Oftentimes, I’m guilty of judging a beer by its label. I’ve tried some truly awful beers solely because they had interesting labels, but I’ve also had plenty of pretty good ones I wouldn’t have thought to try otherwise. Now I know that I’m not alone. A study on beer purchase decisions published by the American Association of Wine Economists titled Hide the Label, Hide the Difference? concluded that marketing and packaging — not taste differences — are the main drivers of beer purchases.
In other words, the beer bottle labels matter more than how the beer actually tastes. As sad as this might seem for you would-be microbrewers, this study also serves to underline the power of marketing, and why you should invest in your beer bottle label designs. If your brew is that good, you owe it to everyone to invest in a good label design. In today’s increasingly crowded beverage market, your label can be all that stands between a profitable microbrew or an outright flop.
Exciting visuals – Whether you ultimately go with an image or typography-based design, be sure that it grabs the customer by the (beer) gut. As we mentioned earlier, people do base their purchases on labels, so make sure yours immediately stands out.
Contact details – if your product is a hit, you want to make sure that it’s possible to contact you in case someone wants to stock your beer.
Social media details – Make sure your customers and interested dealers and suppliers can follow your brand for updates. An active social media presence can do wonders for marketing your brand
Bleeds – Bleed is a technical term for the spaces in print designs that get trimmed off. If you use a label template, the bleed will be represented by a line that divides the design area into “safe” and “trim” zones. You should extend your background color or design past this line, but avoid placing important details near the trim zone. Bleeds are important since no printer can print right up the edge of a sheet. This means beer bottle label designs have to be printed on a larger sheet and trimmed to size.
Interested in making the ultimate beer bottle label for your microbrewery? Check out these posts:
