ARTICLE: Consumer Friendly Labels.

“Friendly” labelling is one that provides the consumer with added value and seeks to satisfy all or most of the needs that consumers have when getting to know and buying a product, therefore improving consumer-product interaction.

“Friendly” labelling is a powerful tool to provide the more detailed information that consumers demand and need about the products they buy.

And especially in the food sector where consumers (according to different surveys*) are “quite lost” when trying to understand and comprehend the products’ nutritional information.

By making things easy for the consumer and thinking about a “friendly” label or packaging that also complies with the basic legal requirements regarding information, that helps the consumer to get to know about the product and its composition in a more attractive and simpler way, is a guarantee for success as it is becoming more and more important that the product is “honest, clear and direct” regarding “what it is” and “what it is going to give the consumer”.

According to a study carried out in the USA, the information included in a product has more weight in the consumers’ decision than the information they can get from other sources.

When consumers look for general information about a product, most of them put more faith in the information obtained from the printed label that accompanies the product.

The general trend seems to indicate that consumers more often demand healthier products or products that, without being totally healthy, provide the most complete information possible about what they offer from the nutritional point of view so that the consumer can choose at any time and know what he/she is consuming.

Therefore, the food industry has an excellent opportunity to convert its products (from the packaging and labelling point of view) into “friendly” products that provide information that allows us to understand their nutritional benefits and product composition at a glance.

This information must be clear, simple and make consumer understanding easier.

We shouldn’t forget that the usual information we see on food product labels, despite having improved a lot over the past few years, is still not clear for the majority of consumers.

The tool to capture this information: The product’s label

If, moreover, we want to go a stage further and expand on product information and the possibilities for interaction with the consumer, our interactive labels undoubtedly become the best option to meet the upward trend of more and more demanding consumers.

*News source: http://www.livescience.com/41089-food-labels-front-package-system.html

IPE ADVICE: Annual Labelling Check-up

We are inaugurating a new section with brief advice about labelling and solutions in packaging.

Some of the advice will be about printing formats, recommendations about materials, well, "technical advice".

We will also publish advice focused on themes related to "graphic design for labels" and, lastly, we will talk about other more “marketing-like” themes aimed towards positioning and differentiating products through labelling/packaging.

We leave you with the first piece of advice from this section: ANNUAL CHECK-UP for product LABELLING/PACKAGING.

Just like many other things we do on a personal scale (annual medical check-up, annual car service, etc..) every company that commercialises a product must think about an “annual check-up” for its labelling/packaging.

It is true that this point enters into the company’s marketing and communication goals but, very often, as it is one point within a long list of variables and factor to be considered, this “service” can go unnoticed.

•          How can we protect and improve the visual image of a product?
•         Should we review the packaging from last year and think about new changes?
•          Is the label in line with the brand image and the values we want to transmit?
•          Can the level of packaging/labelling costs and materials be optimised?
•          Are there other applications that we could use?
•          What happens when a competitor imitates our label image and design? Does this weaken or strengthen our image?

............these are just some of the questions that are worthwhile considering to ensure that the labelling/packaging is fulfilling its objectives.

There are currently thousands of materials, different printing techniques, hundreds of finishes and labelling trends, and all of this leads to multiple combinations and that’s why we would recommend you to contact us so that we can help you to find the best solution that best adapts to your labelling needs, both from the technical and conceptual points of view.