Accommodating bilingual copy is always a challenge given the already limited real estate on most packaged products. However, WhiteDove Herbals, Boulder, CO, found a way to utilize a standard carton in creative way that serves both its English-speaking and Spanish-speaking consumers.
WhiteDove Herbals' 8-count packet cartons are printed in English on two consecutive carton sides and in Spanish on the other two sides, with a front panel and right-side Supplement Facts panel. This provides "reverse" merchandising capabilities, according to WhiteDoveHerbals coo Peter Hay.
"Others have placed the English/Spanish on the front together, but this design has a nice flow to the box, and you can turn it specifically for the market, whether Spanish or English," notes Hay. He says that the concept was designed in-house and carried out by Ascent Marketing, which also handled the matching graphics on the packets.
This approach enables WhiteDove to highlight the package artwork without the bilingual copy becoming cluttered, an aspect that's especially appropriate for its products that are intended to have a healing or calming effect. "This allowed us to keep the artwork intact, but also get the information out that we wanted to," Hay adds.
Addresses target market
The bilingual packaging was crucial, according to Hay, because one of the products' target customers is the Hispanic market. "They are much more amenable to using herbs because they’ve been using traditional and alternative medicines for a lot longer than we have," he explains.
"When we designed the Spanish/English packaging, we were thinking of the growing Hispanic and Latino population here in America, and many products include bilingual designs. We kind of catered to their preferences for herbs in the design."
"By law, you have to have the Supplement Facts, and we want to keep it big enough so people actually can read it," explains Hay. "When copy gets too small, it almost looks like you're hiding something. Plus the older you get, the harder it is to read."
Currently, there is no bilingual copy on the packets, but that will
change likely this summer when the 7.5-mL packets debut. Due to space
limitations on the packets, the product name only will appear in
Spanish on the reverse of the packet.
The company's bottled versions had not been bilingual, due to lack of space. WhiteDove also plans to produce bilingual English/French cartons for the Canadian market at a later date, Hay notes.
See the August issue of Packaging World for the main story, Predosed packets take herbals mainstream.
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