It is difficult for your product labels to stand out on the retail shelf these days. There is so much competition in every product category, how can you create a label that will be noticed? You need high quality design as well as excellent print quality, that much is a given. But if you really want to create some buzz around your product, you should try and do something unique. This article provides several breakthrough product label ideas that will really help you stand out from the crowd.
1. Tell a Story
If you buy a bottle of vitaminwater® you will notice that featured on their labels is a fun little story related to their product. They are in the ultra-competitive beverage industry and even though the name suggests a health drink they have decided to create a fun image for themselves with these clever stories on their label.
Here is an example of what they do. This is from their multi-v lemonade label:
remember "the jetsons"? all they had to do was push a button to get dressed, microwave a pill to eat a three course meal and throw astro out on that treadmill thingy to walk him. talk about the good life.
well, we created this all-in-one product, containing more of the nutrients you need, from vitamin a to zinc. think of it as a drinkable swiss army knife. ok, so we didn’t invent the flying car or legless robot maids, but come on… like that’s even gonna happen.
Notice the liberal use of slang, the all lowercase text and the conversational tone. People actually enjoy reading these labels. While vitaminwater® is a great example of using a fun story to develop a brand, they have missed an opportunity to really build on this. The problem is that when you have read the story once you would probably never glance at it again. It does give the brand a fun feel but it could be much more. Why not have several different stories for each flavor, so that each time someone purchased a bottle they could read something new. People might be motivated to buy more than one bottle at a time, to collect the different stories.
There are so many freelance writers out there that would jump at the chance to work on a project like this. You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars – you could even hire a student. Have dozens of these short stories or anecdotes and you will be creating something that is truly different. You just need to allocate a small space on your label and then when we print your labels we would print a different story on each label.
2. Adapt the Fortune Cookie Idea
If creating these short stories seems like too much then you can still create an impact with short sayings. When we go out for Chinese food, at the end of the meal we get the bill and some fortune cookies. We all love to crack open the cookie and read the little saying inside. Most often the sayings are all different and we can get a good laugh out of them. This idea can be adapted on your product label.
You could have a different saying on every one of your products on the shelf. You could spend an afternoon brainstorming with a couple of people and come up with dozens
of these sayings. Alternatively, you could
use quotable quotes from famous people.
There are plenty of places online that list
these and you could incorporate them into
your product label. To be most effective
you should have at least 100 – this way you
would be unlikely to get two products with
the same quote on the shelf together.
People will look forward to buying your
product to see what pearls of wisdom will
be on the label today. Whether you decide
to go with the fortune cookie idea or the
famous quotes, this is an easy way to be different
without impacting your current label
design. You only need a small amount
of room on your label, and you can create
some real curiosity about your products.
3. A Product Label “Photo Album”
Many product labels feature some kind of
photo. But why have the same photo on every
one of your labels? You could take advantage
of the wealth of online stock photo
libraries and have a different photo on each
label.
Say you make sunscreen and you have a
photo of a sunny beach on your label. This
is what you can do. Go to an online stock
photography site like iStockPhoto.com and
search for the kind of photo you want. In
January, 2008 a search for “sunny beach”
returned over 14,000 photos. You could
download several hi-res photos for just a few
dollars each, and your product labels could
feature several attractive photos rather than
the same one. The fact that no one else is
doing this will add to the impact of the different photos on your labels.
You don’t need to buy photos – you could
make your product label more personal by
featuring photos of your business. For the
sunscreen company you could show pictures
of employees frolicking on the beach, different
beaches in your area, or famous beaches
of the world. Give each photo a caption and
you have a new product label concept that
will be uniquely yours.
There is one company that is using different
photos successfully on their product - Jones
Soda. Every bottle of Jones Soda has a different
photo on it. They have their customers
send in photos, a great way to cut down expense
and get your customers more involved
in your product.
4. Run a Competition
You could use a part of your label to run a
competition with your customers. Here is
an example of what you could do. Provide
simple instructions and print a random 10
digit code on every label. Instruct your customer
go to your web site to enter in this
code to see if they win. There would be a
different 10 digit code on every label. On
the home page of your site you could have
an area where your customer can enter this
10 digit code.
The best part about doing something like
this is that you can start to gather some
marketing information. You could try and
capture an email address and other personal
information once they have entered the
code. There is a double benefit here. First,
you have a committed customer exploring
your web site and second you can have this
customer enter information that will allow
you to market to them in the future. You will
have easily created a marketing database.
5. Numbered Labels
Polin&Polin is a small winery in the Hunter
Valley wine growing region in Australia. Every
bottle of wine sold by Polin&Polin has a
unique number on it. They like to emphasize
that they are a small, family owned winery
and this helps them achieve that goal.
Now, this would work for many products
other than wine. If you want to emphasize
the fact that your product is handcrafted,
not mass produced, you could do the same
thing. Just add a little note: “Bottle X of
1500” (we can do the consecutive numbering
here) to your product label.
Promote Your New Product Labels
If you go to the trouble of creating a breakthrough
product label you need to tell the
world what you are doing. So few companies
are creating individualized labels, you may
well be the first company in your industry
to take this approach with your labeling.
So this is a great opportunity to try and get
some publicity for your products.
In ten years time there could be many products
on the shelf leveraging the power of
digital label printing by making every product
label different. This new trend has not
even begun yet, so if you start now you will
probably be breaking new ground in your industry.
You can make individualized labels a
key part of your brand. In today’s competitive
marketplace it is so difficult to be different
– with digital label printing you can
create a product label that is truly unique.
Who was it that decided that every label for
a particular product should be exactly the
same? With the power of digital label printing
we no longer have to live by that rule.
There is a huge opportunity here for enterprising
companies to create something completely
new in the world of product labels.