THE BRAND OWNER’S GUIDE TO SHRINK SLEEVES THE BRAND OWNER’S GUIDE TO SHRINK SLEEVES Shrink sleeves — if designed, printed and applied correctly — promise countless benefits to your brand: Product differentiation, 360-degree branding, improved appearance retention and maximum shelf impact. While maximizing shelf impact is the primary value-driver shrink sleeves provide to your total packaging system, they also bolster your container walls (allowing for the use of lightweight product containers) and enable easy incorporation of tamper-evident elements. And as technology matures and evolves, more and more premium beverage brands, personal care products and performance nutraceuticals are leveraging shrink sleeve bottle labels for enhanced shelf appeal. If you’re a brand owner considering sleeves for one of your product lines, this guide is a good place to start. It will answer questions like: • Why are brands in so many markets switching to sleeves? • What are some common applications? • What factors impact shrink sleeve costs? • How do I prevent graphics distortion on my shrink sleeves? Let’s get started. 2 THE BRAND OWNER’S GUIDE TO SHRINK SLEEVES Why are brands in so many markets switching to sleeves? Right now, improvements in shrink sleeve technology are fueling popularity, and popularity is fueling research into further improving capabilities. That’s a big reason shrink sleeve labels are one of the fastest-growing segments of the labeling industry, boasting an estimated annual growth rate of 6.5% over the next five years. Today, we’re able to engineer shrink sleeves to contour around almost any container shape, with enhanced abrasion, moisture and product resistance when compared to a surface printed label. And there’s great variety within the shrink sleeve category: Full-body sleeves with tamper-evident seals over the cap, sleeves wrapped around multiple products in a promotion, smaller bands and more. 3 THE BRAND OWNER’S GUIDE TO SHRINK SLEEVES With shrink sleeves, there’s ample room for brands to test their creativity and customize their label to their product’s functional and branding needs. Here are a couple of reasons food, beverage, home, personal care and nutraceutical brands have looked to shrink sleeves to differentiate their product bottles on the shelf. 360 degrees to tell your brand story and build consumer trust Because shrink sleeves provide much more label real estate, you can communicate more on your label, from branding, product information, use instructions and regulatory information. As transparency and trust are increasingly being tied to brand loyalty, shrink sleeves provide an opportunity to be transparent about your brand and product by communicating more information on your label. Better label and product protection Shrink sleeves are exceptionally good at withstanding wear during shipping and handling, as shrink films are naturally resistant to abrasions, the environment, water and the product itself. This, combined with the fact that the image is printed on the inside of the sleeve, protects the graphics from wear or fade throughout the product lifecycle. Shrink sleeves can even protect the product by providing added strength to the bottle, in some cases allowing for packagers to reduce the wall thickness of plastic or glass bottles while still protecting the contents. And adding tamper-evident elements can help ensure your product remains in its intended state, protecting both the consumer and your brand image. Both of these innovations not only add value to the product’s label — they can sometimes reduce the total cost of your product’s packaging. 4 THE BRAND OWNER’S GUIDE TO SHRINK SLEEVES These innovations in shrink sleeve labeling — surrounding functionality and safety — are cited as among the most important to consumers when making a purchasing decision, according to a study done by Packaging Matters. The study also linked innovative packaging with purchasing behavior: Consumers who are satisfied by a product’s packaging are more likely to buy it again. 5 THE BRAND OWNER’S GUIDE TO SHRINK SLEEVES Value-added applications for shrink sleeves Shrink sleeves are used across container types (plastic, glass, metal) and markets (nutraceutical, home, personal care, food) because they allow you to add functionality, and therefore value, to your product packaging. Here are a few potential ways shrink sleeves can add value to your total packaging system. Incorporating tamper-evident features As discussed earlier, tamper-evident features are a great way to protect your brand. Extending the shrink sleeve over the bottle cap (as with lip balms) or adding a shrink sleeve around only the cap (as with some nutraceutical bottles) allows you to make your package tamper-evident. Incorporating a tamper-evident band into the sleeve itself simplifies your packaging operations when compared to similar solutions such as drop-band closures. Doing so allows you to avoid adding additional equipment and application steps into your process. Making it easy for consumers to recycle product containers Shrink sleeves need to be removed prior to recycling plastic containers. To make this easy for consumers, you can incorporate a “zipper” into your shrink sleeve. This zipper, comprised of one or two die-cut perforations that run up the side of the sleeve, allows the consumer to quickly rip off the sleeve before throwing it in the recycling bin. 6 THE BRAND OWNER’S GUIDE TO SHRINK SLEEVES New innovations are in development that support effective container recycling as well. Two such examples include: 1. Shrink films which are designed to float during the recycling process, facilitating better label/material separation 2. Systems that support removal of ink from the label in the recycling stream Maximizing the area for branding and regulatory information As we mentioned, sleeves give you 360 degrees of real estate, making it easy to add regulatory information or maximize shelf impact by telling a compelling brand story. Lightweighting your product container Shrink sleeves can contribute to the strength and rigidity of your product’s packaging system, allowing you to reduce the wall thickness of the bottle or container. And lightweighting in this way is good for the environment — lighter packaging uses less material to make and less fuel to ship. Enhancing abrasion and product resistance Because all graphics are printed on the inside of the sleeve, your shrink sleeve’s printed graphics will be inherently more resistant to wear, humidity and chemicals — which contributes to enhanced appearance retention throughout the product lifecycle. 7 THE BRAND OWNER’S GUIDE TO SHRINK SLEEVES A comprehensive look at shrink sleeve costs It’s important to frame any discussion about shrink sleeve costs in terms of potential value, rather than just dollars-and-cents costs. That’s because a simple price comparison between sleeves and traditional labels only tells half the story. Generally speaking, shrink can be about 25% more expensive than pressure-sensitive labels — but sleeves offer nearly 150% more real estate for brands to tell their story or communicate regulatory information. That’s 150% more space brand owners can use to establish a connection with their target consumer. And because it’s often cheaper to incorporate color and tamper-evident elements into a shrink sleeve than the container itself, sleeves can contribute to the value of your product’s total packaging system. Both shrink sleeves and pressure-sensitive labels are great products — but depending on the goal of the rebrand and your go-to-market strategy, the value of product differentiation can far outweigh the incremental cost of the sleeve itself. Factors affecting the cost of shrink sleeve labels It’s impossible to give an accurate price estimate for shrink sleeves without seeing your product’s container and understanding your brand vision. But there are certain factors that help frame any discussion of sleeve prices. 8 THE BRAND OWNER’S GUIDE TO SHRINK SLEEVES Run size This is the most important factor impacting your per-sleeve costs. It takes a significant amount of time to set up the press between runs. Longer runs spread the setup cost over more sleeves, resulting in lower per-sleeve costs. Printing method: Digital vs. flexographic Shrink sleeves used to be limited to larger runs. Now brands have a lot of flexibility in run size and a choice between using a digital or flexographic printing press. Digital printing allows for shorter runs, quicker turnarounds and sleeve-by-sleeve variation for promotional campaigns or flavor variations within a product line. While cost-prohibitive for shorter runs, flexo tends to be the best value for larger runs, providing standardized quality and great design versatility. Material selection: PETG vs. PVC While there are many shrink sleeve material options out there, the two most common are PVC and PETG. Which you choose will depend on budget, application and how much the material will need to shrink to wrap around your container. While PVC is the cheaper option and performs well during product use, it has much lower shrinkage (~60%), making it ill-equipped to shrink around some highly contoured containers. Despite the higher cost, the market for PETG is growing faster than for PVC because it’s more environmentally friendly and offers greater clarity and shrinkage (~78%). 9 THE BRAND OWNER’S GUIDE TO SHRINK SLEEVES Shape of your container: Common vs. custom Shrink sleeves can be used on almost every container shape, but it’s easier to engineer sleeves for common containers. Depending on how mainstream (e.g., 12-oz. bottles or cans) or unique (e.g., completely custom trigger bottles) your container is, more label engineering may be required on the front end to make a sleeve work for your container, potentially increasing the final cost. Level of decoration: Simple vs. complex Complex branding and decoration can also increase the per- label costs of your shrink sleeves.