When a great packaging design is particularly useful, consumers might give it a second life, boosting sustainability by making it more than a single-use item. That's the case of cream containers in Mexico, and one brand has become a viral hit by finally recognising the fact.

Customers often reuse Lala cream pots to store all kinds of other things in the fridge: beans, salsa, tinga or leftovers from the day before. It's such a familiar household ritual that it's inspired jokes and memes around the common problem of not knowing what's inside the pots. Lala's now come up with a solution, officially recognising that its packaging isn't for its own product alone.

The 'Mexiconteiners' project was a proactive idea born from observation and developed by the creative agencies Zurda México and Conciergency. They designed a Lala cream tub with a dedicated space where people can write what's stored inside once the original product's gone.

“It was 100% a lightbulb moment born out of lived experience,” says Diego Gueler Montero, chief creative officer at Zurda México. “You don't need a focus group or a massive research study for this, you just need to have grown up in Mexico.

Every single Mexican has played that fridge Russian roulette: opening a Lala container expecting cream, only to find leftover beans, rice, or salsa. It’s a generational inside joke the brand had never officially acknowledged. All we did was connect the dots between that universal truth and a product innovation.”