More Plays in Personalization
You can go online and find companies that will put your name on M&M candies.
A visit to myheinz.com yields the opportunity to customize or personalize bottles and jars of ketchup and mustard. In a previous Facebook-driven campaign, users could order a can of Heinz chicken soup with a label customized for a sick friend that would be delivered as a gift.
Goldfish crackers can be ordered with personalized bags replete with photos and customized messages. One popular choice is for favors at a child’s birthday party.
A year and a half ago, Coca Cola personalized Coke bottles in Australia, Europe and Great Britain as part of its Share a Coke campaign. In Australia, where the program kicked off, the personalized bottles brought a 7 percent increase in sales. A U.S. version of the program is starting up with New York City as the beachhead.
Now Tic Tacs, the pocket-sized candies and breath mints, have a program for customizing packages. At the TicTacMyPack.com microsite you can register, pick flavors of TicTac, choose a label design, and a virtual pack of TicTacs is sent to your e-mail inbox. TicTac fans can also share the label with friends on social media such as Facebook and Twitter. While this capability may not necessarily boost sales or awareness, it offers TicTac fans a new way of interacting with a favored product and perhaps solidifying brand preference—especially critical among the youngest third of TicTac’s target demographic.
Such individual appeal is a compelling way to reach Millennials, the sought-after 14 to 34 age group. Also called Generation Y, Millennials are the next big bubble of consumers in the crosshairs of marketers and all options for reaching them are on the table. While seemingly inconsequential at first glance, these types of branding campaigns offer a touchpoint for marketers who often struggle to interact with customers in a world where transient digital communications are the norm and the once-favored reach of print and broadcast media have all but vanished for low-cost products. For brand owners, any ability to connect on a personal level with customers is vital to building “stickier” relationships that can pay both short and long-term dividends. Campaigns such as Share a Coke, My Goldfish and My Heinz are the beginning of a new wave of customized and personalized packaging that, while likely to remain a niche, is still a place where innovative and creative label and package printers can find new opportunities for incremental business growth and success.
