Don't Have An Opinion, Have Data.

Prime Cellars of Napa is inviting your opinion on two possible labels for their new Chardonnay.  It's a fun exercise, so go over and leave your thoughts in the comments.  

Done that?  OK.  Now let me tell you that, IMNSHO, this isn't the best way to approach the problem of choosing a label.  Here's the comment I left with my vote:

The best thing to do is print them both out (ideally on label stock), paste them on bottles and go down to the local market (one with lots of bottles on the shelf - e.g. Molsberry Market in Santa Rosa), and see which one stands out the most from the crowd of Chardonnays on display. Don't have an opinion, have data!

And if they truly both suck, start over. The attractiveness and recognition factor of your label is one of the most powerful tools you have to sell your wine.

Just like winery Web sites tend to all have nice pictures of vineyards, most wine labels tend to be remarkably similar-looking.

Of course, even doing this hands-on experiment requires that you be brutally honest when looking at your bottles on the shelf.  It would be better if it were someone "impartial" making the call.  But it's hard to find an impartial judge (one way might be to time how long it takes someone unfamiliar with your wine to find your bottle on the crowded shelf).

Another problem with the "give us your opinion" approach is that the people whose opinion you want (people standing in the supermarket aisle deciding what Chard to take home for dinner) are probably not the people visiting your blog (current customers and wine industry types).

Please don't think I'm against asking people what they think.  But it needs to be the right people, in the right setting.

An old CEO of mine once told me that the front of a package needed to get the person to pick up the package and look at it -- that was half the battle.  Consider that if all the labels fell off in the Chardonnay aisle at Safeway, you'd be looking at a lot of green bottles with the same shape.

Aside from making the owner / marketing VP happy, your label has to do two things:  First, your label needs to be distinctive and communicate your name and identity (fun, luxurious, inexpensive, unpretentious, ...).  Second  (and perhaps most important if you sell through stores), your label needs to stand out from a sea of other labels, and ideally, induce someone to pick it up and put it in their cart.

But, hey, thats just my opinion.

Comments

[Joe Lange]

Hi Mike-

We did a similar label design poll (on our blog and Facebook) for our fans' feedback and it was a great experience. We found that those who took the time to leave comments left useful feedback that we used to move the design process forward.

And, we were really surprised how much feedback we received!

Here's the post on our blog: http://www.langetwins.com/blog/2009/03/02/designing-a-wine-label-%E2%80%93-time-to-vote/

The winning label has been 'tweaked' using the comments we received and will be announced today!

[Ted Henry]

Mike-

Thanks for your comments. I agree that finding an "impartial judge" is as issue.

We plan on taking the labels to Whole Foods as you suggested and see how they perform among their peers.

Look for an update on http://www.primenapa.com to follow!

Ted Henry
PRIME Cellars

[Peter O'Brien]

Don't let it end up in tears. When you design your label, try not to take up to much "real estate". Bottles are not perfect and the diameter is normally greater at the bottom of the bottle and were it tapers to the neck. This often means that the bottle is concave between these points so if you wrap the label around the whole bottle you will end up with a wrinkle. My exsperience as a designer of labelling machines and haveing visited label manufacturers around the world, is to keep the label width to 110 degrees of the bottle [approx 2.5"-3"] Keep the label away from the wider diameters.
Good luck with your designs.