...and each one is absolutely different. Absolut-ly incredible!

'Absolut Unique' bottles may soon be showing up on a store shelf near you, if they  haven't already. And these bottles are absolutely unique. Four million bottles, each decorated uniquely, were produced, but Absolut estimates that 94 quintillion bottles could actually have been produced before any duplication would appear. This takes variable content to a new level-and it uses conventional decoration techniques with a combination of screen printing and spraying. No digital printers found here!

Sweden-based Ardagh Group, the bottle's manufacturer, considers this project an innovation high point in its long-standing relationship with Absolut, "stretching the creative and technical ingenuity of both teams and their suppliers to the extreme, and capitalizing on their close working relationship," according to Ardagh's press release.

So how did they do it? FoodProductiondaily.com published a YouTube video and article that describes the process.  According to Frederik Källqvist, development manager glass, Sweden and Denmark at Ardagh, the process uses screen printing in addition to spraying.  He says, "These are all conventional decoration techniques-but with an unconventional mix of colours and patterns, plus random orientation of each print pattern." He points out that the process used 22 colors for the coating, five for the splash guns and sixteen colors for the 51 pattern types.  Coating ink was supplied by Diegel and screen printing ink was supplied by Ferro. Labeling was done separately by Absolut during the bottling process with individual numbering of the bottles.

Ardagh developed a computerized control system to automatically and continually change colors and spray patterns on the bottles as well as a system to randomly add contrasting color splashes to the bottles during the coating process.

It does look a little messy when you watch the video, but the outcome is stunning in its quality, variability and unique look.  I'll sure be watching my store shelves to see if my geography is included in the distribution!  Even though there are 4 million of them, because each bottle is unique, they will likely become collectors' items.  I wonder if they are as valuable if you drink the vodka? Or would you need the full sealed bottle to retain its value?  That's something to ponder!

Ardagh was able to introduce a randomizing functionality in the screen printing process, saying "We … created a screen and colour changing scheme for the screen printing process balancing variation and productivity, and established systems to mix the bottles during and in between the process steps to further increase variation." The team had to make the machines create variation and randomness whereas they were designed to create stability and control, and they did that by designing the rules for how to design and leaving the design up to the machines themselves.

So while this is not variable data printing as we usually think of it, it is a very interesting packaging technique that could extend the life of screen printing and still deliver smaller, customized lot sizes and even individual designs over a large number of packages as the Absolut example shows.  Bravo to Absolut and Ardagh for this immensely creative project!