3 Reasons That Custom Product Labels Matter

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Business owners of all industries have experienced intense change and uncertainty during the last year. As we’ve learned to adapt to changing markets, supply shortages, and an increasingly online marketplace, many aspects of business ownership have fallen by the wayside. As we start to rebuild and return to a new normal, it’s important to remember the priorities that we have set aside during the last year.

One such priority is product labeling. Though labels may seem like a small aspect of your product, they actually have the power to make or break your entire industry.

Below are some reasons that product labeling is essential to running a successful business enterprise.

RELATED ARTICLE: 5 Questions to Ask Before Designing Your Custom Label

1. Labels Solidify Your Brand

Perhaps the most important way that labels can affect your business is by solidifying your brand. Cohesive branding is essential to creating customer recognition and loyalty. If your labels are generic, or if they don’t accurately reflect your company’s brand, customers are unlikely to associate your product with your business’s values and model.

Let’s say that your company produces sustainably sourced CBD. If you don’t have a cohesive brand that extends to your product labels, consumers won’t see your CBD and remember your sustainability promise. They’ll just see another CBD product and will likely be uninspired to pick yours over another company.

2. Labels Sell Your Product

It’s incredible how many people end up making product decisions based on the label alone. Because the market is saturated with choices, many products end up being fairly similar in ingredients and price. When consumers are comparing two products with similar price tags and no discernable difference in quality, they are likely to simply choose the one with the better label.

3. Labels Sing Your Praises

Many companies have things that make them great. However, without proper research, many customers don’t know about these great qualities. Take the CBD example from above. Being a sustainably sourced company is wonderful, and this could very well be a selling point for your product. However, if your labels are generic and don’t include information about sustainability efforts, how are customers supposed to know what sets you apart? You have to remember that many consumers are finding your products on store shelves or online retailers like Amazon, so your company information is not always included. Labels can bridge that information gap and ensure that you are capitalizing on your desired market.

RELATED ARTICLE: You’ve Created a Healthy, Delicious Snack – Here’s How to Label It

Custom Product Labels from Century Label

For custom labels that stand out, contact the experts at Century Label. No matter your industry, we can professionally print labels that can help boost your company’s business.

5 Questions to Ask Before Designing Your Custom Label

So, you have a great product. However, there’s still one thing left to do—one important factor that can make or break the start of your business. It will help get customers’ attention and help them recognize your product in an instant—it’s your custom label!

RELATED ARTICLE: You’ve Created a Healthy, Delicious Snack – Here’s How to Label It

But you can’t just put any labels on your product. In fact, you have to consider a lot of things even in the designing phase. In this post, you will find questions that you need to ask yourself (and find answers to) when choosing the right custom label design for your products.

What is the product?

Determining the type of product is crucial in the design phase. You have to consider many things like: Is it food or is it a luxury item? When it comes to the design phase of a certain item, we have to consider its color. Food is associated with red, while luxury items are associated with black. This helps customers recognize and categorize the product in an instant.

Who are the buyers of the product?

Who are the consumers that you are catering to with your product? Women or men? Young or adult? It’s important to put a focus on the design that will capture the attention of your target consumers. For example, if you are selling to adults aged 40 and above, you should consider using fonts that are larger than usual.

Who is your competition?

It is indeed important to stand out, but too much uniqueness can isolate your product. Over the years, ketchup has been known to be packaged in see-through bottles that enhance its red color. Now, if you put ketchup in a bottle that is fully labeled with a different color just to be different from the others, chances are that consumers won’t even look at your product.

You have to stay in the category of the appearance of your product—just enough for customers to recognize what it is at the first glance. You have to consider the color, the branding, and the overall appearance. You have to stand out but not to the point that your product will be uncategorized.

What is the first thing you notice when you see your label?

When designing your label or brand logo, you have to ensure that its first impression will make a long-lasting impact on the customers. What is the first thing you see on the label? Don’t get so caught up with the design phase that you forget how others will perceive your brand.

Is all the information correct?

A label must include all the necessary information there is about the product for many reasons. Ingredients, nutritional value, warnings, materials—these are the usual things that are written on the label to inform consumers. Mislabeling can damage your business’s reputation, so transparency and honesty are crucial.

