When a consumer steps into a supermarket, picks up a pack of cookies, reads the information on it, puts it back and chooses another packet of cookies – do you ever wonder what all factors come together to decide their selection? What is it that persuades the consumer to buy one of the many products available? In addition to other factors such as quality and pricing, labels play a key role in deciding the way a consumer perceives a product. It is therefore important for brands to influence the perception of the consumer in a positive way -by using engaging and impressive label designs.
Labels have a great influence on the purchase decision of consumers and the extent is larger than what most businesses assume. When a variety of products are displayed on a shelf, it is the labels that help consumers evaluate a product and choose the one that reassures the quality. Let’s read more about how custom label printing and designing help brands attract more consumers in the market.
How Labels Affect Consumer Perception
Label Color Makes Consumers Believe the Product is Healthier than Others
A Cornell researcher states that green calorie labels might make people perceive a product healthier even if it may not have the essential nutritional value. A consumer, for instance, might perceive a candy bar with a green calorie label to be healthier than a candy bar with a red calorie label, even if the number of calories in both the products are same.
The buying decision of the consumers is based on the visual appearance of the products. It has been found that color is one of the strongest and most persuasive elements of all the visual factors that buyers take into consideration while purchasing a product. It is one of the top assets that consumers use to identify, locate or select a product. This makes it important to use colors in the label that influence the buying decision of the consumers.
Label Makes Consumers Believe the Product Has Better Quality
High quality provides a competitive advantage to a product in the eyes of a consumer. Labels play an important role influencing the perception of the consumers about the quality of the product. Labels reflect the quality of the product by revealing information about the contents of the product, where it was made and other information that differentiates a product from its competitors. They might perceive the product to be of better quality than the rest if the label carries a sense of typicality.
Label Has Emotional Effect on Consumers
A recent study shows that the purchase decision of approximately 84.7 percent people is influenced by color and 52 percent of people didn’t return to a store because they didn’t like its aesthetics. The data provides us with all the reasons to believe that color of the label has a great emotional influence on the consumer. The color red, for instance, increases the heart rate, evokes strong emotions in consumers and increases appetite, which is the reason why McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Heinz have so much of red (including the logo) in their packaging.
Some Label Designs that Have Impressed Consumers
A label is an integral part of your sales strategy and there are many brands who have experimented with their label designs to influence consumer perception. Let’s look at a few names:
Betty Crocker
Betty was on the labels of many of the “General Mills” products for over 75 years and evolved from matronly to motherly. While she appeared as a professional working mother in 1972, the color of her eyes changed from blue to brown and she was given a younger, ethnic appearance in 1996.
Starbucks
There have been four distinctive changes in the cup labels of Starbucks since 1971. The original brown logo was changed to green letter with a surrounding black image. The words were removed in 2011 and the label was changed to a green crowned woman in 2011.
Walmart
The retail store Walmart has also changed its logo several times with the missing hyphen and sun symbol being the most noticeable changes. Today, a consumer relates Walmart with blue color and a sun symbol and its TV commercials also show reusable, blue bags, which is a sign that Walmart is environment conscious.
A Few Last Words
The fierce competition in the market and availability of great deal of choices has made it important for brands to be more concerned about the individual consumer behavior. A clear understanding of what drives the purchase decision of the customer might help a brand increase its sales. To learn more about how custom label printing can help you carve a niche for your products, feel free to connect with one of representatives.
