A former creative director of mine stressed the importance of the label in communicating brand messaging as the “last ad” a consumer sees about your product. In the wine and spirits business, it very well could be the “only ad”.

I’ve seen a ton of market research on label design, but have always felt that for the majority of consumers, it comes down to a few key data points. On the front label—an attention-getting design, and sufficient information for a consumer to make a decision on the perceived value in reference to the price charged.

I’ll leave the very subjective design piece of the equation to another post and focus here on the second, and use this wine imported by Votto Vines as a point of reference.

What I think this label does spectacularly well is provide the basic information the consumer needs to “position” the product in their individual decision set.

It even includes a score…in this case a 94 from Wine Spectator. Many gatekeepers in the trade would say the score is probably the most important piece of information and I would recommend that it be positioned more visibly even if it violates the main label’s design.

Bottom line: the more informative your brand’s “Last Ad” the more likely it will make it through the consumer’s decision process to an actual purchase.