First impressions last

I remember “First impressions last” being used in an advertising campaign for something smelly, like aftershave, deodorant, or perfume. I'm assured by others it was a car advert. Whatever it was, the campaign was clearly ineffective as I can only remember the strapline, not the product.

An internet search for 'First impressions last' turns up all sorts of advice for interviews and first dates, but the only cultural reference I can find is to Harvey Specter from the Netflix 'legal' series Suits. Readers who have watched this will appreciate my use of the term 'cultural' is perhaps overly-generous.

Ditto 'legal'.

Of course, the other place the phrase appears is in marketing advice, and that's the context relevant to this post.

First impressions last is an idiom that reflects; a) that humans customers tend to make judgements quickly, b) these initial judgements (whether accurate or not) tend to persist, and c) it's therefore important to make a good first impression.

And part of that is achieved by using an appropriate label.

If you sell honey, or even if you just give it away, you'll probably want to label it. The label might adhere to the current honey labelling regulations, or could simply say “Happy Christmas”.

Labels can be anything from a handwritten word or two on the jar (using a paint pen) to a full-colour wraparound label containing batch numbers, best before dates, information on the provenance of the honey, the apiary, the bees, the beekeeper (perhaps omitting their provenance), crystallisation details and botulism warnings {{1}}.

The label is just about the first thing that the customer sees, so it needs to be attractive and informative, without distracting them from the product.

However good the honey is, if you adorn the jar with a crummy label you'll lose sales.

But there's a balance to be struck between the appearance and the printing costs, and this is complicated by variables such as poor harvests, monofloral honeys, small production runs and those honey labelling regulations.

No pressure then 😉.