Jackanapes: Looks, labels and branding

After nailing our product choices, securing our colour schemes, characters and logo, we were finally able to bring our brand to life. It was time to move on to designing our labels and honing our branding identity.

Everyone says never judge a book by its cover. Let’s be honest…who really doesn’t make a decision on a product based on the label? Of course we judge a product by its packaging! The visual elements are so important with branding. Customers are naturally drawn to images and videos over text as our brains process them 60,000 times faster. Brands who use effective visual content can have a 7 x higher conversion rate. As our hot sauces and jams were going to be sold online, this meant we had more opportunities to use visuals to our advantage.

The Voice

Brand Monkey has it’s own unique voice. We’re quite a fun bunch and we wanted to make sure that Jackanapes had that same quirky tone. We knew early on that we didn’t want to be plain, simple or heaven forbid…boring. We knew with this brand we could be a little more…saucy…no pun intended. It gave us more scope for design and copy, with a relaxed, spicy tone that would hopefully grab people’s attention.

Our copywriter compiled a list of short, snappy phrases that emanated the tone of voice and could be used within our product design. These could be used for social media posts, on the labels and within our Amazon business page.

Product Labels

Once we’d decided on the tone, characters and colour palettes for each of the products, our graphic designer got to work creating our labels. We used our stand-out, bright colours from our original vision board in block colours for the background, with the information and images in white. Each label colour represented the main chilli ingredient of each product. By avoiding too much white background on the labels, we’re able to prevent bottle markings or blemishes from standing out.

The Front

Even though this is an Amazon-born brand, we wanted to imagine this product on a shelf, as who knows, we may be lucky enough to reach a retail store in this journey! So, we had to think about what the customer would see. This would also be the main image on Amazon so it had to stand out amongst the competition. We decided to keep it clear and simple on the front, with only basic information visible. It’s not too busy so the customer can see exactly what they’re buying. Sian used specific chilli characters for each product and gave each one a quirky phrase from our list.

The Back

All the compulsory information we decided would be wrapped around the back of the label. Partnering with our supplier, our team researched all the legal requirements that had to be included.

• Uses (though this could be anything we wanted)
• Barcode
• Ingredients listed by weight
• Any allergens in bold and capitals
• Nutritional information
• Font size of lettering

Designed to the exact label measurements, once we’d managed to squeeze all the legal parts on the label, it turned out there wasn’t actually much room left for anything else! We simply added some social icons – TikTok, Facebook and Instagram – as well as some of the cartoon-style headers. Whilst at this stage we hadn’t begun our social media marketing plan, we knew exactly which sites we wanted to use that would hold the most influence.

As a team, we then finalised the labels and sent them off to our supplier. Aren’t they pretty?

Honestly, when you finally get to see your product in real life, it’s a pretty cool moment.

Product Photography

Main Image

Now we had our products in our hands, we were able to start our product photography. Amazon says that a product that has 4 images is ‘retail ready’ but you can have up to seven, including the main image. Alternatively, you can have 6 images if you want to include a video. The requirements for the main image are very specific, but essentially it has to be on a white background showing the entire product with nothing else.

We also needed to show both sides of the label so that there was no hidden information. The customer should know exactly what they’re getting. You can find lots more about making the most of your Amazon images here.

Lifestyle Images

What we particularly wanted to focus on were the lifestyle shots. When customers can visualise themselves with products, it’s really helpful in encouraging a sale, and lifestyle shots can help put them directly in the scenario. With our original Pinterest board, we had leaned towards a darker, more rustic feel. That would really highlight the colourful sauces, labels and branding that we’d envisioned. We also knew we wanted to create some recipes in the long run, so including ingredients in our images would allow us to get creative with our display.

We also really liked the images that had a bit of movement to them. They felt more dynamic and leaned into the visualisation of using the product rather than just seeing the packaging. The spoon drip was a particular favourite! With the help of Oddshoe Photography we think we managed to capture it…

Infographics

Creating infographics with photos is also a really great way to make the most out of the Amazon images available. We added a few bullet points and flags to certain images so we could get important or useful information across to the consumer quickly and simply. This was especially important as our research showed that shoppers for hot sauces primarily use mobile, so the graphics and writing had to stand out. Sure enough, 60% of our page views and sessions come from Amazon’s mobile app.

 

 

 

 

 

 

With our labels and branding under our belt, it was time to focus on the copy. We needed to fill those bullet points and product description with everything our customers would want to know. We needed to sell that product, enhance it with SEO and ultimately bring the Jackanapes voice to life. See just how we did it here.