I completely agree with packaging design blog TheDieLine.com that these special Halloween edition cans from Jones Soda feature truly creative designs. If you hurry, you might be lucky enough to find some of these collectors' items in the candy aisle of your local Target store.
Pepsi created its own "spooky" cans
this year but the designs fall flat IMHO. What do you think? If you
want to check out the Pepsi designs in person, they are being sold in
Wal-Mart stores.
Most small business owners don't think about branding very much. We assume that it is for the big companies like Coke and Pepsi to worry about, not something that a small business just trying to survive needs to concerns themselves with. Wrong. If you are selling products then you are creating a brand. Your brand is what differentiates you from your competition in the minds of your customers.
Now, here at Lightning Labels we are not branding experts, but we do look at hundreds of labels every day and we can tell those companies that thought about branding when designing their product labels. The photo above is from a company called Natural Sundae, who make natural aromatherapy products. If you look closely at the labels you will see a consistent look between their product lines - this is a key ingredient in creating a strong brand.
To learn more about branding here are some resources:
The Practical Guide to Branding (from Business Week magazine)
Branding Blogs (from Label and Narrow Web magazine)
Animals help sell alcoholic beverages. This is not news. AC Nielsen released a report three years ago about this wine
label phenomenon.
What is news is we now have an idea of why using images of kangaroos, penguins, frogs, dogs, and other animals to peddle our products from store shelves has been so successful. A new study by University of Chicago Booth School of Business professor Aparna Labroo, Ravi Dhar of Yale University, and Norbert Schwartz of the University of Michigan suggests consumers buy products with labels that reflect the consumer, not the product. The findings of the report go against the traditional branding strategy of designing labels based on what the product is about.
The next time you walk down a wine or beer aisle, look closely at the bottle labels. In a wine aisle, you will find many labels depicting grapes, vineyards, and the countries where the wines are produced in. In a beer aisle, you will see many product labels featuring different types of grains and words describing beer. These images give the consumer information about the product behind the label, i.e., what the product is made from, how it tastes, and where it was produced. The makers of these beverages are following the traditional branding strategy of designing product labels based on the product itself. During that same stroll down the wine or beer aisle, will also notice a number of bottle labels featuring all kinds of animals -- and not just cute, fuzzy things such as the black lab on Spanish Peaks Black Dog Ale or the perky penguin on the Little Penguin Shiraz. Some of the critters on these beverage labels are ugly, if not downright menacing. Take the frog on Bad Frog Beer’s product label, for example. Draped over the lettering of the product logo, he stares the consumer straight in the eye and shoots him the middle finger. Why would anyone pick that beer over one of comparable quality and taste?
In an article for Chicago Booth
Magazine about the new study, Vanessa Sumo explains how putting an animal on their product label could help a wine maker build
a better brand. Sumo gives the example of how a woman who frequently sees and hears great things about Kermit the Frog from her son is likely to purchase a bottle of wine with a frog on the label if she has minimal time to make a purchasing decision.
The point is that familiarity with a particular animal on a product label causes a harried shopper to buy that product. The consumer already has a pre-established relationship with a specific animal, and transfers it to the product because of the label. If the same woman featured in Labroo, Dhar, and Schwartz’s study had been shopping for beer, would she have ended up choosing a case of Bad Frog Beer over Spanish Peaks Black Dog Ale? What if she didn’t have a son who adored Kermit the Frog, but a loyal black Labrador retriever instead?
Even if you are not in the wine and beer industry, it might be a good idea to take the findings of this study to heart the next time you re-evaluate your product label design. When was the last time you did that, by the way? I would love to hear if your product packaging design is currently working for you, as well as what -- if any -- changes you have made to your label designs over the years and how they have affected your sales.
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Critter
Labels Taking Over Wine Industry
We have a Whole Foods Market just a mile from where I live and whenever I shop there I enjoy browsing the shelves and looking for products with labels that we printed (there are usually a few). Whole Foods is the holy grail for many makers of natural products, and here at Lightning Labels we have a large number of companies providing these kinds of products. Whole Foods often source locally made products, so even for new companies you have a chance of getting on the shelves there. But how? This week Fortune Small Business tackled this issue, and they provide some very useful advice for any company looking to make it into a big retail store like Whole Foods.
The article covers a range of issues such as when to hire a consultant to help, getting in touch with a Whole Foods "food forager", attending trade shows, and making sure your product stands out from the crowd. If you are graduating from selling your products at the local farmer's market on weekends to Whole Foods, you will need professional looking labels. Your products will look far better with a high quality, durable label than one you printed on your desktop using blank Avery labels you bought at Staples.
Some people start their company with the idea that they want a professional looking product right out of the box. Other people are on a tight budget and want to do everything themselves. But if you want to get in to Whole Foods, printing your labels on your $100 ink jet printer just isn't going to cut it. Once you are ready to make that leap you need a great looking label, so your product launch has the highest possible chance of success.
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