HIRE ME TO SPEAK
HIRE ME TO SPEAK

For best results, stick it in the fridge

I write about strategies to turn fans into customers and customers into fans. I also share ways to use real-time strategies to spread ideas, influence minds, and build business.

Viral Marketing  |  copywriting  |  Marketing

Have you noticed that most product packaging falls into two categories. It's either dreadfully boring (as if it were written by someone who has never has any fun). Or it is chock full of inane corporate gobbledygook "this flexible, cutting-edge product will improve your business process."

I always think this crap is just written to fill up white space on product packages and I've often thought there is a better way.

Vwat

This weekend, coutesy of my 14-year-old daughter, I found a cool example of how to do it better -- Glaceau vitaminwater. My daughter is a competitive swimmer and takes a bottle of vitaminwater to most meets. The other day, she casually mentioned to me that she and her friends like to read the labels on vitaminwater bottles.

Hold on! This I gotta check out—teenagers reading product packaging!

All the bottles have this helpful information:
"for best results, stick it in the fridge."
"the inside is natural. The outside is plastic."

And each of the dozen or so flavors has a fun essay on the label. Check this great writing out:

Revive
fruit punch
If you woke up tired, you probably need more sleep. If you woke up drooling at your desk, you probably need a new job. If you woke up with a headache, on a Ferris wheel at the Idaho state fair, wearing a toga, you probably need answers, not to mention this product. Its got potassium and B vitamins to help you recover and feel refreshed—kinda like in those old Irish Spring soap commercials. And if you’re like our boss, Mike, and woke up married to an Elvis impersonator, you probably need a lawyer.

XXX
acai-blueberry-pomegranate
C’mon, get your mind out of the gutter. We only named this drink XXX because it has the power of triple antioxidants to help keep you healthy and fight free radicals. So in case you’re wondering, this does not cost $1.99/minute or contain explicit adult content or anything considered ‘uncensored’. It has not 'gone wild!!!' during spring break nor will clips of it be passed around the internet like a certain hotel heiress, and it has never been seen live or nude, but it is definitely au naturale.

Power-C
Dragonfruit
Legally we are prohibited from making exaggerated claims about the potency or the nutrients in this bottle. Therefore, legally we wouldn’t tell you that after drinking this, Eugene from Kansas started using horseshoes as a thighmaster or that this drink gave Agnes from Delaware enough strength to bench press llamas, Heck, we can’t even tell you this drink gives you the power to do a thousands pinkie pushups… just ask Mike in Queens. Legally, we can’s say stuff like that—cause that would be wrong, you know?

Yeah, it is cool. Great writing can exist on product packaging as vitaminwater has proven. What about your product?

By the way, while the product packaging is great, the vitaminwater Web site absolutely sucks. It is an inane flash-driven site that looks pretty but doesn’t deliver any real information. Ugh.