“Stand out or die” – creative labels

In an era of high competition on the market, an idea for existence is important. A significant part of purchasing decisions is made at the store shelf – products have only a few seconds to be noticed, remembered and selected by the customer. It is obvious that product packaging is an important factor in making purchasing decisions, but what about labels?

The thing that the customer buys is not only the product itself, but also its entire “envelope”, i.e. the size of the packaging, its shape, colors and label. Both packaging and label design are a complex process that should be properly thought out.

Labels should be created in such a way as to encourage an undecided customer to buy this particular product. It fulfills not only information functions, but also creates the desired image of the product.

In the era of self-service stores, the art is to create something unique with relatively low financial outlays. Therefore, the use of labels for marketing purposes takes on a new meaning. And there is plenty to choose from, because there are many types: matte, glossy, paper, thermosensitive, saturated with colors, or those that focus on minimalism. It is important, however, that the label matches the specifics of the product.

An interesting way to attract customers is personalized labels. Coca-Cola recently came up with this idea, producing labels with names and various diminutives. Additionally, the possibility of creating labels on the customer’s individual order was introduced. Initially, 150 names that are the most popular in Poland were printed, but after the great success of the marketing campaign, it was decided to expand their range.

The campaign was very well received by consumers – social media was flooded with photos of personalized bottles, and an increase in Coca-Cola sales was also noted.

Nutella created a similar marketing campaign – the jar labels included not only names, but also “mom”, “dad”, “sister”, or – similarly to Coca-Cola – various diminutives. The possibility of creating a unique label is a way to create an emotional bond between the customer and the brand.

However, this is the bright side of the coin – to make it not so sweet, we must mention the “list of forbidden words” introduced by the Ferrero concern. Some consumers gave vent to their “creativity” in a rather unusual way.

They asked to produce labels with inscriptions such as: “Jew”, “lesbian”, “cancer”, “diabetes”, or “orangutan” – the latter refers to palm oil, which is found in the composition of Nutella, and the production of which leads to the extinction of this species. Wanting to avoid controversy, the concern of course firmly refused to produce this type of label.