Labels and Shrink Sleeves: Problem Solvers
Extended-text labels, such as these by WS Packaging, have become a necessity for brands trying to fit more copy on small beauty packages.Labels and shrink sleeves are helping beauty marketers clear some of their biggest packaging hurdles.
By Jennifer Kwok, Managing EditorLabels and shrink sleeves are helping brands solve many of today’s packaging challenges. Eco-friendly substrates meet demands for green packaging. Extended-text labels allow brands to comply with labeling regulations. Shrink sleeves offer tamper evidence. And of course, new and improved looks tackle the biggest challenge of all—attracting consumer attention.
Fitting More Copy
In August of last year, FDA released a revised version of its labeling monograph for over-the-counter (OTC) drug products. The new version proposes adding more regulatory text to labels, which will conceivably make it more difficult to create attractive, marketable labels for OTC drug products such as sunscreen. (For more information on the revised monograph, read the news story, “FDA Proposes Adding More Text on Sunscreen Labels,” in CPC Packaging’s November/December 2007 issue. Also exclusive to this online version, see a mockup of a label designed under FDA’s new rules below.)
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click to enlargeA mockup of an over-the-counter sunscreen product label designed under FDA's new proposed labeling requirements.
Paulette Carnes says that her company, label supplier WS Packaging Group (Algoma, WI), has been bombarded daily with inquiries from beauty companies concerned about how FDA’s new monograph will affect their labels. These companies want to know about WS Packaging’s MultiVision extended-text label line.
Carnes, product development manager for MultiVision, predicts that more OTC drug brands may eventually switch to labels instead of direct decoration when they find that they can’t fit all of their copy directly on a package. “Brands that have been silk-screening their bottles and tubes are now deciding if it’s time to change over to pressure-sensitive labels,” she says.
Labeling small packages is also a concern. “The legal Drug Facts panel [required by FDA] does not fit on any package smaller than 4 oz,” says Carnes. “Brands are deciding whether to use an extended-text label like the three styles we offer, or to discontinue the smaller size altogether.” (Readers should note that FDA does make some labeling exceptions for extremely small beauty packages.)
Various versions of Paris Art Label’s extended-text labels were provided for the Bobbi Brown cosmetics line.
For all of these reasons, demand for extended-text labels is expected to increase. Jonathan Tarantino, sales manager for Paris Art Label, says that his company has seen demand rise already for its extended-text labels. The company, whose clients include L’Oréal, Del Labs, and Estée Lauder, recently supplied a booklet-style label with seven pages for a small-sized Revlon package. He says that the firm can provide extended-text labels with as many as 11 pages.
Covering All Bases
Shrink sleeves, which can cover an entire package, can also help brands fit more copy on a package. Shrink sleeves are meeting other needs as well, such as the need for tamper evidence, multipacking, and environmental friendliness.
“Tamper evidence is still a major concern for consumers, especially those who buy cosmetics,” says Barbara Drillings, marketing communications manager for shrink-sleeve provider Seal-It (Farmingdale, NY), a division of Printpack Inc. “No one wants to buy a lipstick that someone else has opened or may have tried.”
Perforated sleeves that keep a cap sealed on a lip balm tube are not uncommon. However, Drillings says that she sees a new trend. “Tamper-evident bands [are being combined] with full-sleeve shrink labels. A horizontal perforation, for instance, at the neck of a bottle, allows the customer to take the tamper-evident band off, while the label will remain on the package.”
Gilbreth’s shrink labeling allows sample packages to be adhered to the side, front, back, or top of a full-sized package.
For multipacking, marketers have used shrink sleeves to attach a smaller-sized sample package to a larger retail package. Such packages are especially common in warehouse stores such as Costco. Supplier Gilbreth (Croydon, PA) offers an improved shrink sleeve for multipacking. Called the Double-Seam Combo Pack, Gilbreth’s sleeve attaches promotional and retail packages together, while allowing the graphics on both packages to remain visible.
“It’s actually two separate sleeves that are attached to each other,” says Theresa Sykes, Gilbreth’s director of commercial development. “The printing on the retail and the sample package can be seen, so there’s no need for additional inserts.” To optimize shelf space, Double-Seam labels can be affixed to the side, front, back, or top of a retail package. Sykes says that Beiersdorf is a fan of this shrink sleeve.
Eco-Friendliness
Another trend that Gilbreth and Seal-It report is polylactic acid (PLA) shrink sleeves. Made from corn, these sleeves are considered by many to be earth-friendly because they are not derived from petroleum.
Both Gilbreth and Seal-It have partnered with Plastic Suppliers Inc. to offer corn-based film. “The film is environmentally friendly, compostable, and excellent for printing,” says Drillings.
However, Sykes says that in order for PLA sleeves to be a truly comparable alternative to petroleum-based sleeves, suppliers must know how to work with them. One of the challenges involved with using PLA sleeves is choosing the right inks to print on them. “PLA has different surface characteristics than other films,” she says. “It’s a breathable film, so it’s more susceptible to ink solvents. Some stronger solvents tend to attack the film. That is probably one of the drawbacks we’ve seen with PLA. If a chemical is very strong, compatibility tests need to be done.”
Ameri-Seal’s new pearlescent ink gave these VO5 shrink sleeves a lustrous look.
