Opal Nera: putting the magic back into Italy's original black sambuca..
Opal Nera was the first black sambuca on the market. The liqueur, crafted from a secret recipe of separately distilled ingredients and botanicals, is completely black until mixed with ice where it magically turns a deep purple. A huge success when it was launched, after three decades the brand was starting to feel dated. The client wanted to revitalise Opal Nera and emphasise the mysterious ‘dark secret’of the brand to attract a whole generation of new consumers. We were briefed to create a complete new look with only one caveat: we had to retain the existing bottle.
With some tiny modifications we were able to utilise the unusual neck feature of the bottle to house a codebreaking device, needed to unlock the mystery combination of numbers beneath the logo. We also coloured the glass so as the bottle empties the a deep purple appears, echoing what happens with the liquid. A new custom cap and streamlined graphics completely transformed the bottle – and the brand.