Getting the Copy Right

It’s critical for brand owners to ensure product labeling 
has accurate, up-to-date consumer information.

June 2009 By Jean-Marie Hershey

multipage

While making a product visible and distinctive may be a brand owner's top priority, it is not the only priority. Businesses also must satisfy a variety of requirements regarding the ways in which packages and labels communicate how to use, transport, recycle, or dispose of the product. With pharmaceuticals, food, medical, and chemical products, some types of information are required by the Food and Drug Administration.

Generally speaking, the term "label" refers to the text printed on a product package to support advertising claims, establish brand identity, and enhance name recognition. The main body of legislation governing packaging and labeling, the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1966, mandates that every product package or label must specify the product type; producer or processor's name and location; quantity, if applicable; and number and size of servings, if applicable, on that part of the label most visible to consumers. Labels for edible products must display sodium content if other nutritional information is shown, as well as showing ingredients. Certain food items also are required to display inspection labels.

In 1990, Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act intended primarily to discourage misleading labeling touting the dubious health benefits of certain food items. Under the 1990 law, food labels are required to list specific values such as calorie and cholesterol content and fat and saturated fat percentages, as well as sodium levels.

Searching for "the truth"

Given the type and volume of information (content) a label must display with absolute accuracy, it isn't hard to understand the challenges associated with managing all this data such that only the most up-to-date, accurate information is selected and reproduced. Stephen Kaufman, chief technology officer for Schawk, Inc. (www.schawk.com), refers to this as "the truth," or the "system of record." The twist, he says, is that the truth is rarely static. Rather, it continually evolves in accordance with the customers' needs, changing market conditions, legal requirements, and other variables. In reality, packaging text may be revised a number of times before it goes to press, with no guarantee that eleventh-hour modifications will wind up reflected in the content management system (CMS) where the data reside.

And there's the rub. The complexity of packaging work and a product's movement through the supply chain ups the ante on accuracy and burdens every typo with potentially disastrous consequences in terms of cost (time, labor, rework, etc.). The irony is that most CMSs being used today, especially in retail and consumer product package design, are a hodge-podge of Excel, Word, or other programs that require text file (documents) to be updated by hand and submitted for approval.

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