Earlier this week, this blog discussed food labels that rely too heavily on words like “reduced” without explaining what they mean. There’s another trend that has the potential to alienate customers: focusing too much on what isn’t in the product and not enough on what is. Printers help companies prove themselves by identifying all ingredients legibly.
Writing for Forbes, contributor Will Burns calls this “nongredient” marketing, and says that it dangerously encourages the consumer to ignore the very real things that are inside a food container. As an example, he spotlights Coke Zero, which has famously promoted its simplicity and lack of unhealthy additives. However, anyone looking at the ingredients list can clearly see all of the many things still present in the “pure” product.
Another example is cotton candy, which appears thin and insubstantial but actually involves a great deal of sugar and processing. Even though air is actually an ingredient, the product does require correct labeling for consumers to understand it.
Burns says that the emphasis on a lack of something takes up unnecessary label space.
“What does it say about marketing today that we feel the need to take valuable packaging real estate to proclaim all the things our product is not?” he writes. “At what point does the marketers’ focus on ‘Nongredients’ only perpetuate, if not validate, the very trends that they now must devote valuable packaging real-estate to defend their products against?”
With more efficient label printers, food manufacturers have the ability to make the most out of their available label space. That way, your company has the freedom to list all of the ingredients they need to with equal clarity.
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