RELATED ARTICLE: Does Your Label Truly Enhance Your Organic Product?

At Century Label, your brand is our business! We have specialized in the quality printing of custom labels and packaging since 1980. If you have any questions about the design process for your next project, contact us today to speak to one of our customer experience professionals.

6 Do's and Don’ts of Incorporating Foil Elements into Your Product Label

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There’s just something about that extra shine a metallic element can lend to a product label. That glimmer serves to catch the eye, draw attention to the most important elements of the label, and accentuate an already crisp or beautiful design. Best of all, it makes your custom product label stand out among many others on the shelf.

RELATED ARTICLE: Are Pressure-Sensitive Labels Right for Your Brand?

While it’s true that metallic foil can bring just about any label to the next level, it’s important to use this design element wisely. Here are a few do’s and don’ts of incorporating foil into your product labels:

1. Do: Use foil predominantly for background or decorative elements. Foil is meant to grab the attention and highlight important elements of your label. Avoid foiling large swaths of label space – use foil judiciously and highlight areas you’d like to draw the reader’s eye. 

2. Don’t: Risk losing the integrity of your logo. Of course, your logo is your most important branding element, and you want plenty of customer attention directed towards it. However, more intricate logos can be more difficult to recognize when foiled over. Unless your logo is primarily gold or silver to begin with, avoid making your logo unintelligible with too much foil.

3. Do: Consider the finish of your foil. After your label is printed, you can apply an additional laminate layer to help deliver the look you want. Depending on whether you want eye-catching shine or a more sophisticated brushed metal look, choose a high-gloss or matte laminate.

4. Don’t: Muddle small text with foil. Your smallest text is already a challenge to keep legible, and you risk compounding this issue by making your text metallic. Shimmery text is difficult to differentiate from the background – especially if the background is light in color. If this is the case for your label, save foil for highlights or larger label elements.

5. Do: Keep your color palette simple. While cold foil labels and a Flexographic press give us the ability to choose any ink color in the rainbow and make it metallic, too much of a good thing is still too much. When you’re incorporating metallic foils into your label, keep your color palette to two or three colors. Keeping it simple will ensure your label is legible and allow the elegant foil to truly shine.

6. Don’t: Mix up your foil label options. While hot stamp labeling requires the use of a metal die (custom cast to your specifications), it can be used on embossed or textured paper, thick labels, or product tags. Meanwhile, cold foil labeling is only suitable for smooth substrates but can be used in longer runs on a Flexographic press.

RELATED ARTICLE: What Do Consumers Expect In a ‘Clean Label?’

If you’d like more information about both hot stamp and cold foil labeling and how to incorporate foil into your next label design, call on the pros at Century Label. Call 800.537.9420 or contact us online today.

3 Tips for Boosting Your Marketing Strategy with Custom Labels

Much of current research demonstrates the importance of labels when it comes to consumer choices. Why, then, would some business choose not to invest in high-quality, custom labels to draw consumers' attention? One major reason could be that they just haven't realized (yet) what a huge impact they can have on sales. 

The following tips should be useful for those businesses still on the fence and for those already thinking about boosting their marketing strategy with custom labels.

1. Custom Labels Help Your Product Shine

Your product should be eye-catching, and you only have a matter of seconds to catch the average consumer's attention. The product label is likely the easiest aspect of your product to customize for these purposes. What makes your product different from others like it on the market? This question can be easily addressed with labeling. Use it to ensure your product stands out.

RELATED ARTICLE: How Century Label Helped Three Clients Adjust to COVID-19

Readability is key in creating an enticing label. Bold lettering and bright colors automatically draw the eye, as does simple design. The goal is to hold your customer's attention for long enough to look at it in greater detail.

2. Increase Customer Engagement

Now that you have your customer's attention, it's important to persuade them to purchase your product over others. This is why it's so important to include information unique to your product on the labeling.  Is it made entirely from recycled materials? Does it have an interesting backstory? Is it a family recipe or tradition? These are the sorts of things that compel consumers to choose one brand over a competitor's.

