Page 41 - FINAT Yearbook 2019

USING THE POWER OF DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA
The biggest challenge for #LABELicious is to reach the 18-25 year old audience of next generation talents in packaging design and engineering. The bottom line conclusion at the start of the project was simple: “They cannot reach us very well, and we cannot reach them very well”. On aggregated industry level, there are currently no existing infrastructures and networks where young talent, education and the industry actors connect. If a young professional would be interested to learn more about creative and technical label design or employment opportunities in the industry, there is no dedicated content hub to satisfy their information needs. And vice versa, if the industry wants to reach out to young professionals, they don’t have a single point of entry that works nationally or Europe-wide. In the digital space a meet-and-match platform can easily work on both national and international level, completely in-line with the culture and communication habits of future generations.
#LABELicious is an inspirational first step in that direction. The competition is an attractive format to activate and challenge next generation talents to share their ideas and dreams about labels and related packaging solutions for the future. Embedded in an online environment where more information about label technologies and trends can be found, where industry leaders share their vision and where generation peers share their enthusiasm it can grow into a platform for continuous exchange between offer and demand of label talent.
Nominated entries in the category “Sustainability”
For this first edition we had to start from scratch. One important strategic axe to build visibility and raise awareness, has been to build to deepen the relationships with the educational institutions in Europe, both directly and indirectly through our national partner network. This networks grows and energizes itself gradually over time.
The other axe was to use the power of targeted social media reach. Obviously, the 18-25 generation is living in the age of digital which means that the digital space is where we need to show up and meet them.
Using the detailed targeting possibilities of Instagram and Facebook, we have been able to build a substantial reach for #LABELicious of several 100,000 individuals amongst the defined audience in all European countries as a basis to drive dedicated traffic of several 1,000 interested individuals to the #LABELicious website. As the barrier for entering the competition is high (creating a detailed personal profile, producing and submitting creative work to match the briefing of any of the three categories – see side bar article) the number of successful contestants who completed all the competition requirements was just under the 100-bar.
During the course of the competition we learned that digital is a great tool to create visibility and initial interest, but that the personal impact of local collaboration between industry and education is very often an essential link to encourage young professionals to commit and convert their initial interest and enthusiasm into a concrete and competitive competition- entry.
Yoeran Saenen Niels Hyde
Klaartje De Kegel
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