Culture

Despite All Better Judgement, Nutella Are Now Asking People To Customise Their Own Labels

People should never be trusted.

by Meg Watson  17 September 2015

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Four years ago, Coca-Cola had enormous success in introducing its ‘Share A Coke’ campaign. Branding each can and bottle with someone’s name helped personalise their multi-national corporation. It softened their image, and even went so far as to turn the product into a game — a fun little treasure hunt that saw an impressive 250 million units sold over one summer in our nation of around 23 million people.

But invariably, with increasingly diverse names and spellings, many greedy little sugar-guzzlers were left out of this process. To remedy this, the company soon printed broader labels like “Dad” and “Sis” and catch-all terms of endearments like “Mate”, but the question remained: why not put the power in their hands? Why not let people have a real say?

Now, Nutella have an answer:

Announcing a new initiative yesterday, the addictive hazelnut goop you cram into your mouth by the fistful is now giving customers the opportunity to personalise their jars of liquid shame. All you have to do is buy a specially marked jar of Nutella, head to the website, fill out a big form with your requested label, and abstain from eating the whole jar until your new creation arrives in the post sometime between now and October 25.

It’s really targeting that sweet little niche of people both incredibly susceptible to viral marketing and super dedicated to prop jokes. So, you know, your mum will have one in no time.

For everyone else, it’s proving both much simpler and satisfying to simply share these solicited label ideas online.

Seriously, there are just so many great options to explore.

As a result of running into trouble with the idea in other countries — nope, this isn’t even the misfortune of a trial run — Nutella have this time introduced some restrictions. The terms and conditions when submitting your label first dictate that the name “is subject to the approval of the promoter”.

“Names must not be comprised of any copy determined by the promoter in its absolute discretion, to be obscene, offensive, inappropriate or unsuitable for minors. The promoter, in its absolute discretion, will review the copy for suitability and/or appropriateness prior to having the claimant’s personalised Nutella Label produced.”

Sadly, this means none of these creations will be with us IRL anytime soon but it won’t stop them fucking with Nutella’s Google Image results forever.

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Feature image via Dan Nolan/Twitter.