RELATED ARTICLE: Packaging: What Appeals to Customers

Which unique identifying information to include in your label will also depend largely on the target demographic for your product. Is your demographic more likely to be persuaded by logic or emotions? Figuring that out will be a good guide toward choosing how to structure your label.

3. Shipping Label Upgrades

Just because you might not sell at a brick-and-mortar location, it doesn't mean you shouldn't pay attention to the entire design of your product as it's shipped to consumers. Having your brand appear in more than one place on your packaging also increases your brand recognition immediately, as opposed to plain cardboard packaging. Online retailers have a great opportunity with their shipping labels to increase their brand's recognition along with consumer confidence.

RELATED ARTICLE: Switching to Delivery and Takeout Only? Ensure Safe Products with TamperSeal Labels

Put in Your Request for Custom Labels Today

When you’re ready to redesign your label to boost your marketing campaign, talk with Century Label. We have years of experience to guide you and ensure your brand is standing out among the competition.

Custom Label Options: How Should I Label My Craft Beer for Sale?

Thousands of Americans try craft brewing their own beers each year, and some of them find their homemade brews so delicious they want to bottle and sell them to local taverns and other retailers. A craft brewery can become a wonderful side gig for some or transform into a new full-blown business for others. If you’re interested in trying to create your own craft beer, you should know what to expect if you develop a brew you want to commercialize.

Labeling Your Craft Beer

If you want people to buy your craft beer, develop an eye-catching label that not only provides consumers with all the product information required for your beer, such as alcohol content by volume and dietary restriction warnings, but also an attractive and unique design that sets your craft beer apart. Decide whether to bottle your beer or can it, and then choose an appropriate labeling format. Here are some things to consider when thinking about craft beer labels.

• Cut-and-stack labels are the most common and the most versatile. While this option provides lots of room for creativity in terms of paper and film choice and neck and body wrapper sizes, it does require a large upfront investment in the specialized machinery required to apply the labels.

• Pressure sensitive labels are essentially stickers, available in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. This is a great entry-level option for new craft beer brewers that allows them to quickly and easily apply labels to their bottles. However, they sometimes wrinkle and bubble and generally require very smooth bottle surfaces. Pressure sensitive labels also require specialized machinery.

• Shrink sleeve labels have a higher price point than other labeling varieties, but they can offer stellar results that look great. This is also the only suitable option for labeling aluminum cans. Craft brewers who want 360-degree branding on their beverage containers may want to consider shrink sleeve labeling.

RELATED ARTICLE: How to Use Your Label to Tell a Story

If you plan to commercialize your new craft beer, consider your labeling options carefully and find something that fits your budget as well as your vision for your new beer line.

Additional Considerations for Your Craft Beer

When you consider your options for labeling your new craft beer, you need to think about more than just the style and type of label you want. It’s also vital to consider how your ideal graphics will look on different labeling substrates, the environmental impact of your labeling process, where you will be shipping and selling your craft beer, and the overall cost of labeling.

RELATED ARTICLE: What’s Ahead: Custom Labeling Trends for 2020

Century Label has extensive experience providing professional labeling services for all types of products, including craft beers. If you are stuck when it comes to deciding on a labeling system for your new craft beer, contact Century Label for more information about the different types of labels we offer and find out how our team can help.

What’s Ahead: Custom Labeling Trends for 2020

2019 was a year of contrasts on the packaging and label front – not that you’d expect anything else from an industry that regularly devotes itself to fine-tuning the precise shade that will really make a label’s text stand out.

Among 2019’s custom labeling trends were:

• Vintage. This aesthetic was adopted by brands from haircare to food and beverage giants, and showcased fonts and graphics that have been described as everything from nostalgic and retro to careworn and weathered.

  RELATED ARTICLE: How to Use Nostalgia in Your Label Design

• Modern. From sleek black text to stark white or translucent labeling, the modern aesthetic reigned supreme on many major packaging designs throughout the year.

• Natural. Industries from cannabis and CBD to personal hygiene went with a more rugged, neutral colored design for both packaging and labeling.

• Bright. Pantone’s Color of the Year for 2019 was Living Coral, inspiring an array of this and other bright colors for many rebrands and limited edition packaging designs.

