Alastair\'s Blog

Archive for the ‘Labels’ Category

Spelling - a modern dilemma

Monday, October 5th, 2009

To correct or not to correct - that is the question.  More importantly, what is the answer?

Sometimes we notice suspicious spelling on either a customer’s personalised champagne label or the gift card they have prepared.  The dilemma is, should we double check this and see if our suspicions are correct?  If so, should we correct any errors?  If we think correction is best, should we call the customer first to check?  Of course, sometimes a spelling mistake might be deliberate… hmmm!

If we correct, another raft of issues arise:  does spell checking then become our responsibility?  What happens if we miss an error?   How about if we can cannot contact a customer to verify an intended spelling?  On peak days when more than 240 bottles are being despatched (ed. “despatch” and “dispatch” are equally acceptable according to my dictionary) where does the extra resource come from for the human spell check?  What if our human spell checker has a somewhat custom dictionary themselves….?

Oh dear, I think we may have stumbled across Pandora’s box and it is tempting to peek under the lid…only in the interests of best practice, of course.   I am curious, though, does “there” also cover “their” and “they’re” nowadays?

Help please!

Free Champagne

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Free Champagne

We have 3 bottles of Limited Edition TechCrunch Europe Award Winners Champagne to give away

As our friends at TechCrunch are putting the finishing touches to the the Europas, the TechCrunch Europe Awards 2009 we have been busy showcasing our services providing personalised Champagne.  Even in single bottles we can print, label and dispatch unique, one off, customised bottles of the finest French Champagne.

In our enthusiasm to salute the best of European technology and start-ups we have accidentally printed too many labels ;o).  Luke in the warehouse has diligently applied them so we thought we may as well send them out.

We have 3 bottles of Limited Edition Winners Champagne (label below) to give away,  now everyone can celebrate like a winner, enter to win:

Rules

  • Anyone can play
  • Follow us @nonvintage on twitter…
  • Tweet @nonvintage [and then add the 3 words that describe your favourite Champagne]
  • We decide who wins based on the best (funny, outrageous, sad, boring… you get the idea)
  • All over on 29th July (so be around 31st for delivery!)

If you don’t win, and you have got something to celebrate why not design your own label?  Get started here

europas_label

TechCrunch Winners Champagne

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Europas

Voting over and the winner was option 2. (sorry Petra ;o)

europas champagne label option 2

We will be printing our limited edition TechCrunch Europe Award Winners Champagne today and look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.

Posted by: Toby

#Europas Champagne

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

Our friends @TCEurope asked us to provide them with prizes for the upcoming Europa Awards.  We couldn’t resist and have been thinking about how to do something fun that also shows off what we can do.  Since our business is personalised champagne and let our customers create their own champagne labels, we thought we would follow our Geek n’Rolla special edition with something equally memorable.

We know that you are probably a bit voted out (and all the start ups thank you), but our awesome design team at @FHOKE, couldn’t decide which label to run with.  So we have posted the 3 best ones and thought that you could decide for us.

If you are in the running for an award why not let us know which label you would like to see on your bottle.  If you haven’t been nominated, we are planning a little give away of any excess stock, so you could still end up with a bottle (for free)…

watch this space…

Option 1
europas champagne label option 1

Option 2

europas champagne label option 2

Option 3

europas champagne label option 3

To vote, tweet #plc and the number of your corresponding favorite label.  If you’re not on twitter (really) then feel free to drop me an email toby [at] parklanechampagne.co.uk.

We will be labeling the bottles on Wednesday so voting closes on Tuesday night.

For more news don’t forget to follow us @nonvintage

Client profile: Barclays Capital

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

We thought it might be interesting to explain what some of our clients use their champagne for, and were delighted that the fabulous team over at Barclays Capital volunteered to be our first guinea-pigs;  thank you!

For those who don’t know, Barclays Capital are the hugely successful division of Barclays plc.  They are the lead sponsors of the UK’s Premier League football division, having taken over from Barclaycard, and we are very pleased to have been importing champagne and wines for them for a number of years.

So, an interesting question:  what is the link between Manchester United topping the Barclays Premier League for the third year on the trot and Park Lane?

Simple answer for anyone in the loop!  Park Lane is very proud of its long association with Barclays Capital as sponsors of the Premier League.  It is very very exciting when we see bottles that have passed through our hands being used with such exuberance and to full potential – even if not much of the bubbly inside is getting drunk….  We think the photographs below, courtesy of Barclays Capital and Action Images, certainly tell most of the story!

We think this also underlines the status of champagne as the perfect drink for celebration and success.  Long may there be more of that to come.

Enjoy the long weekend and fingers crossed for fair weather (dare we hope for good weather - and no more revelations about our MPs expenses?!).

Best wishes

Alastair

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