Gerber Foods wanted to promote Um Bongo with the aid of a sticker giveaway aimed at increasing brand loyalty and heightening market awareness. The three-month, promotion, running from March until mid-June 2005, saw the 1L PET bottle carrying three separate stickers, each with a jungle theme: ‘Umbongotastic’, ‘Cheeky Monkey’ and ‘There’s a Rumble in the Jungle’. Each sticker edition saw a run of 36,000 units, with a total promotional run of 108,000 units.
Gerber Foods produce ‘Um Bongo’ under licence from brand owner Libby’s at their Bridgewater plant. Gerber Foods brand management team provided label manufacturers Denny Bros of Suffolk a brief to design and manufacture a promotional wrap-around incorporating their unique Fix-a-Form label.
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Development background for Um Bongo
As a rapid implementation project, it was important for Gerber Foods that the design and development of the label was efficiently managed. As existing label suppliers to Gerber Foods, Denny Bros were tasked with designing a label solution that would allow the incorporation of an attractive collectible, with minimum disruption to the existing label design and production process.
Um Bongo packaging design constraints
There were obvious constraints within the design brief concerning the implementation of a sticker promotion. Firstly it was vital to maintain the existing level of brand placement, which is to say that Denny Bros were not allowed to alter the size or proportion of the ‘Libby’s’ and ‘Um Bongo’ brand logos. According to Rebecca Honeyand, part of the Um Bongo team at Gerber Foods, it was vital that ‘the recognisable Um Bongo branding should remain constant’.
This presented a problem with the existing wrap-around already covering the full circumference of the bottle leaving no room to incorporate a sticker without removing vital logos or the regulatory nutritional information and ingredients list. As neither of these were viable options, Denny Bros developed the innovative solution of printing the nutritional information and ingredients list on the front of their Fix-a-Form label. This enabled them to maintain the existing print specifications, whilst simultaneously incorporating the ‘peel to reveal’ sticker.
Fix-a-form labelling
One of the key reasons for utilising the Fix-a-Form labelling solution was its ability to be easily incorporated into an existing labelling design and to also be produced and applied using standard labelling equipment.
The major advantages of the Fix-a-Form label remain as constant as they always have done. It allows increased space for promotion and information and it is adaptable to suit any container or pack. There is also the potential, as with ‘Um Bongo’, to provide gifts, scratch-off promotions, data-captures, vouchers and coupons as well as multi lingual information. Allied to this there are the added benefits of improved production line speed and inventory procedure.
Security considerations
The issue of pack security was a concern. It was important that the promotional stickers were not readily accessible and susceptible to pilfering. As Stephen Garrold, Marketing Development Manager at Denny Bros, pointed out, “Promotion pilfering is not culturally common within the UK; nationally we are more likely to pilfer the entire product. It was however still important to guard against promotion pilfering in this instance”. As a result, the sticker was placed behind the twin form Fix-a-Form label, preventing ready access.
Summary
Gerber Foods have since completed the three-month promotion and initial indications showed that it has had a positive impact on consumer sales and brand loyalty. Rebecca Honeyand from the Um Bongo team pointed towards the ‘positive consumer feedback’ they received as evidence of a successful promotional campaign. She was keen to address the speed and efficiency of the Denny Bros design and development process, stating they were “very responsive to our brief and developed the label very quickly”.
Although there were no plans to run similar promotions across other products in the portfolio, this promotion, according to Gerber Foods, was a marked success.