RELATED ARTICLE: What Does Your Brand Color Palette Say About Your Business?

What’s Ahead for Custom Labels and Flexible Packaging in 2020?

Though we can expect trends like vintage, modern, and natural to persist into the next year, what other trends are likely to arise once 2020 begins? So far, 2020 promises to usher in a whole new era of contrasts in packaging and labeling. 2020’s emerging trends include:

• Bold eclecticism. Eclectic simply means “deriving style from a diverse range of sources”, and that’s exactly what 2020 will mean for many industries. Expect to see a combination of a few of 2019’s trends when more and more packaging features clean, stark backgrounds with a pop of bright colors and die cuts.

• Sustainability. The demand for more sustainable packaging is at an all-time high as consumers want to lessen their impact on the environment. In addition to using actual recycled materials, consumers want their packaging to look sustainable, promoting the rise of natural cardboard and rustic colors.

• Personalization. Limited-run shrink wrap and label printing for special events, seasons, and many more occasions promises to be big in 2020. This trend capitalizes on the nostalgia market from last year, providing a source of collectible memorabilia for many brands moving forward.

• Transparency. The clean label movement aims at disclosing and removing artificial ingredients from food and beverage by 2020. For the labeling industry, this means a shift to highlighting desirable ingredients on the front of packaging. Innovations such as responsive labeling give consumers a better picture of the lifespan and factory origins of the product.

While these will certainly not be the only trends that arise as 2020 elapses, they’re some of the major shifts occurring at the end of 2019. Stay tuned to this blog for more details as more information emerges.

If you’re interested in applying some of the newest trends to your brand’s labeling, reach out to Century Label today for more information about our custom label printing services.

What Custom Labels Say About Your Specialty Food

Specialty food is an expansive market offering unique and high-end food items made in small batches. These items generally contain higher quality ingredients and often have limited availability. Those that are venturing into the business of making or distributing specialty foods need a custom specialty food label. This niche is all about quality, value and exclusivity—and nothing sends the message quite like a beautiful custom label.

Conquer Branding

Custom labels give brand owners the chance to make their product one of a kind. They showcase the brand’s voice, tone and aesthetic in a way that sets the product apart from the other items on the shelf. Custom labels can help maintain a consistent brand image across channels by using the same color scheme as, for example, the product website, logo or artwork.

RELATED ARTICLE: 4 Benefits of Private Labeling for Your Brand

Establish High Product Value

Custom labeling is the perfect match for specialty food marketing. Custom labels ooze quality and class, giving products a high-value appearance. Since customers spend more on specialty foods than they would on their standard counterparts, they expect a top-quality experience with gorgeous custom labels.

Get Attention from the Right Customers

Product labels can appeal to a specific demographic. Keeping the label’s design minimalist, for instance, can appeal to a millennial audience. Designing custom labels to match a target audience can help boost lead engagement and, of course, the bottom line. Products can speak to the exact audience the brand owner is targeting.

RELATED ARTICLE: How to Use Color Psychology in Your Favor

Cultivate Brand Loyalty

Allowing customers to see into a brand is a great way to promote company loyalty. Custom labeling shows off brand personality, which leads to the customer feeling closer to the brand and becoming more willing to stay loyal. They will be able to recognize food products and differentiate them from others easily. Humanizing a specialty food company with custom labels can keep shoppers coming back for more.

Beat the Competition

Custom labels and shrink sleeves will give brands a unique flair and make them easy to distinguish from everything else on a shelf. The label evokes unique feelings in customers that differentiate products from the competition. Designing bright, creative and eye-catching custom labels is the best way to overshadow competition and move to the top of a niche.

Your Brand is Our Business - Let’s Get Started

The design team at Century Label is ready to help you take your vision and apply it to your specialty food product. We will take you through every step of the process, preserving the integrity of your brand and using high-quality printing techniques.

Our customer care specialists are standing by to make sure every order is exactly the way you imagined it, ensuring your satisfaction. Request a quote today to get started on your own quest for specialty food marketing success.

