Packaging Methods just lately sat down with Invoice Kral, Chief Industrial Officer of Inovar Packaging Group, to debate the benefits of digital printing in relation to offering flexibility to model managers.
PS: What are some examples of digital printing getting used to draw customers?
BK: If you happen to consider the “Share a Coke” program … a special title on each bottle of Coca-Cola. There’s an instance the place a really massive model used digital printing to personalize their product, and, frankly, entice one other demographic again to their product. They had been beginning to lose a number of the youthful technology, and so they pulled it again in by utilizing digital printing – however on a really massive scale.
However you’re nonetheless seeing it right now. Easy issues the place manufacturers are personalizing merchandise for a college, or a regional advertising and marketing marketing campaign in a single specific metropolis.
We’re seeing it increasingly, even all the way down to the person. Pet meals, for example. You’re now beginning to see a number of the advertising and marketing on the market for customized pet meals. You’ll be able to go browsing and enter details about your pet, and they’ll really create a product that’s distinctive to that. When it exhibits up in your doorstep, it has your pet’s title on it. It has their image on it. It has details about why that is helpful to your pet.
PS: Why are some model managers reluctant to change from typical printing processes to digital printing?
BK: Spirits, craft beer, dietary supplements and private care … these are examples of product packaging the place you could have heavy gildings. Plenty of foil stamping. Plenty of embossing.
They might say, ‘Digital printing is good and every little thing, however I’m going to decrease my model if I begin to print digitally.’ Nonetheless, in right now’s world, I can provide you every little thing that you just do conventionally in a digital format. So some organizations have jumped into digital printing, however so much are nonetheless sitting on the sidelines.
The people who find themselves leaping in are typically the higher-cost prospects which have a decrease quantity of gross sales. So particularly within the GNC shops, the vitamin outlets … you are already seeing a number of very high-end wanting labels on lower-volume items, whether or not it’s whey powders or different varieties of nutraceuticals.
PS: Why is digital printing advantageous in relation to testing new messaging?
BK: Digital means that you can rapidly go and do some take a look at advertising and marketing on a refresh to your model and see the way it pulls, see the way it appears to be like … with out incurring a ton of prices. There’s all the time the choice of attempting 5 completely different variations and seeing which one pulls higher … or doing a small 10-person or 20-person sampling. You’ll be able to just remember to’re not laying aside present customers and that you just’re attracting new customers.
Pepsi modified their emblem. That entire concept of revamping your emblem, your branding on a 12- to 18-month foundation is essential. Even slight shade variations could make a distinction.
PS: What are the benefits of digital printing in relation to client engagement and stopping counterfeiting?
BK: Utilizing digital, you can also make each single label completely different if you wish to.
You could possibly put distinctive QR codes on each single product … a singular serial quantity … you’ll be able to put in micro-numbering, issues that may’t be learn simply. That might make it very laborious for counterfeiters.
Additionally, you probably have a client scan your QR code upon buy to confirm that it is a real product, that QR code will really deliver the buyer to your web site someplace, so now you can begin interacting together with your client.
PS: What’s an instance of Inovar serving to a buyer to experiment with its branding utilizing digital printing?
BK: We labored with a high-end water firm that wished their product to have a differentiation on shelf. They compete with the Fiji waters of the world. They wished a really high-end look to their product, however they really wished each product to look completely different.
So that they got here up with 10 completely different variations of their emblem, after which 10 completely different variations of a scene that you just see coming again by means of the bottle. Then we wrote an algorithm that principally mentioned, ‘We’ll do a random factor between logos and photos.’
So just one in each 500 bottles is similar. You are seeing all of the completely different variations of logos and photos, so that you’re by no means actually holding the identical bottle twice.
It did not change their operations. It did not change their manufacturing. It didn’t change their price to market a complete lot. The entire concept was that they promote single-serve bottles of water for a number of {dollars} a bottle, and so they wished it to look utterly completely different on shelf from their rivals on the market.
About Inovar Packaging Group
Inovar Packaging Group is an award-winning converter, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that produces revolutionary prime labels, shrink sleeves and prolonged content material labels for most of the nation’s main manufacturers.
Invoice Kral leads all facets of Inovar’s gross sales and advertising and marketing technique targeted on creating worth for his or her prospects and the manufacturers they serve.
