As brands battle with the spiralling amount of information that is required on packs, Jill Park reports on how leaflet labels are gaining popularity.

It's the classic conundrum - lots of information and only a small pack to fit it on. Once ingredients, nutritional information, usage instructions, the manufacturer's details and other mandatory information has been accounted for - often in several languages - the space needed can far exceed the size of the pack.

One solution is a fold-out or leaflet label. Labels with extra layers are used in food, pharmaceuticals, agro-chemicals and toiletries when space is short. But multi-fold labels can offer much more than a place to hide away excess information. From promotions, to improving pharmaceutical compliance, the leaflet label is not to be underestimated.

Unilever uses two-layer peelable labels on its deodorants, to cram information into relatively small spaces. "They are, for us, an essential part of the pack," says Unilever deodorant category packaging director Paul Howells. "We have a very small pack and lots of information. For Europe, we would cluster information for four or five different countries into one label," he adds.

Baby-product retailer Mothercare followed a similar philosophy when it used a Fix-a-Form multi-page label from Denny Bros, to include multi-language instructions on its baby toiletries range. Nine different languages were collated on to the 10-page label, which meant Mothercare only needed one stock-keeping unit (SKU) for all its licensees around the world.

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Jill Park, Packaging News, 05 August 2009