FEATURE
colour in the pack design and get the pack sent direct to the buyer.
These brands are using digital print to increase their emotional engagement
with consumers and potential customers, to boost the brand status. Purina (a
Nestlé pet food brand) sells Just Right, a premium range of personalised dog
food. The pack has the dog’s name and picture, the owner’s name and the Just
Right logo on it. The food is formulated for the dog, taking the breed, size,
age, activity and various other factors into account. The company uses the
information about the dog they have been given to satisfy the owner’s desire
to deliver an individualised experience for the pet. This combination of owner,
brand and dog is a very powerful engagement.
Keeping Up With Legislation
― onto a pack or label. Such marking can be used as an identifi er to validate
the product is genuine via a smartphone scan referencing a secure database
look up. Once this initial online connection is made, brands or retailers can then
use this online channel to feed customised or even personalised promotions to
the buyer.
There are other applications. For example in Japan some cigarette packs have
QR codes printed on the outside that provide information to the customer on
health issues as well as promotion for the cigarette brand. Some packs also use
unique QR codes on the inside of the pack. These can be scanned and provide
consumer sign up for events and offers ― a twenty-fi rst century version of the
old cigarette card and coupon promotions.
Track And Trace
The same technology platform, inkjet systems printing unique information such
as numbers or 2D barcodes, and modular software can read these and deliver
supply chain effi ciencies, enabling item-level track-and-trace.
A simple, visible and easy to understand mark can be verifi ed at any point of the
supply chain, using a smartphone; removing the need for specialised equipment
or training. The cost of printing such unique identifi ers is much less than
competing technologies like RFID tagging although the time taken to read the
visible marks is signifi cantly longer.
Source: Nestlé.
Increasing legislation on the labelling of items is demanding more accurate and
easy-to-understand information to be presented in a legible way for consumers.
In June 2017, detailed labelling standards dictated by the European Regulation
on Classifi cation, Labelling and Packaging of substances and mixtures (CLP)
came into force. As well as facilitating safe international trade in chemical
products, the CLP ensures that any hazards presented by chemicals are clearly
communicated to workers and consumers in the European Union.
This is just one of many regulations on what information has to be printed on
packaging. In the US, new nutrition fact tables are mandatory from June 2018,
meaning pack designs had to be updated. These requirements mean that all
food labels have to meet a range of basic standards, cementing a core set of
mandatory information ― including presence of potential allergens, ingredients,
country of manufacture and nutrition.
This is a challenge for conventional printers, especially when supplying the
same product into different markets, involving increases in consumable
and changeover/make-ready costs; while for digital this versioning can be
accommodated by quick changes via a computer.
Brand Protection
Digital print can be used to provide hard to replicate brand protection features
to packs and labels, aiding anti-counterfeit efforts. As the quality of packaging
printed by counterfeiters has improved, brands are more motivated to prevent
losses from counterfeiting and protect the quality and integrity of their products.
In an ecommerce environment, consumers increasingly want to assure
themselves that a product is genuine, particularly for high-value items such as
fi ne wine or cosmetics.
There are security inks and toners that can produce overt and covert marks, and
some of the electrophotographic presses can produce microtext and features
such as photocopy voiding patches. Digital laser fi nishing systems can add
selective 'engraving' of text and images, either as a partial burn or creating
complex patterns of holes or sheet edges that are diffi cult to copy.
This has multiple applications and has the potential to prevent fraudulent
trading, for example the recent scandal of horse meat being substituted for
beef in the UK and Europe. The same approach is being deployed widely in the
pharmaceutical and medical device sectors, where a prescription or hospital
drug administration can be checked at point of issue.
Legislation is fostering this trend, with 2D barcodes prescribed for such
applications by new laws: the US federal Drug Supply Chain Security Act
(DSCSA), and the EU Falsifi ed Medicines Directive.
Design Improvements
As digital printing becomes more widely used in labels and packaging,
designers are learning how to make the most of the new technology.
Digital print allows continuous tone images and text to be reproduced at high
quality, with no penalty for changing any part of the image. In the case of fl exo
printing, ink is relatively low cost while new plates are costly and changing an
image involves press downtime and waste.
While some fl exo is capable of high-quality image reproduction, much,
specifi cally on corrugated, is limited and the use of large fl at colour panels is
widespread. This has become the norm in many boxes, with heavy coverage
of spot colours commonly used. The cost of replicating the design digitally is
expensive, as it involves high ink coverage.
As designers understand the technology is well-suited for continuous tone
graphics and fi ne text, with no additional origination costs, they will provide
more appropriate content that is aimed at promoting branding and sales.
As success stories permeate out, other designers will copy and develop
strategies that work well. In Sao Paolo, the Pelé Coffee brand ran a campaign to
prove the freshness of the pack by printing 5000 packs with the same day front
page of the Estadão daily newspaper.
It delivered the packs to the news outlets and to subscribers by 8.00am on
the day of issue. It reported a 400% increase in sales and a 179% reach on
Facebook with 100,000 interactions over a three-day period. The Future of
Digital Print for Packaging to 2022 is a global study that quantifi es the market
for digital printing across all packaging substrates and formats, regions and
key markets for the period 2012–2022. The full report can be downloaded at:
https://tinyurl.com/yd8shaut.
Digital systems can impart unique information ― like an item-specifi c QR code
www.AfricaPrint.com
FESPA www.fespa.com
AFRICA PRINT JOURNAL
JANUARY 2018
PG 41