
Label Fashionistas
By ELIZABETH FUHRMAN
Designer beverage labeling dressed to stand out
It’s OK to be materialistic. No one can deny the importance of a beverage package’s labeling materials in attracting consumers. Beverage Industry’s sister publication Brand Packaging says it best in its book Design Gallery 4: material is “something you carefully consider in your briefs, isn’t it?”
Whether formal or casual, a beverage’s label
plays a critical role in dressing the product. Labels provide a way for
beverage products to stand out on the shelf and say something about the
product.
“I’m seeing a premiumization of packaging,
meaning packaging that provides an upscale look,” says Kevin
O’Brien, national account manager for Multi-Color Corp., Cincinnati.
“Packaging that creates a sense of value.”
Additionally label packaging communicates a message to
the customer about the package.
“There are a lot of different labeling materials
that can be used, and companies are using different types to try to
differentiate themselves between others in their segment,” says David
Love, general manager of Seal-It, a division of Printpack Inc., Atlanta.
“One of the big areas is differentiating with graphics.”
Many beverage companies also have gone away from
pressure-sensitive labels and moved toward shrink or roll-fed labeling,
Love says. “With those, you can get a label that goes all the way
around the package,” he explains. “The films we use provide a
glossier look and really make the graphics pop on the store
shelf.”
“When it comes to beverage packaging,
shrink-sleeves are the hottest trend, hands-down,” says Amy Brown,
marketing manager for Overnight Labels Inc., Deer Park, N.Y. “Before
shrink-sleeves, spaces on an unusually shaped bottle that could not
accommodate a label would go unused. Thanks to savvy manufacturers and
graphic artists, shrink-sleeves are able to take advantage of a 360-degree
area, making any product a virtual 360-degree billboard with maximum brand
and graphic impact.”
Louis Iovoli, director of sales and marketing for
Hammer Packaging, Rochester, N.Y., says the beverage market continued to
expand the range of decorating technologies it uses to achieve brand
awareness. “The trend has a large impact on material, depending on
what style of decorating is selected, i.e. roll-fed, shrink-sleeve,
cut-and-stack, roll applied-shrink on, pressure-sensitive, etc.,” he
explains. “This trend correlates with the strategy labeling machine
manufacturers have pursued of offering more functional equipment that
allows the user to quickly switch among decorating techniques using one
primary piece of equipment.”
Hammer offers a range of new substrates to address
various decorating needs with new variable repeat web offset technology.
Most of these applications require functional film selections specific to
the package, Iovoli says. “Our new web offset technology can handle
the entire range of materials without the expensive cost of gravure
cylinders or central impression flexo plates,” he explains.
Ink ingenuity
Equipment isn’t the only factor furthering
labeling. New inks such as metallics are being used, Love says. Seal-It
also offers a thermochromatic ink that changes
colors, depending on temperature.
Hammer sees many innovations in the pipeline from film
vendors that use the company’s Electron Beam ink and coating system,
which allows customers to use lightweight mono- web films as an alternative
to laminated structures. “Traditionally, customers have used
laminated structures because the inks are sandwiched in the structure,
thereby preventing contamination in the recycling stream,” Iovoli
explains. “We see Electron Beam as a viable option to accomplish the
same goal in the recycling stream while giving roll-fed label users an
offset mono-web alternative.”
Additionally, developments have occurred in higher
yield PETG white films that are being introduced in shrink-sleeve
applications. Hammer’s Electron Beam ink and coating system will
allow surface printing without the risk of scuffing, Iovoli says.
“White film would provide much better opacity for hiding containers
than trying to flood the current films with white ink,” Iovoli
explains. “Additionally, white film offers product protection from
the harmful effects of light on food and beverage products.”
At Overnight Labels, the company produces all of its
shrink-sleeves using water-based inks, which offer an environmental
marketing edge, Brown says. The company uses a flexographic printing
process that uses water-based inks instead of solvent-based inks that are
used in other processes such as gravure printing.
“This means that there is no problem with
solvent retention,” Brown explains. “In addition, the smell
that is unavoidable with solvent-based inks is non-existent in water-based
counterparts. Water-based inks used by Overnight Labels do not pose the
threat of migrating into the contents of a product and contain no VOCs
[volatile organic compounds].”
Savvy sleeves
The push for environmentally friendly packaging is
being driven partly by Wal-Mart’s new packaging requirements.
EarthFirst PLA film has been one answer. PLA film utilizes NatureWorks PLA
resin, which make the film 100 percent compostable since it is made from
corn, an annually renewable resource.
PLA film, which is available in materials such as
shrink and film lamination, offers beverage companies several greener
option choices. The push for environmentally
friendly materials is not just domestically driven, but a global concern as
well.
“There have been some overseas companies, or
ones that have operation overseas, that are pushing for more
environmentally friendly materials as well,” Love says.
“…The big trend in the future is going to be more
environmentally friendly films.”
Shrink-sleeve labels are also now available in PETB
and OPS materials, which are considered to be more environmentally friendly
and price stable than traditional petroleum-based substrates, Brown says.
“Materials such as tree-free stock made from
bamboo, bagasse and cotton linters offer another alternative to PLA from
traditional pressure-sensitive labels,” she adds.
Helping to prevent a surplus of materials,
shrink-sleeve labeling on cans also keeps container inventory down. For
example, a product line that uses pressure-sensitive labels may use
different colored bottles for each item, which will require larger bottle
orders to keep unit costs down. “With shrink-sleeves, you can easily
keep only one colored bottle in inventory, therefore enjoying the benefits
of larger volume discounts, while achieving the same result as the original
colored bottles,” Brown explains.
Shrink-sleeve labeling over cans continues to grow
because of inventory control and other reasons as well. “Companies
can buy unprinted cans and use printed labels to do non-standard
items,” Love says. “They can use printed labels for the items
that they want, and the graphics will look better on a shrink label than
printed directly on a can.”
Product differentiation also is driving beverage companies to place shrink-sleeve on cans.
“That’s why we’re seeing a
lot of these markets that once were traditionally printed cans going to
shrinkwrap over cans,” Love says. “It’s just something to
create a different look.”
While shrink-sleeve creates a broader spectrum to
communicate a message about the product, pressure-sensitive labels still
offer their perks. For example, when Miller Brewing Co. restaged Miller
Genuine Draft as a more premium brew, it switched from embossed, metallized
paper labels to clear pressure-sensitive front, back and neck labels,
highlighting the golden beer color. Multi-Color produced the labels for the
redesigned MGD.
“You have to look at the message you want to
communicate to the consumer,” O’Brien says. “What can we
develop with primary packaging that works within their system while
generating the right branding message to their customer.”
Designer dressing
In addition to shrink-sleeves, rotary silkscreen is
also viable for beverage labels. Once limited in its original form, with
rotary silkscreen, manufacturers can achieve the look of a silk-screened,
or “no-label” look with four-color process, plus spot colors,
and still maintain maximum opacity and texture, Brown says.
Cold foil also has emerged to provide a similar look
to hot stamping, but at a lower cost. “This is because cold foil is
applied with a standard flexographic plate in-line vs. a hot-stamp plate,
which is applied on a separate press after the regular in-line printing is
done,” Brown explains. “Aside from its cost saving abilities,
the real beauty of cold foil is its versatility. You can utilize a variety
of pre-established foils for that added something.”
Insulated wraps such as those InBev’s Labatt
Blue has used also are adding value to beverage products. Embossments,
holographic looks, black light labels, peelable labels and other inks such
as expandable that each create a different tactile sensation are developing
processes as well.
“You can do a lot with packaging depending on
what you are looking for and what message you want to create,”
O’Brien says. “The No. 1 problem that comes back to suppliers
is how do we supply innovative packaging at a cost-effective price. Our
goal is to listen to all the requirements, and then balance the needs
between the different disciplines.
“As we say in packaging, anything is possible
with time and money, and that’s true, but a cost perspective is
always a major concern.”
Find out more online
Several interesting labeling applications were
featured in BrandPackaging’s book Design Gallery 4. More information about the book can be found at www.brandpackaging.com