Lightning Labels Blog

Hearing From a Happy Customer

For those of you who read The Lightning Flash, our quarterly newsletter, you will know that we get a lot of unsolicited testimonials here at Lightning Labels. Well yesterday we received a wonderful email from a new customer. I don't normally share these, but this one delighted us so much that I wanted to share it with our blog readers:

I must say, I am so impressed and grateful for your incredible service.  Lightning Labels really does run circles around the competition, both in terms of service and quality of workmanship.  I've used two other label printing companies in the past 6 months and my experiences with those companies ranged from ordinary to downright unacceptable in terms of quality and service.  So, after receiving another set of 'spot on' press proofs today - and so quickly after placing my request - I decided that Lightning Labels shall be our preferred short run label supplier from this point onward.  Thanks and congratulations on such a fine job.

We strive to be the best digital label printer in the country, so it is gratifying to hear from customers like this. With all the hard work everyone does here, it is reassuring to hear such positive comments. 

A Unique Holiday Gift Idea

There are now less than 30 shopping days left until Christmas - but for those seeking corporate gifts there is even less time. Here is a simple idea for you that will be really appreciated by your customers or employees. I am talking about custom labeled wine as a Holiday gift. Lightning Labels has partnered with local Colorado winery, Bookcliff Vineyards, to bring you this special program.

To find out details about the program you can call Bookcliff Vineyards at 303-499-7301 or you can read their blog post about it. Above is an example of a wine label we have printed the last couple of years for the Flagstaff Star. Our in-house designer can help you create your very own design, so your gift can be truly unique. There is still time to order your custom labeled wine this Holiday Season, so why not do something different for your clients or employees this year.

A Label and Packaging Makeover

At the L&NW Symposium last week there were several excellent presentations. One that particularly caught my attention was a presentation titled Packaging and the Premium Brand Image by Barry Sanel of Cadbury-Schweppes. As part of this presentation Barry discussed in detail one of the packaging makeovers he was involved with - for the Nantucket Nectars brand.

Above is a photograph of the Nantucket Nectar brand before the packaging makeover. As you can see there are two different types of bottles and three different sizes of labels. The label styles are also different for the different product lines, but this was confusing for the consumer. What Barry and his team did was create one bottle type for all flavors and then a consistent approach to the labeling.

Before the makeover, you had to really look for the flavor, whereas afterwards the flavor is featured at the top of the label and is easy to see as you just glance at the bottle. They also hired an artist to create a consistent graphic look with each label - a simple graphic encompassing the flavor with a scene from Nantucket Island as the background. They did all this while maintaining and enhancing the look and feel of the brand.

With just a casual glance at the before and after pictures here you can tell that the makeover is a vast improvement. But nothing really matters other than what the market thinks. The results of this makeover was an increase in sales of 25%, which was directly attributable to the packaging - there were no changes in the marketing of the product during this time.

So, I encourage you to take a look at your selection of products. Does all your labels and packaging have a consistent look and feel? If not then maybe it is time for a label and packaging makeover.

The 2nd Annual Label Symposium

The second annual Label Symposium sponsored by Label & Narrow Web magazine begins this evening in New Brunswick, NJ. I was invited to be one of the presenters, so tomorrow I will be giving a presentation titled "Marketing for the 21st Century Converter". I will be covering everything from email, search engine marketing to RSS feeds and of course, blogs. We have grown Lightning Labels through some of the techniques I will discuss. Of course, I won't be giving away all our secrets, this will be just an overview of some of the new marketing techniques that any business can employ today.

Upside Down Wine Labels

I stumbled across this wine label last week and I thought it was pretty cool. It is such a simple idea and a great way to stand out on the shelf in the liquor store. The wine is called Kono Baru and it is from California wine maker Don Sebastiani & Sons. The wine pictured here is their Malbec, from the mountainous regions of Argentina.

The label designer used a simple technique of making the label appear upside down. The only part of the label that is not upside down is the blue box that is made to look like a tear off label. The blue label says "intentionally misplaced labels from well placed vineyards throughout the Southern Hemisphere." So they are making an obvious play on "down under" by using the upside down label. There are several varieties of Kono Baru and they all are sourced from vineyards in Chile, Argentina or Australia.

Making an upside down label wouldn't work for every product, but it works well here for these wine labels. They have kept the design simple and plain, which adds to the visual impact. There is an obvious reason why the labels are upside down and it becomes an integral part of the brand for this wine.

HP Improves Ink Manufacturing Process

I never really discussed here the ink we use in printing our labels. As you probably know we have two HP-Indigo WS4500 presses - the leading digital label printing press in the world. These presses use a very different ink from any other printing press. It is called ElectroInk, HP's patented liquid ink technology. This process uses electrical charges to control the location of the ink and it can print particles as small as one micron, smaller than competing digital printing technologies.

Anyway, last month HP announced that they have improved the manufacturing process involved in the production of this ink. They have designed new equipment to manufacture the inks that reduces the amount of energy needed by around 40%. This comes at a good time because the demand for digital printing is increasing rapidly. Here at Lightning Labels we are using almost double the amount of ink that we used just one year ago. HP is committed to reducing its energy use by 20% by 2010, so this announcement will certainly help that goal.