Last week the Bevlaw blog discussed these Molson beer labels. This "Answer Honestly" campaign has been going on for over a year now and it seems to have been successful. Molson have been putting in hundreds of different beer label applications with different wording on the labels to the TTB.
I hadn't noticed these labels before so I stopped by my local liquor store and picked up a six pack of Molson Golden. Then I snapped the photo above in my office this morning. You get the idea here. Each beer in my six pack had a different question on the label. You are given two options with neither option being particularly appealing. It is obviously designed to provoke conversations in bars and living rooms while you enjoy a cold Molson beer.
I have discussed before this idea of using variable data labels as a way to differentiate your brand and this is precisely what Molson has done. Although, I had my press operators take a close look at these labels under a magnifying lupe and it doesn't look like they are printing these digitally, or at least not on an HP-Indigo press. The sharpness of the text is not up to HP-Indigo quality.
Molson is a very big brewery with long labels runs so no doubt they could probably print these labels conventionally, even if they have 200 or more different versions. Regardless of the print method, I applaud Molson for having a bit of fun with their labels and creating a talking point by using variable data.
With digital label printing technology, you don't have to print large label quantities to take advantage of this concept. Any company can decide to create many unique sayings on their labels, to give their labels a bit more punch. It is so difficult to stand out these days on the retail shelf, giving your labels an edge like this can help you differentiate yourself from your competition.
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