Hi Craig,
There are certainly some ways. What went wrong with the displacement? This should always work (SPD).
Would you mind to share a sketch or at least the what font do you use and how many letters? Serif non serif.
For Displacement, use a model with a nice and high resolution. The texture should be at least in 16bit/c and hi resolution as well. The key for the font is—that it has to be slightly blurred, to allow for some change in depth at all. Just black and white with no gray tomes, might be not preferable. Check the Rounding options in the “Sub-Polygon Displacement”, and perhaps start with level 4 but 6 or 7 might work.
(Besides that, perhaps try to make an un-peeled model and wrap that around something egg like. Surface Deformer, etc.)
All the best
Sassi