Pepsi NFL Laces Can

A winning partnership, commemorated with football-inspired cans.

Pepsi has been a prominent sponsor of the NFL for nearly 20 years. To celebrate this legendary partnership and create keepsakes for fans, our Design and Research & Development teams designed award-winning, football-inspired cans, innovative in look and feel.

Brand

Pepsi

Type

Branding & Packaging, Structural Packaging

Region

North America

THE IDEA

Collectible cans for passionate NFL fans, evolving each season.

Football fans understand the power of mementos, how they act as a key to unforgettable, thrilling moments. Displayed in a home or office, they represent a special fusion of beautiful design, brand appreciation, shared experiences, and personal history. We partnered with the National Football League to reward that loyalty with a truly special keepsake.

Tapping into the exhilaration of the sport, the devotion of its fans and the momentous glamour of the game, we designed football-themed Pepsi cans to commemorate each NFL season. Our goal was to create memory-packed collectibles, offering a fresh rush of excitement that would evolve year to year.

2018

In 2018, we set out to celebrate sixteen years of partnership between Pepsi and the NFL for Super Bowl LIII. Whether experienced from stadium seats or in front of a TV, the thrill of the Super Bowl is always palpable. When innovating the design for these new cans, we reasoned that they shouldn’t just look special—they should also feel special. So, we textured and formed our 2018 Pepsi/NFL Laces can to mimic the look and feel of a football, including its signature eight laces.

It was no small feat. We employed advanced processes, like propriety blow-molding technology, to shape and contour the aluminum. Using small-format UV LED inkjet technology, direct-to-shape (DTS) printing added dimension to the area surrounding the laces to evoke the texture of pigskin on a football. Stabilizing magnetic closures were even implemented on influencer kit boxes, open in the front to showcase the can’s unique shape, and faceted to mirror the traditional merchandise packaging for footballs. Pairing intrepid design and innovative tech, the #PepsiNFLLacesCan earned +97MM PR impressions from just 200 influencer kits within a week of launch—a tactile victory.

2019

We knew we had to go big to kick off the NFL’s 100th season, so our 2019 design honored one of the greatest teams in its history: the New England Patriots, six-time NFL champions. In keeping with the sensory success of our 2018 design, dimensional laces and DTS-printed pigskin texture on one side of the Pepsi-meets-Patriots can mimicked the form and feel of a real football.

The other side featured the legendary Patriots logo and a powerful red, white and blue “6x Champions” graphic. Though the cans were only available to select Patriots fans at the 2019-2020 NFL Kickoff Event, we’re proud to say that the design generated a stunning 121+ MM PR impressions, establishing it as an unforgettable collector’s item.

In 2020, we were ready to bring back more beloved teams to our cans, for those die-hard fans looking to proudly represent their team on every occasion. In a departure from some of our earlier team-centered designs, this new design let the Pepsi brand aesthetic shine just as bright as each team’s.

We started by dividing the design diagonally across the can. Team colors filled the bottom-right half, with team logos centered over the bisecting double-stripe line. The Pepsi logo and signature blue soared above. On the back of each can: the raised and textured laces that all football fans, no matter which team they cheered for, had come to love. Altogether, we delighted loyalists with designs for 15 teams and created one additional can with the same composition to honor the NFL itself.

Awards + Press ¹⁵

2019

2019 Pentawards, Beverages, Gold
2019 Pentawards People's Choice Award
2019 Hermes Creative Awards, Gold
2019 AmeriStar Category Awards for Promotional Display
2019 Red Dot Communication Awards
2019 Creativity International Awards, Platinum
2019 MarCom Awards
2019 Dieline Top 50 of the Decade

2020

2020 WorldStar Packaging Awards, Luxury Category
2020 Hermes Creative Awards, Platinum
2020 The Communicator Awards, Collateral-Packaging for Marketing / Promotion, Gold
2020 InnovBev Awards Best in Can
2020 InnovBev Awards Best Packaging / Label Design

2021