Overcoming Common Challenges in Packaging Copy Development

Introduction

Crafting clear, concise, and compelling messaging for product packaging while meeting a long list of CPG or pharma regulatory requirements is a Herculean task for any organization. Most teams face several challenges: balancing creativity with compliance, maintaining brand consistency across product lines, and speeding up time to market. Packaging copy development is critical to ensuring that packaging copy content aligns with brand identity and resonates with the target audience. However, several challenges come their way. 

Understanding the Challenges of Packaging Copy Development

Packaging copy development must ensure that it accurately and effectively communicates the product's attributes and complies with industry regulations. However, companies need help with the process, such as ensuring the accuracy of content, maintaining brand consistency across different products, and adhering to varying regional and global regulatory standards. 

• Poor understanding of roles and responsibilities between various stakeholders can cause issues in authorizations/approvals, impacting overall pack copy accuracy and compliance. 

• Poor classification of copytext can lead to ambiguity in classification and inconsistent messaging, disrupting workflows and delaying time-to-market. 

• Lack of structure in packaging copy content can create confusion about the product’s value proposition, dilute brand identity, and cause essential legal or safety details to be omitted or poorly placed. 

• Balancing copy content with regulatory information and ensuring compliance with varying regional and global regulatory standards is often challenging.

• Avoiding clutter and coherently and appealingly balancing content elements like text, graphics, and symbols is complex and time-consuming.

• Pressure of openness/transparency from the FDA can overwhelm packaging teams, causing issues in balancing compliance with excessive information. 

Introducing ManageArtworks Copy Manager

ManageArtworks Copy Manager allows packaging teams to collate and approve all their pack copy in one place. It helps streamline copy creation and versioning, allowing businesses in the food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and consumer goods industries to comply with varying packaging regulations across multiple regions. 

• Flexible copy creation methods: ManageArtworks offers flexible options for copy creation. Teams can create packaging copy from scratch, use pre-built templates, or reuse existing content to meet diverse product needs. Regardless of what option teams choose, they can make unique content, maintain brand consistency, and ensure compliance with regulatory standards while accelerating the creation process. Teams can also repurpose content and provide a coherent brand message across multiple product lines.  

• Language support: ManageArtworks Copy Manager offers advanced language and translation support, helping companies globalize packaging content seamlessly. By managing multiple languages and regional variations for each copy element, the system allows teams to localize packaging copy for different regions, suiting each market's linguistic and cultural nuances. 

• Content-level approval workflows: ManageArtworks’ sophisticated workflow mechanism ensures that every piece of content, whether a warning label, ingredient list, or marketing blurb, undergoes a rigorous review and approval process. As stakeholders approve or request changes to different elements, the system meticulously tracks these approvals, enhancing the precision of pack copy content.

• Version control: With ManageArtworks, creating and managing different versions of copy content is easy. Intelligent version control allows for detailed tracking and management of each piece of content. This helps stakeholders make and track changes to specific sections or elements of the pack copy without affecting the entire document. It also ensures that updates and revisions are handled with precision, reducing the risk of errors when managing versions of entire documents or packages. 

• Template management: With Copy Manager, packaging artwork teams can use pre-designed templates to craft content quickly. The system’s template management feature allows a predefined set of copy elements to be combined and utilized to create new packaging content efficiently. This way, teams can streamline the creation process, save time, reduce content errors, and maintain brand voice and design consistency.

• Content consistency and reuse: As teams look to accelerate time-to-market, ManageArtworks allows for repurposing existing content across similar products. The system’s robust content reuse mechanism will enable teams to reuse content across various packaging shapes, sizes, and formats, ensuring message uniformity across the product portfolio and enabling a cohesive brand experience for customers.

• Bulk edits and approvals: As the number of products and SKUs increases, manually approving packaging copy content for each product can be highly time-consuming. ManageArtworks enables teams to make changes across multiple pack copies and proofread and approve them in one go. This bulk editing and approval feature allows stakeholders to approve or request changes to each element without impacting the progress of other content components.

• Audit logs: ManageArtworks Copy Manager offers a comprehensive audit log feature that carefully records every action performed within the system. Whether content is created, modified, or deleted, these audit logs provide a birds-eye view of all the changes, user approvals, and rejections. This helps maintain transparency, accountability, and a clear regulatory compliance and internal audit documentation trail. 

• Comprehensive search: Finding copy content buried deep within a digital asset management solution can be challenging. With ManageArtworks’ advanced search and replace functionality, teams can quickly identify and update content across multiple pack copies. They can effortlessly locate specific content using filters, find text, images, or symbols within the repository, and view results based on many criteria, such as product lines, regions, languages, and more.

• ‍Content distribution: Packaging artwork companies often have difficulty distributing approved pack copy content to PIM systems. ManageArtworks streamlines content distribution by directly integrating the Pack Copy Management System with your PIM system. Post pack copy approval, it is automatically sent to the PIM system, ensuring consistent and up-to-date product information across retail channels, e-commerce platforms, and digital marketplaces.

Analyzing the Benefits of Copy Manager

A robust copy manager tool like ManageArtworks ensures uniformity in copy elements, helping organizations maintain a consistent brand image across various products and markets. Top benefits include: 

• Enhanced Efficiency through the automation of repetitive tasks such as content creation, approval, and distribution, saving time and reducing the need for manual intervention

• Consistency and Brand Integrity across all packaging materials, helping organizations maintain a solid and cohesive brand image across multiple products and markets.

• Effective Compliance with regional and international regulations by regularly updating legal disclaimers, ingredient lists, and nutritional information.  ‍

• Error Reduction by minimizing manual effort and offering a single source of truth for copy elements. 

• Faster Speed to Market via quick creation and adaptation of packaging copy, especially for companies with large and varied product lines. ‍

• Cost Savings by reducing recalls or legal issues due to incorrect packaging content and decreasing the need for external agencies by handling many tasks in-house.  ‍

• Better Quality Control via integration with design tools like Adobe Illustrator that ensures the final artwork aligns with approved copy, enhancing the overall quality of packaging.

Packaging copy development isn’t just about adding text to a carton or bottle. It demands a delicate balance between creativity, clarity, and compliance to craft content that informs, engages, and inspires trust. Well-developed packaging copy using a tool like ManageArtworks can go a long way in meeting regulatory and branding requirements, creating a strong connection with consumers, and standing out in a competitive marketplace.