A cartoon character known as Hank the Singing Bottle is at the center of a promotional effort named as the most innovative and creative campaign of 2009 by the British magazine Packaging News.
The cartoon character emerged in Europe in mid-2009 as the spokesperson of the “Friends of Glass” campaign, which was started by the European Container Glass Federation (FEVE).
That group, in a news release, says Hank helped start a campaign that “quickly evolved into a self-fed, third-party forum of consumers who think that glass packaging is the best option for products they love.”
A cartoon drawing upon the 1980s movie “The Terminator, ” in which Hank claims ownership of the line “I’ll be back” as a title for his song to a puzzled Arnold Schwarzenegger, has generated more than 540,000 hits on online networks such as YouTube, Kontraband and Facebook in Europe as well as in the United States, says FEVE.
At the Web site www.friendsofglass.com, Hank says in several languages that glass packaging is 100 percent and endlessly recyclable in its “bottle-to-bottle” recycling loop.
Hank’s cartoon adventures encourage consumers to endlessly recycle bottles and jars once they get to their end of life. His character has sent letters to the Governor of California, H.R.H. Prince Charles and celebrity blogger Perez Hilton.
FEVE is a trade group representing the glass packaging industry in the European Union plus Switzerland and Turkey. It has 59 glass packaging, tableware and manufacturing members.