20. Jar labels

Did you know you can buy jars of vomit in the supermarket? Well, it’s not really vomit. It’s called ‘corn relish’ or ‘mustard pickles’ but it looks—and smells—exactly like vomit. What I like to do is to get a jar of corn relish, soak off the label and replace it with one of my own and give them to people as presents.

FRONT LABEL

 

Of course, for my jar label to be really convincing it has to have all the elements of a real one: I have to tell the consumer how to use the contents of the jar and what the ingredients are.

BACK LABEL

My emergency spew relish has been very useful as a last-minute Christmas present over the years. It was also the inspiration for the story ‘Emergency spew relish’ in Just Tricking!, in which Andy attempts to gross out an old woman so she will no longer want to sit next to him on a plane. He uses the spew relish to pretend he’s been sick and then makes a great display of eating it.

‘Emergency spew relish’ from Just Tricking!

You can put almost anything into a jar and relabel it.

 

It doesn’t have to be food-related—you can put almost anything into a jar and relabel it.

Instructions

Write out each of the following BOASTS on a separate strip of paper and place the strips in a jar. (Feel free to make up your own boasts.)

BACK LABEL

You can even put dirt and water into a jar and label it.

BACK LABEL

TRY THIS

Make a jar label

Put something interesting into a jar. (If you don’t actually have a jar you can still make a label for an imaginary jar.)

Make a label for the front and back of your jar. Think about including the following on your labels: an introduction to your product, directions for its use, a list of ingredients, warnings, guarantees, other related products you have in your range, and—of course—a barcode.

You can also include persuasive words to attract the consumer’s attention: