Brand Matters: What’s in a Seal?
Robert C. Sprung can be reached at robert@tippingsprung.com. TippingSprung (New York City) offers brand strategy, naming, and design services with a focus on the needs of technology companies.
If used too freely, can a seal lose its significance?
By Robert C. Sprung,TippingSprung LLC
In an article titled “I’m Natural, Trust Me!” published in the November/December 2006 issue of CPC Packaging, I discussed the fact that numerous companies now freely use the words organic and natural on their packaging. In this article, we address how these companies also often use seals on packaging to reinforce their claims.
What Are All Those Seals for?
The average package touting “organic” or “natural” qualities often resembles a steamer trunk. Plastered with a variety of official-looking seals, emblems, and certifications, these packages are clearly designed to drive home the marketing message.
A few examples—with no judgment implied—of groups offering official seals: the Fair Trade Federation (distinct from the organization offering a Fair Trade Certified seal), the Rainforest Alliance, and a variety of organizations claiming to shun animal testing.
Another category of official-looking seals or claims is branded characteristics or ingredients. Is anyone else out there tired of products that say “cholesterol-free”? Examples run the gamut from allergen-free, paraben-free, rich in antioxidants, and biodegradable.
Jason Natural Cosmetics highlights an ingredient and adds a seal of approval in the same stroke. Its aloe vera lotion has a certification seal from the International Aloe Science Council, “a nonprofit association with doctors and scientists to promote scientific research on aloe vera. The seal assures consumers the product passes standardized tests on the quality and quantity of its aloe ingredients.”
Aside from the official organic certification from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is awarded with the approval of an officially sanctioned certifier, the loose usage of seals and other official-sounding statements forces us into a “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” situation. In today’s market, seals can come from niche organizations that may have high standards and police their members, as well as loosely defined organizations that seem to be little more than a marketing device. With this range, it can be hard to trust the significance of a seal.
Lipton Tea offers a good example of ingredient branding taken to the next level—namely, creating your own branded standard or emblem. Although the example comes from the food industry, it illustrates the type of thinking that branding professionals may apply in other industries.
Lipton created the “AOX” mark, a distinctively designed and consistently applied ingredient-branding mark. Short for “Naturally Protective Antioxidants,” the mark serves two purposes: it implies adherence to an external, hopefully objective standard (i.e., the understanding that antioxidants are healthy), while at the same time creates a mark that is distinctive and ownable by Lipton.
Avalon Organics features a self-constructed but official-looking “Consciousness in Cosmetics” seal on its products, which it says represents the “five distinct elements of consciousness: Purity and Safety, Sustainability, Products that Work, Sensuality, and Personal Choice.” (Here’s hoping FDA doesn’t eventually try to regulate the sensuality criterion.)
One must be extremely careful in all such attempts. Consumers educate themselves very quickly and can learn to tell the difference between “real” standards and those without teeth or those that are ultimately self-aggrandizing.
Robin Sherk contributed to the research for this article.