Lightning Labels Blog

Use Variable Images for Your Products

Stroll the aisles of any liquor store, supermarket or drug store and you will see hundreds of products with labels vying for your attention. But if you look closely at any one particular product you will also notice that every one of the product labels are identical. Of course, you think, it has to be that way. Well, with today's digital label printing technology that is no longer the case.

You could use "variable imaging" technology on your product labels, to really make your products stand out. With variable imaging every label could be completely unique, you could have a different image on every label. Now. keeping in mind that you probably want to maintain a consistent brand across your labels, you wouldn't want to make every component of the label different, but you could take a portion of your label and use this powerful technology to your advantage.

Let's take a hypothetical example to illustrate this point. Say you sell bottled water under the "Lightning Spring Water" brand, and you have a picture of some lightning featured on the label. What you could do is take 100 or more photographs (photos are very inexpensive to buy now at places like iStockPhoto or BigStockPhoto) and print a random assortment of these on your labels. So on the shelf in the store every bottle of water will have a different photograph.

There are many other products where variable imaging would work very well. In the wine industry, a high percentage of wine sales come from people perusing labels in the liquor store. A wine that had a different image on every label would really stand out from the crowd and you might find people wanting to buy more than one bottle and use it as a talking point.

Children's products provide an even more compelling argument for variable imaging. Picture this situation in the store. You are buying juice for your child, and you want the orange mango flavor. Every label features a different animal, and your child can't choose between the one with the cat, the koala and the penguin. Inevitably you buy a bottle of all three, even though you were really intending on just buying one.

Any company selling products in a retail store can take advantage of variable imaging. The fact is there are virtually no companies doing this right now and if you are the first in your category you will be able to create a buzz. The potential for word of mouth marketing here is huge - the different labels could become a compelling reason to buy your product. I predict this will become common place within 5 years so the first companies to take advantage of variable imaging will have a head start on everyone else.

The 2007 Wacky Warning Labels Contest

The tenth annual Wacky Warning Label Contest has recently announced their winners. This a contest that is held every year by the Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch to highlight the ridiculous lengths that product manufacturers go to protect themselves from frivolous lawsuits.

The winning entry this year was the warning label above which was adhered to a washing machine at a laundromat. The label reads: "DO NOT put any person in this washer."

There were several runner-up entries. Here they are for your enjoyment:

• In the manual for a personal watercraft describing the removal of the fuel tank cap: "Never use a lit match or open flame to check fuel level."
• On the back of a Super Lotto ticket: "Do not iron."
• On a cell phone: "Don't try to dry your cell phone in a microwave oven."
• On a local Yellow Pages phone book: "Please do not use this directory while operating a moving vehicle."

Personalize Your Cover of Wired Magazine

In the July issue of Wired magazine, Xerox and Wired are teaming up to create personalized covers for Wired subscribers. This is how it will work. The first 5,000 subscribers to upload a 4x6 inch photo will receive their July issue in the mail with their own photo on the cover. The covers will be printed on Xerox digital presses and combined with the regular magazine content.

As a proponent of digital printing I love this idea. Now it has nothing directly to do with labels but this concept could just as easily be applied to product labels (see my article about Leveraging Digital Label Printing). I am talking about mass personalization with digital printing. Anyone selling a product online could add this personalization capability to their label. You would just need a relatively simple web site and a partnership with a digital label printer such as Lightning Labels. You could charge a premium for this personalization because a personalized label has a much higher perceived value than just a regular label.

We are moving into a world where this mass personalization is going to become common place. But right now we are at the very beginning of this new trend. The technology is all in place, but it is only the forward thinking companies that are jumping in. You can certainly add value and loyalty in the eyes of your customers by being the first in your industry to adopt this mass personalization.

Multiple Label Versions Key for Best Pricing

One of the major advantages of digital label printing is the ability to gang-run multiple label versions together. With traditional flexographic printing, every different label would be a separate job and would work its way through the printing workflow as a standalone job. With digital label printing it is quite common to have dozens of different label versions printed together on the same job.

If you want to order short runs of multiple label versions, then you really have no option but to have them printed digitally, particularly if they are full color labels. With plates running anywhere from $40 - $70 for each color, multiple label versions can quickly become very expensive.

Here at Lightning Labels we charge just $5 for every additional label version of the same sized label using the same material. To take an example, say you have 10 different label versions and you just want to order 100 of each for a total of 1,000 labels. You would pay just $45 more (9 times $5 - the first version is free) than if you ordered just one version of 1,000. These prices are calculated automatically for you on our Instant Online Label Quoter.

Gang-running multiple label versions together will ensure you get the best price for your labels. We regularly do label jobs where there are more than 100 label versions on the one job. These customers know the pricing benefits of running multiple label versions together.