Heineken Bottles: The Journey is in the Destination
World’s greenest bottle
FOBO: It might look like a regular beer bottle. It's not. It's the world's greenest bottle. Why? Packaging is the largest part of a beer brewer's carbon footprint. Not agriculture nor brewing. By far the biggest improvement would be changing from one-way, trashable, bottles, to returnable, refillable bottles. These bottles are truly 'green'. But! The world has been moving away from returnable bottles; they're perceived as old fashioned, get old and ugly through scuffing and scratching, and as a result are not premium and appealing. Heineken wants to lead in sustainability, and wants to move to a greener future.
With age comes beauty
How can Heineken create a paradigm shift and make returnable bottles premium, desirable and cool? By introducing FOBO! A returnable bottle designed to become not ugly when aging, but to become beautiful when aging. The more it scuffs and scratches, the more the embossed logo stands out and the better its looks. Designed to be the older the better. And the result is truly green: it saves 74% carbon footprint versus on way bottles. To express the progressive concept of this bottle we renamed it; not returnable bottle, but forwardable bottle; in short FOBO. You forward it to the next person. And to make the forwardable concept really come to life we even connected it to the internet of things.
Forwardable thinking
Each bottle has a unique code, type it in www.fobo.fr and you see where your bottle has been, what it witnessed and experienced, and then you can add your message to it for the next user. As a contemporary message in a bottle. Heineken FOBO - the world's greenest bottle. Significantly lowering Heineken's carbon footprint (- 74%) by re-introducing returnable - forwardable - bottles in markets where they disappeared. Designing a returnable bottle that becomes more premium and desirable over time. Successfully launched in France in summer 2016. First focus on bars to establish the premium image.
