paper! It decreases energy consumer throughout the product life cycle without sacrificing functionality. This would be a great solution to the problem of plastic water bottles, unfortunately this is still just a packaging concept and isn't out on the market yet.

Newton Running Packaging
Newton Running uses molded paperboard packaging that reduces waste by eliminating extra cardboard, tissue paper, and other shoe packaging material.

Lee Never Wasted Bag
This was a shopping bag designed by the Indian Agency Happy Creative Services, with the idea of combating tossing away shopping bags. Every piece of this shopping bag can be used in one way or another.

  

Stretchable Paper

FibreForm- packaging paper that can replace plastic packaging. This stuff is awesome! Now, if we could get every company that uses plastic in their packaging to replace it with paper!

HangerPak

This shipping box is not only recyclable, but also transforms into something usable.