Spinning your wheels often means getting nowhere. For Integrated Display Co. (www.idcdisplay.com), it becomes a matter of winning one competition and then capturing a top spot in another competition.

And the rationale for the first competition leads to yet another one.

Shedding enlightenment on the whole situation is Charles Blecker, senior production manager at Pepsico in Purchase, NY. He explains that the first competition traces to a promotion of Pepsico's Mountain Dew® brand carbonated soft drink to submit original label designs, with few holds barred.

The winning designs would go into production as limited edition 16-oz impact extruded aluminum bottles made and printed via dry offset by CCL Container (www.cclcontainer.com).

With the top designer reportedly also winning $10,000 in what is dubbed the Green Label Art program, consumers select the designs they like best. In last year's competition, a host of finalists, from professional artists to cheerfully creative doodlers, was shaved down to a quartet of designs, each of these then moved to the production phase.

To help generate interest in the program and orders for the limited-edition bottles, Blecker tells PD: “We requested among several suppliers ideas for a test-market display kit for the four bottles with winning label designs. It would go to key buyers, store managers and others who could have it as a keepsake, and would also serve the brand as a public relations tool.”

Submitting what became the winning display design, Integrated Display took advantage of its own extensive production facilities and equally impressive capabilities of its parent, Integrated Packaging Corp. (www.ipcboxes.com), for an omnibus solution.

The total presentation was then submitted to the annual competition of the New Jersey Packaging Executives Club (www.njpec.com) where it was first selected for the gold award in the promotional packaging category and then voted the 2007 Package of the Year.

Inspired by the Lazy Susan concept, the display is a black, acrylic laser-cut gearwheel with 29 teeth. It is resin-bonded to a clear, rigid, extruded acrylic tube, a thumb-width-high, that is similarly attached to a rotating black polystyrene turntable with four equidistant, rubber nonskid pads.

Screen-printed in green with the words “green label art,” the gearwheel is also lasered to include two holes to accept the caddy—a Stardust silver, powder-coated, rigid wire carry handle with four rings each at two different heights that support and contain the aluminum bottles. The handle has threaded ends attached to the gear wheel by washers and nuts.

When loaded with the bottles, the dramatic display can be rotated manually for viewing. When more that one display is required, the gear wheels interlock for coordinated movement. Either way, it's art in motion.

Protecting the fully loaded display is a custom-fabricated, circular foam insert that locks onto the carry handle and bottle necks. The unitized load then is inserted into what is basically a highly decorated mailing tube.

This six-piece, full-telescope style canister from Integrated is a neat feat. Inner spiral-wound board tubes give heft to the structure, the bottom one fitted with an E-flute corrugated ring to support the display's weight in-transit. The outer board cylinders are wrapped with paper printed with a satiny PMS 277 silver. The polypropylene end caps are hot-melt-glued to the cylinder. Decorating the lid is a circular die-cut paper pressure-sensitive label that Integrated offset-prints in three colors. Graphics include the Mountain Dew logo and the words, “green label art.”

“Using the gearwheel was an approach we considered from the start of the program,” Integrated Display president Stu Kaitz informs PD. “The wire caddy facilitates viewing of the label designs from all sides and all angles.” It's also a way to help turn a soft drink's numbers. For details on yet another NJPEC winner, see p. 62.