Market with Custom Specialty Beverage Labels

One of the most effective ways to improve the brand recognition of a specialty beverage is by designing a unique, custom label. The industry of specialty beverages is notorious in its use of attractive, attention-grabbing labels to improve visibility among consumers. Whether we’re talking about marketing craft beers, wines or spirits, the following tips will help create a specialty beverage label that boosts the branding and marketing of the beverage itself.

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Century produced shrink bands and pressure sensitive labels for Hella’s Founders Collection.

Choose a Theme

Specialty beverages generally use captivating labels to stand out among other products and garner the attention from potential consumers. This can make creating a unique brand and label challenging.

The best strategy is not to worry about what others are doing and craft a personlized theme for the brand and product. Then, use the right colors, images, and materials to create that specific theme. For example, Hella Cocktail Co. uses a minimalistic set of hat and glasses, as well as old-time lettering to evoke a unique, vintage feeling that stands out to the customer.

RELATED ARTICLE: Custom Bottle Labels That Stand Out from a Crowd

Tell a Story

While using creative imagery, lettering and themes to make a label stand out is important, it’s not enough. Engage the customer directly by providing information about the product. This information can highlight the unique varietals that the beverage offers. Alternatively, share the origin story of the brewery or the specific product. Consider the target audience and determine what kind of information they would appreciate.

Go the Extra Mile

When selling specialty beverages online and shipping them directly to the customer, make sure to use custom labeling to make the experience a unique one. A unique or specialized label targeted to the consumer will show special attention to detail and consideration that will make your business stand out from others. Add labeling to the package itself to boost brand recognition and impress the customer from the moment he or she receives the beverage.

Consider Quality

The design and information included on specialty drink labels is crucial in attracting consumers, but also consider the quality of the labels—use labels that are resistant to a multitude of conditions and environments. Also, they need to provide color and design options that accommodate your label ideas, as well as be ready on time and at a reasonable cost. Century Label can provide all of these features.

The sky’s the limit in choosing to market specialty drinks. Search for labels that fit a specific graphic designs, but also are affordable, made from reliable materials and available in a timely manner.

Your Brand is Our Business - Let’s Get Started

The design team at Century Label is ready to help you take your vision and apply it to your specialty beverage packaging. We will take you through every step of the process, preserving the integrity of your brand and using high-quality printing techniques.

Our customer care specialists are standing by to make sure every order is exactly the way you imagined it, ensuring your satisfaction. Request a quote today to get started on your own quest for specialty beverage marketing success.

High-Quality Custom Product Labels That Dissolve in 30 Seconds

A recent study has shown that eco-friendly products are becoming more important to consumers. Specifically, 84% of consumers care deeply about recyclable packaging options, with a large majority making their own efforts to recycle. Based on these statistics, products with eco-friendly packaging offer benefits for customers and businesses who wish to reduce their carbon footprint and utilize recyclable packaging.

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What Are SmartSolve® Labels?

SmartSolve Labels are high-quality custom product labels designed to dissolve in water in under 30 seconds. Water, no matter the temperature, will make the labels dissolve off of the packaging, resulting in a clean container that is ready for repurposing. In fact, the labels completely dissolve, leaving behind no sticky residue.

Eco-Friendly

The removal of most labels from packaging requires harsh chemicals. SmartSolve Labels dissolve using just water. Removing labels from product packaging allows consumers to repurpose containers right in their own home, saving costs for trash facilities and keeping more packaging out of landfills.

Environmental Awards

SmartSolve Labels have received several awards and certifications from various eco-friendly organizations. These companies have certified the labels to be eco-friendly and a good use of resources. The labels received “green” certifications from the following organizations:

• The Toxins in Packaging Clearinghouse (TPCH)

• Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) 2008

• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

• National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)

• European Union’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals (EU Reach)

• California Prop 65

• Insecticide Resistance Action Committee (IRAC)

• Nourish The Planet (NTP)

They are also certified for distribution by the Forest Steward Council (FSC), which has very strict standards for responsible forestry.

Higher Quality Printing

When printing a label onto plastic, it can be very hard to create a high-quality design. Inks do not stick well to plastic and can appear blurry. SmartSolve Labels provide a high-quality label, giving products and their packaging a high-end appearance. Customers love the clean look and the crisp colors. The company uses color-matching technology for labels and trademarked exact colorations.

