Nivea shampoo label heads FINAT awards

A label for Nivea hair care shampoo is the best in Europe and has won the coveted FINAT 2007 Awards.

The label, printed by tesa Bandfix AG for the Nivea Hair Care Samt Glanz brand, is ‘a superb example’ of the combination of screen, offset and gravure printing in subtle tones of pink, well-produced blue type and containing silver images. It won the unanimous approval of the FINAT judges who had no hesitation in giving it the Best in Show award as well as first prize in the competition’s combination printing process.

The 27th annual awards were announced and presented at FINAT’s annual congress, held at Berlin’s Maritim Hotel on May 31.

In addition to European companies entering the competition, prize winners included printers from Peru and Canada – which demonstrates the growing international interest in the competition.

A selection of these winners will be entered for the world label competition being judged at Labelexpo Europe in Brussels in September.

More than 240 entries from 23 countries competed in four categories with 17 winning class awards and 65 others receiving highly commended certificates.

Identities of entrants were hidden from the judges, led by the competition organizer Tony White, who said their job ‘was made more difficult because of the very high standard achieved.’

The judging team was particularly impressed by the overall excellent use of color and outstanding graphics and were moved to give their special jury award to Skanem Introl SA for its ‘Bubble Bath’ label which, they said, ‘was a bright and busy label which used color to the maximum benefit with very good execution of the flexo and screen processes and a design that exactly reflected the intention to make the label attractive to children.’

Mr White said: ‘Year after year we are amazed at the quality self-adhesive label printers achieve. It just gets better and better and this year’s entries were all outstanding examples of the printer’s art.  It makes it very difficult to choose winners because standards are now so high.

‘The evidence of this competition proves that our customers can have no finer or better labels than self-adhesives.’

The category winners were:

Marketing and end-use applications

Overall group winner: Kimbells Pack, of Philippines, for Kaluwi Virgin Coconut Oil

Alcoholic drinks: Illospear, of Wales, for Bud Light

Food: Can Hassas Kagit of Turkey, for Camel Coffee

Household: Airep, of France, for Olivier Or Brun

Industry: Skanem Hobro A/S. of Denmark, for Grunfos Direct Sensors

Cosmetic: Skanem Introl SA, of Poland, for Bubble Bath

Pharmaceutical:  Kimbells Pack, of Philippines, for Kaluwi Virgin Coconut Oil

Security:  Securikett Ulrich & Horn GmbH, of Germany, for Bayer Void

Booklets and coupons: Stratus Packaging, of France, for Multipage refermable avec vernis stylo bille Panzani       

Sets of Labels: GundlachLogo – Logo Etiketten GmbH, of Germany, for Lrch-Edelbrnde kirsch.

Printing Processes

Flexo: Collotype Labels, of Australia, for St Arnou Premium Blonde

Letterpress: Kuresa S A, of Peru, for Fabuloso Fresca Lavanda 1 liter

Screen: Schfer-etiketten GmbH, of Germany, for Salitos Tequila

Offset lithography: Tapp Technologies, of Canada, for Rideau Vineyard Jazz FBI 2004 Tempranillo

Digital: Ettiketto Labelling Systems AB, of Sweden, for Sadolin

Combination: tesa Bandfix AG, of Switzerland, for Nivea Hair Care Samt Glanz shampoo

Alternative uses for other products

Non-adhesive labels and tags: Skanem Stavanger AS, of Norway, for Sjarken Fiskeboller.

Cartons: Too few entries for an award but Kimbells Pack, of Philippines, was highly commended for Placenta Herbal Beauty Soap

New applications or uses of a label press

Schreiner Group, of Germany, for a printed circuit label that enables the display to be lit up