Lightning Labels Blog

Earlier this month over 100,000 businesses around the country received a QR code sticker from Google that looks like the one here. These stickers were sent to the most popular businesses in Google's Local Business Center database. The idea is for companies to stick this postcard sized sticker in their front window.

I have written about QR codes before here and here. For a quick recap, QR codes are two dimensional barcodes that use the cameras in smartphones to direct people to web sites. You can see the QR code in the bottom right corner of Google's sticker. QR codes are very popular in Japan, and no doubt after this move by Google they will become more popular in this country.

Why would Google spend all this money sending these stickers out for free? Of course, they want more traffic to their web site. When you scan the QR code in these stickers, it takes you to the local listing for the business on Google with reviews, photos, and perhaps coupons.

It will be interesting to see how much this really spurs adoption of QR codes here. I can see a day in the not too distant future where most businesses have one of these stickers in their front window.

Now, you don't have to wait for Google to send you one, you can create your own QR code sticker that directs people to your web site right now. You can create a graphic file of your QR code by using a QR code generator site such as Delivr or Kaywa. Then you can print it yourself or, of course, Lightning Labels will be happy to print these stickers for you.

Resources

Google Favorite Places coming to window near you - cnet news

Google Favorite Places - Google

Scannable Retail Stickers to Extend Google's Local Presence - Clickz

This entry was posted December 21st, 2009 by Peter Renton in Digital Printing, Future Technology, Personalization, Variable Data Labels | No Comments »

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.

This entry was posted October 27th, 2009 by Peter Renton in Beer Labels, Variable Data Labels | No Comments »