Shrink-sleeve supplier Ameri-Seal Inc. (Chatsworth, CA) says that PLA sleeves may have a few more drawbacks. “As Ameri-Seal predicted early on, corn-based PLA film has not been a safe and stable bet,” says Devin Millstein, Ameri-Seal’s vice president of marketing. “Due to the demand for corn, this boom has already pushed corn prices to heights not seen in years, causing U.S. growers to plant the largest crop since World War II. This situation will only worsen until other technologies are developed.”
Sykes counters this opinion, saying, “[NatureWorks, the largest supplier of PLA resin, has guaranteed] stable PLA resin prices through 2009. The supply of corn for the resin is plentiful. Farmers who were [previously] paid to not grow anything are now growing corn.”
Regardless, Millstein says that Ameri-Seal is working to introduce “more stable, environmentally friendly materials.”
Catching Customer Attention
Of course, from a business angle, making the sale is the most crucial challenge of all. Sensory effects—such as those that enhance a label or shrink sleeve’s look, smell, or feel—can go the extra mile in attracting customer attention. Below are some of the most recent innovations.
WS Packaging’s tactile inks add a new dimension to label graphics.
WS Packaging Group offers tactile inks that impart a label with texture. “It’s a clear, raised varnish that creates a three-dimensional effect on graphics such as beads of water,” says Todd Ostendorf, corporate marketing manager for WS Packaging Group.
Gilbreth also offers a tactile finish. “The customer [typically] takes eight-tenths of a second to pick up a package off the shelf. If a package feels interesting, the customer is more likely to purchase it,” says Sykes.
Scented labels can give consumers a whiff of a product’s scent without requiring them to open a package in the store. Gilbreth and WS Packaging can both encapsulate scent on their labels. “We’ve been promoting our Rub n’ Smell label for about three years now, and we’ve been getting a lot more inquiries about it from the personal care industry,” says Sykes.
Visual effects are another way to catch the customer’s eye. For its shrink sleeves, Ameri-Seal has introduced Pearl Essence inks, which make shrink sleeves luminous. The company also recently produced metallic sleeves for Alberto Culver’s VO5 Extreme Style Heat Defense Conditioning Spray.
Gilbreth offers iridescent shrink sleeves which, while more expensive than standard sleeves, are popular with health and beauty marketers who tend to pay more for a high-end look, reports Sykes.
Prismatic or holographic films, papers, and foils are also gaining in popularity. “Holographic materials have been around for the last 20 years, and they’ve really gotten hot in the last two or three years,” says Ostendorf. WS Packaging offers a “defractured metallized” version for which it distresses a prismatic film, similar to the way acid-washed jeans are distressed, to tone down the prismatic effect.
WS Packaging has gone a step further and introduced a prismatic varnish. The varnish is printed on a label and cured. Its look differs from holographic materials such as films, papers, or foils. “Typically, when printing on a prismatic material [such as a film, foil, or paper], you have to print with transparent inks to allow the prismatic design to be seen through the ink. The more ink you print, the less prismatic effect remains visible because you’re basically covering up the prismatic material,” explains Ostendorf. “With the varnish, you’re printing an image on the label first and then printing the prismatic surface on top of it, so the image underneath isn’t affected.”
Benefits of the varnish include the ability to do spot coating. “You could have areas on a label that are prismatic and some that are not prismatic,” says Ostendorf.
Another special printing effect showing up more frequently in the beauty industry is color-shifting inks, which allow a label to appear to change color depending on the angle at which it is viewed. WS Packaging offers this and can also add glitter to the effect.
Finally, a “no label” look can be achieved with in-mold labels, especially on clear or glass packages. “Putting a label on is less expensive than directly screening graphics onto a container,” says Paris Art Label’s Tarantino. SenecaSalem Inc. (Franklin, PA), a labeling and shrink-sleeve specialist recently acquired by WS Packaging Group, also offers in-mold labels.
Migrating Inks
A color-changing label can let customers know when products, such as baking soda, have expired.One of the most innovative labels to hit the market recently hasn’t been for the cosmetic industry, but rather, the food industry. The Cold-Activated label for Coors Light beer features an illustration of a mountain range, which changes color when a bottle is at its ideal cold temperature. WS Packaging Group (Algoma, WI) used similar technology for a label it produced for Arm & Hammer’s new Fridge Fresh product, a baking soda product that eliminates food odors in the refrigerator.
According to Todd Ostendorf, corporate marketing manager for WS Packaging Group, Arm & Hammer wanted to prevent customers from leaving boxes of baking soda too long in their refrigerators, past the point of effectiveness. Instead of a simple baking soda box, Fridge Fresh is a plastic device filled with baking soda that customers can adhere to the wall inside their refrigerators.
WS Packaging devised a label that changes color, becoming more solid-colored the longer the product remains in the fridge. “Arm & Hammer wanted a label that showed a 45–60 day window and indicated, by changing colors, when it’s time to change the baking soda,” says Ostendorf. He says that the label uses “migrating ink technology” that is made stable by a refrigerator’s temperature.
Could this technology be used to indicate beauty product expiration dates? “A lot of people have sunscreen that’s been sitting around for a long time and that is no longer effective,” says Ostendorf. “I’ve also heard that the same mascara tube is often used by a consumer for much longer than it should be. This type of label might be good for those products.”
Natural products with reduced levels of preservatives, popular in the beauty industry right now, might also be a good candidate for this technology.
Learn more about FDA's newly revised labeling monograph by downloading CPC Packaging's Webcast, Understanding Labeling Regulations and How to Design Them into Your Package. The Webcast presentation can be accessed at www.iian.ibeam.com/events/cano001/24615/.