Earlier this month packaging expert Des King discussed why looks count and first impressions matter when it comes to building market share. Here, he continues his exploration of digital packaging, mobile technology, and the industry's changing patterns of communication.
The following article is part two of a two-part article written in the lead-up to drupa 2016.
Faster-running inkjet technology looks poised to dictate the next chapter in the digital packaging print story, not least via the keenly anticipated commercialisation of digital guru Benny Landa’s ‘nanographic’ presses, engineered to deliver variable data printed material at offset speeds.
Customisation is not the only route to catching the consumer’s eye on-shelf. Short-run, cost-effective special effects such as high-gloss, glitter, metallic without recourse to hot-foil stamping and even braille are also within the remit of next-generation digital post-press enhancement technology now establishing itself within the finishing sector. Also providing a more cost-effective means of achieving greater stand-out is the take-up of cold foiling using the analogue process – notably as an alternative to laminated or metallised substrates for labels and cartons.
The new frontier
Sun Branding Solutions packaging technology director, Gillian Garside-Wight, says the adoption of online-oriented technologies is pointing the way towards next-generation applications aimed at facilitating greater engagement between brand and consumer.
“Who would have thought that the Apple watch would be available five years ago?” she says.
“Brand owners need to deliver what consumers want, including smarter packs that integrate with a digitally driven smarter lifestyle.”
Quite a number of applications on the market bring into play mobile technology. For example, on-pack augmented reality (AR) applications pioneered by Blippar that allow users to simply look at an object through the camera on their smartphone to activate an instantaneous digital search and draw down information from the web. In a recent campaign for Perrier, the invitation to consumers to shake their phone like a cocktail shaker to reveal a recipe was a typically innovative way to highlight the overall concept and add fun by using the technology to a unique advantage.
Rather than position an icon on-pack to facilitate interaction, UK-based prepress specialist Reproflex3’s proprietary PackLinc scanning technology embeds a hidden code within the ink itself, enabling the consumer to effectively treat the entire pack as a portal. Most recently applied within a limited edition run of the children’s POM-BEAR crisp packet, the system was the recipient of EFIA (European Flexographic Industry Association) and the prestigious Starpack gold awards last year.
EFIA director Debbie Waldron-Hoines says brand owners need a deeper understanding of the processes so that they can help make considered decisions on what is best suited for their brand.
“Both flexo and digital can work wonderfully together to enhance the brand,” she says.
Underpinning product security and thereby underpinning brand integrity is another obvious avenue explored by smart technologies.
A fully printed near-field communication sensor tag (NFC) developed by Thin Film Electronics for Diageo’s Johnnie Walker whisky doubles as a security and anti-counterfeiting device as well as interacting with smartphones to dispense product advice and information.
As a lot of the labelling and pre-printed information currently required to be displayed on-pack is gradually phased out, just imagine the potential for branding afforded by that freed-up real estate. Brands are currently getting maybe only 40 per cent of the pack’s surface for its primary purpose. However, if one small interactive barcode resolves all the regulatory and legal requirements, 90 per cent of the print surface could be released for marketing the product. Meanwhile, at the higher end of the scale is the arresting 3D effect achieved through the use of Fresnel lens technology providing instant ‘stand-out’ in retail duty-free for cartons containing the global gin brand Bombay Sapphire.
“It’s obviously more expensive than a normal foil by about one-third, but you do get significantly greater impact. If you want something that is undeniably eye-catching and alluring then that’s what it takes,” says Dominic Burke, Webb deVlam UK's MD.
“Ironically, the most practical bridge linking brand and consumer might simply entail upgrading the humble linear barcode into a 2D format,” says Domino Printing Sciences global account manager Craig Stobie.
“Brand owners are yet to fully realise the potential in having a machine-readable code that not only contains a lot more data but with the same footprint or smaller than a human-readable – but can also actually be cheaper,” he says.
“They need to meet the challenges faced by counterfeiting, product security in the supply chain, consumer engagement and Big Data management. Brand protection and better marketing of their products are major starting points towards averting potential reputational damage and simply saving money.”
Printing matters
Eye-catching and innovative printed packaging is a shrewd investment towards building a loyal and enduring customer-base. While consumers are exercising greater versatility than ever before in choosing how and where they're able to gather information through which to determine product preferences, packaging offers the brand owner a uniquely guaranteed opportunity to control how they communicate with prospective customers face to face in-store at the very point of purchase. It's no surprise then that the ways in which the package is printed will occupy centre stage at drupa 2016.
“Whether it be products that communicate with your tablet or temperature, or time sensitive thermochromic inks that indicate when your lager is perfectly chilled or provide the re-assurance that pre-packaged meat is safe to eat, the facility for interactivity ticks all the right boxes for forward-looking brand owners,” says Eef de Ferrante, MD of the Active & Intelligent Packaging Industry Association (AIPIA).
In conclusion
Printed packaging is the key mechanism enabling brand owners to build expanding and enduring customer loyalty in order to out-sell and out-perform their competition.
Changing patterns of communication have elevated the role of packaging from protective wrapper to front-line sales & marketing tool. In a media-neutral environment it’s a function that is increasingly as much marketing as technology, and that provides the brand owner guaranteed profiling and exposure in front of the consumer. In order to optimise consumer response at the point of sale, brand owners will want to invest not only in imaginative, innovative and well-executed creative design in order to achieve distinction and differentiation, but also in the appropriate colour management technologies to ensure its accurate replication, irrespective of substrate or geographical location. The latest developments in web-based workflow platforms and systems that link all components within the packaging print supply chain will be on show at drupa 2016.
While a consistently reproduced and instantly recognisable image is vital in underpinning authenticity, brand owners are increasingly required to be able to demonstrate rapid response agility in order to maintain competitive edge via updated printed messaging and, as these tactics are often short-term and invariably short-run, as cost-effectively as possible. The same level of expediency applies to the introduction of brand extensions and new products. Enhanced analogue process print and next-generation digital equipment designed to deliver accelerated cost-effective time to market will compete for attention at drupa 2016.
Special decorative effects and added functionality are increasingly providing an added value finishing touch that can extend beyond the point of purchase to enhance the consumer’s relationship with the branding proposition throughout its life expectancy.
The appropriate systems and solutions to accomplish all of these imperatives are not only readily available to print service providers but are constantly updated and extended. Applications to facilitate the synergy between printed text and graphics, the internet and social media through the development of on-pack interactivity accessed by smart mobile technology will constitute a growing area of visitor interest in Dusseldorf.
Des King has worked as a freelance journalist in the printing and packaging industries for the past 20 years. He writes a regular monthly opinion column in UK magazine Packaging News, has contributed to PKN, and is a long-standing member of IPPO, The International Packaging Press Organisation.
