Engine oil packaging may once have been about muscular containers and familiar colour schemes but, says Jill Park, firms are constantly tweaking packs with subtle innovations

Halfords Classic motor oil is sold in a metal tin, reminiscent of packaging from a bygone era. In a world of plastic oil packs, this stands out as something of an anomaly. For the past two decades, oil brands have erred towards colourful plastic packs with anti-glug technology that leave rust-prone metal packs confined to the back of the garage.

"If you were buying cans and putting oil in them your company was also making plastic packaging, so it became a bit of a no-brainer for the oil companies," says Metal Packaging Manufacturers Association director Nick Mullen. According to Mullen, both Crown and Impress still have lines capable of manufacturing metal packs for oil, but he agrees that the material is now used primarily for promotional or novelty packs.

It was in the 1980s that brands in the sector started to look at packaging as a way to differentiate their product. RPC's general sales manager David Baker says that some refill packs had already moved to composite cans by then. "Marketers realised they could differentiate their product by shape as well as colour and print. Some of the first plastic containers were versions of the tins," he says.

"At the time, all the designs were very clunky, square and mannish," adds Baker. "Over the years, this has changed and they are now smoother and sexier."

HDPE has turned out to be the plastic of choice for oil packaging. Its robust qualities and compatibility with blow-moulding mean it can be used to create some interesting designs. Handles, for instance, are an integral part of the design of oil packs as they help in pouring the product.

Work in the field
Experiential design is central to Chicago-based Studio One Eleven's work for the automotive industry. "These days we are focused on how people use the product," says studio director Scott Jost, who sends his designers out to dealerships to experience filling vehicles with oil in the same conditions as consumers.

One such project was the firm's work with Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP) on the brand's BRP XPS oil. The biggest problem the majority of motorists will have to contend with is defrosting a pair of cold hands after tinkering with an engine in a chilly garage, but imagine having to top up the oil in a snow mobile. Studio One Eleven recognised that the functionality of a product becomes even more important in extreme conditions and deployed a team of designers decked out in arctic gloves to determine the factors the users of XPS would encounter.

Long-time Studio One Eleven client Lubrication Technologies also recruited the firm to find a solution to the problem of pouring oil into a very small target without the help of a funnel.

Lubrication Technologies' Polaris Pure includes a blow-moulded nested bellow spout that can be collapsed and stored on the pack and attached to the closure when in use, meaning a funnel is not needed when pouring oil from the container into a car. The solution was so popular that it was subsequently used to pack anti-freezes, stabilisers and more.

Impress took a similar approach when it added a straw to the packaging of WD-40's aerosol can. The patented Smart Straw can be clicked into position to deliver a concentrated stream of liquid, ending a common customer complaint of misplaced straws. The product is also available in a Big Blast can, which allows the contents to be applied over wide surface areas and with a pen for smaller applications - all of which proves the importance of added value in such a mature marketplace.

RPC's Baker says that the basic shape of packs has not changed in recent years as many brands are confined by their filling lines. "What we find is that the overall dimensions are fixed. It's expensive to change it."

Alexander Draxler, sales director Europe at Alpla Hard, which manufactures packaging for BP, Exxon, Elf and Shell, agrees with Baker that pack shapes have remained relatively consistent in recent years. "They [brands] want to keep the brand recognisable so they normally keep the colours the same and the innovation can be a slight change of shape," he says.

Instead, Draxler cites the functionality of a pack as its key selling point. Features such as textured areas and handles are two ways oil packaging can be made more easy to use - for containers that hold five litres or more, two handles are often used to help the user to pour the oil without splashing.

When it comes to colours, the sector remains more traditional. As Draxler points out, metallic colours are still popular because they remind customers of the traditional tin packs in which oil was sold. "If you take a metallic silver bottle, from a first view it looks like metal and you link that to a can," he says.

Metal packs are now used in the sector mainly for promotional or novelty lines, but some firms are now using plastic for one-off packs, too. For example, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of motorsports vehicle manufacturer Polaris, Studio One Eleven created blow-moulded packs in the shape of a snowmobile and an all-terrain vehicle.

Special editions
Studio One Eleven's Jost says: "There were numerous challenges in creating a blow mould for that. We've probably never seen a mould that wide, but also that thin." The packs were sold as collectable items and so do not lend themselves to everyday use.

So what do the car experts think of the packs currently on the market? Autocar magazine's editor Charles Hallett prefers metal packs, "especially if you can take them along to a supplier to get filled up", he says. "Car owners want a safe, unspillable container that can be kept in the car."

Practical Classics' deputy editor Matt Jones also prefers metal. "It gives a classic feel to the garage and is a retro item in itself," says Jones, who also has a soft spot for the "wobbly noise" the metal packs make when poured. "For the everyday motorist, practicality is key."

Jones points out that the oil has to be easily pourable into the engine without using a funnel and so developments like short pull-out spouts on engine bottles and long spouts on transmission fluid bottles are most useful.

"However, there are very few oils available in period-correct metal packaging," he says. "Reproductions of iconic brands' bottles, such as Sinclair Oil, Gulf, Shell and Castrol, are difficult to find and can command a hefty premium. Also, they rarely feature the easy-pour spout common to modern products."

Beyond plastic bottles, DS Smith Rawcliffe is exploring the opportunities for bag-in-box technologies in the mineral and cooking oil market. The company has already produced a pack for JCB's lubricants range (see box).

"From a DS Smith point of view, we see the future trend move towards bag-in-box, purely because the recyclability goes through the roof when you put a product in that pack" says DS Smith Rawcliffe sales manager Paul Broderick.

For the time being, though, plastic remains a dominant force in motor oil packaging. Foremost in the mind of the consumer is functionality, and, as many recent innovations suggest, adding value to existing products could shape the future of packaging in the sector.

INSIDE THE BOX
Bag-in-box has traditionally been the domain of wine, yet JCB Services recognised the benefits the format could bring to its lubricants range. The pack is made with a rigid corrugated outer box that incorporates a weather-proof film on its outer surface, so it can be stored outside.

An inner plastic bag, made from 84% less plastic than the previous plastic drum format, can be squashed down to the size of a grapefruit for disposal as contaminated waste.

DS Smith Speciality Packaging Rawcliffe manufactured the packs, which are available in five- and 20-litre formats. Blanks are loaded into a bespoke automatic tray former, then sent down a conveyor system to an automatic bag filler that drops the bag into the box and then seals, labels and palletises it.

The company has reduced the weight of each pack from 720g to 115g. Consequently, 960, as opposed to 800 litres, of lubricant can be placed on a pallet and 200 lorry movements a year have been cut - an important saving when you consider JCB sells eight million litres of lubricant a year.

JCB World Parts Centre general manager Guy Robinson says: "Given the stringent regulations governing the disposal of hazardous waste, this achieves a major reduction in costs for JCB's end-user customers."

DS Smith Speciality Packaging Rawcliffe was highly commended for the JCB pack in the 2009 UK Packaging Awards.