Uses for Dissolvable Labels

These are some of the most common use cases for labels that dissolve in water:

• Food storage containers. Dissolvable labels allow consumers to reuse the containers for other storage when the original product is gone.

• Temporary labels. Businesses can ask customers to return containers in a store-initiated recycling program – saving the business money on purchasing new containers and reducing their carbon footprint.

• Time-sensitive decals. Kid’s items, like bicycles, skateboards, and balls, often end up discarded due to the fact the child’s interest changesor the character is no longer relevant. Dissolvable labels allow the product a longer life, completely removing the decal.

• Hospital labeling. A new label for each patient can completely wash away during the disinfection process, making less trash and single-use items for the landfill.

• Laboratories. Specimen samples or other collections of samples can have their own label. Like a hospital, when sanitizing the container, the label will disappear.

These are just a few of the ideas for using the labels as a way to get ahead in business. Century Label has spent over 30 years innovating new product labeling technologies for companies across the U.S. Hella Cocktail Company and Sun King Brewery both offer up their testimonials on working with Century. For a complete rundown of what Century Label has to offer, check out the home page.

Custom Bottle Labels That Stand Out from a Crowd

The craft brew market is growing, which is great news for the industry. Individual brewers are seeing more competition for the same consumers, so it’s up to each brewer to find a way to stand out from the masses. You know your beer is the best, but until consumers buy it, they don’t. How do you get the customer to choose your brew? Custom bottle labels. 

Craft beer labeling matters almost as much as the beer’s taste. Customers have to notice your brand so they can find out just how fantastic it tastes. Maybe your labels just don’t pop. Maybe they’re looking for your beer, but they can’t remember what the labels look like. Either way, crafting a solid impression is just as important as crafting the beer itself.

Take a look at some of these custom bottle labels from Century Label. You’ll never forget them, right? What gives something like the Great North Aleworks or Sun King Brewing labels such an edge?

Color Me Surprised

Turns out, there’s a lot of science behind why customers prefer one brand design over another. Color, texture, typeface, and material all influence buyers’ choices. Did you know that 90 percent of judgments about a product are made because of color alone? 

Color selection and design need to be based on the personality of your brand. Is your craft brew a down-to-earth, average Joe’s choice? Go with an earthy brown, basic bottle. There’s an entire psychology behind color theory and its impact on marketing. There’s a lot of debate about how much, say, yellow affects someone’s mood. 

One thing that’s certain…

Colors provide associations your customers may not be aware of. 

Sometimes, it’s best to let your product do the talking. If you’re bottling your drinks in clear glass, for example, you need to design your label in a way that highlights the drink itself. This includes matching the colors of your drink to the label.

Century Label’s custom bottle labels for Sun King are good examples of this strategy. The combination of vibrant, warm colors works really well for a standout, high-energy brand. Take a look at the colors. That orange and blue combination is a classic of color theory. The strategy here is using complementary colors – colors on the opposite sides of the color wheel from each other – to make the product bright and sharp. You can also use a monochromatic design, with one color in different shades, and triple color schemes for different effects. That’s the advantage of custom bottle labels – they really arecustom.

Crafting Memories

The size of the market means you can’t afford to have a generic label design. Your beer needs a custom bottle label that people will remember. You need to consider all aspects of your container, product, and even the sales environment. Buyers will have trouble recognizing your product’s name if the text on your bottle is too small or unclear. And while a reflective, metallic texture will certainly catch the eye, it also may be difficult to read if you don’t make accommodations for lighting. 

The drink’s container also has an impact on your labeling. A bottled drink offers less design space than a canned package. Century Label’s Wolf Pack design is an innovative solution: Some bottles are made from aluminum, which, in addition to other advantages, turns the entire bottle into a canvas. This solution means the beer has a consistency in its design – even across containers and materials.

There is no universal rule for good bottle label design. Branding your beer comes naturally, and you know yourself and the product better than anybody. Choose the custom bottle label that works best for your drink’s identity. 

For a no-obligation, confidential initial custom bottle label consultation with one of our design experts, click here.