MinTat stirs up Illy’s packaging

Minale Tattersfield & Partners has repackaged premium Italian coffee brand, Illy, which launches in the UK this week and the US next week.

The design brief was to rationalise the brand’s packaging worldwide, which had become a touch disparate due to launches over the years in different international markets such as France, the UK and the US, says Minale Tattersfield & Partners managing director Marcello Minale jnr.

The Illy brand has become synonymous, wrongly, with espresso coffee when it actually has several different uses, Minale adds.

“Research has shown that American, English and French consumers thought Illy coffee could not be used for filter or cafetière systems, and this needed to be addressed in the packaging,” he says.

To communicate to consumers the brand’s range of uses, the word “espresso” has been played down on the packaging and the different preparation suggestions printed on the rear of the tin in four languages.

Minale Tattersfield & Partners has switched the existing black tin to a slimmer, brushed metallic design to “help Illy market the brand at a higher level”, adds Minale. “Illy is the ‘champagne of coffee’. Black packaging is traditionally used by coffee producers and we wanted to distance ourselves from that,” he claims.

The consultancy won the project without a pitch.