"Any brand manager worth their salt should be looking at how to optimise their packaging through better branding and imagery and seeing how new print techniques can help to give extra ‘va-va-voom’ in store," explains Sara Jones, creative director at packaging design agency Anthem Worldwide.

The trouble for most brands comes in affording to be able to do as Jones suggests. For while the luxury brands, with less of an eye on the unit cost, can afford to splash out on pimping their product, the majority have to balance out uniqueness with cost. Unfortunately for UK packaging printers, the job of holding the scales and trying to achieve that balance is falling to them. Thankfully, they have a few tricks up their sleeve to bring some equilibrium.

The requests from brands for more ambitious packaging are certainly increasing, with most UK packaging printers reporting an upsurge in demand for special touches to make a product look more unique.

"Clients are definitely looking to stand out more by using print techniques more extensively in their packaging solutions," notes Mark Lenton, sales executive at carton manufacturer Glossop Cartons. "Hence, we have done quite a few firsts recently, such as fragranced boards and scratch and sniff packs. These are things that I am sure are familiar in commercial print, but on the packaging side these aspects are very, very rare."

Jones agrees that those brands that have recognised the need to make their packaging work harder are really pushing printers into new areas. She gives the example of the use of heat-sensitive inks on Coors Light bottles, which tell the consumer when the beer is at the right temperature, as well as a label for Heineken that showed different messaging and imagery under UV light.

Tim Gittings, sales director at AJS Labels, argues, however, that these techniques are not just being employed to make a product stand out. At least in the high-value product sector, he says, there is another reason: conveying the premium nature of the product.

"As consumers have become more time-restricted while choice of product has increased, standing out on shelf has become of paramount concern for brands," says Gittings. "But for the luxury brands with high-value products, there is also the additional factor of the packaging having to reflect the luxury nature of what’s inside and that also leads to packaging innovation."

Games up
Rudy Martinez, head of concept design at AGI World, agrees, explaining that this is also the case in the computer games market.

"When games come out, it is usually around the Christmas period so it is extremely competitive and so companies want to make sure it is their package the consumer notices and picks up," he states. "But as well as standing out, the computer games packaging needs to feel like a high-quality product, as you are paying £50-£60 for it."

Whatever the reasons – and for most brands it is a combination of the two detailed here – wanting to do something and being able to do it are often two very different things. Embossing, foiling, innovative product design, new materials or inks – it all adds costs when most brands are trying to cut budgets. Hence, as Grant Picking, sales director at Berkshire Labels, explains, for some product areas giving packaging some fireworks will be impossible.

"We do a lot of sandwich labels and that’s very price sensitive, so it is a four-colour job with a basic label and that’s how it’s likely to remain," explains Picking.

For a great many product areas though, some form of embellishment is needed and desired and so printers are being tasked with delivering that at an affordable cost point. They are tackling the issue in a number of ways, beginning with getting involved in the design process before the final product decisions are made.

Stuart Hobbs, business development manager at AGI World, explains that getting involved at the design stage is crucial to getting the right result at the right price.

"We always try and get involved as early as possible, and this has meant for some products we have gone through seven or eight stages before we got to the final product," he says. "It is about coming up with a costing acceptable to the brand, but still giving them the look they want."

This sort of interaction obviously requires the brand to talk to the printer from the off, something made more complicated if there is a third-party design agency involved too. It may be that the printer has to be slightly pushier than it would be normally as a result, but far from being unwelcome, Karen Fowler, marketing manager, at English Provender Company (EPC) – which supplies chutneys, condiments and dressings for supermarket labels as well as producing its own EPC range – says brands always benefit from a printer being vocal.

"It’s crucial for the printer to come to the table with advice and ideas," she says. "It helps pinpoint things that set you apart. Often, while the techniques and advice might seem minor to the printer, it might be something the client had not considered, so no matter how small a point, the printer should still speak up."

Integral to this client relationship is proofing and this highlights the second area that is making packaging innovation more affordable: digital technology. The rise of digital presses has meant more affordable short runs so ideas can be tested more cost effectively, and more affordable end-packaging as well, according to Berkshire Labels’ Picking.

"Previously, it was cost prohibitive to run a proof as you had to set up the whole press, so people were less inclined to push the boundaries," he explains. "Now we can give a proof in a cost-effective way using digital technology and that gives people the confidence to try things.

"It also helps for the final products – you can print on a variety of materials and it allows us to target the slightly lower-run, more niche markets where innovative labels wouldnot have been accessible before because of the cost point. In addition, it is good for larger companies wishing to do test bed marketing and trial new concepts."
Digital technology also has a hand in the third and final wheel of the tricycle of affordable options: ingenuity. This could be ‘clever cheats’ that find ways of delivering the look the client desires, but at a reduced cost.
"Sometimes we do have to find an affordable option that gives the desired effect without the cost," reveals AJS’s Gittings. "For example, people like gold foiling but not the price, so we can do it cheaper using metallised paper and tinting it to look gold. It doesn’t look quite so good, but it can be a workable solution."

Foiled again
Picking uses his digital press for something similar: overprinting onto a metallic silver substrate, rather than actually foiling. And likewise, AGI’s Hobbs says the box for recent computer game Uncharted 3 (see box, page 21) looked like it used foil blocking, but in fact just used a foil board.

Hobbs’ colleague at AGI Martinez says that this method of using simple techniques for more complex processes is what packaging innovation is all about.

"Generally it does not have to be as complicated or as expensive as some might think," he stresses. "Usually a solution can be found by using relatively simple techniques, but by merging those techniques together you can get some amazing results."

Of course, packaging printers will still have opportunities to really push the boundaries with packaging where budget allows. Martinez cites the game Heavy Rain, which AGI produced a couple of years ago, where the company used a spot gloss to contrast with the matt cover, then put sculptured embossing behind each spot gloss droplet and the final result looked like it had rained onto the packaging. Likewise, some of the case studies in this article use some very technical procedures.

For the most part, though, printers need to be prepared with the three pronged affordability attack detailed here in order to cater for both the budgets and the increased ambitions of the majority of clients. With the high-street battle showing no signs of easing and the number of new product launches not slowing, thereby increasing competition yet further, the role of packaging will increasingly be the area brands focus on for differentiation and impact, and printers need to be ready to deliver those demands affordably.

The English Provender Company (EPC) manufactures and supplies chutneys, sauces and condiments. While much of its produce ends up in retailer own-brand ranges, it also has its own ranges, branded under its own name. It was for the latter that the company employed Berkshire Labels.

"We have repositioned our brand to focus on our all-natural ingredients," explains Karen Fowler, marketing manager at EPC. "As part of that positioning, we wanted all the collateral to reflect that. So we had the idea of a completely see-through label so you can see the product. It was then we approached Berkshire and asked what was possible and how it would look."

Berkshire produced several trial ideas on its HP Indigo WS6000 before the final label was settled on: a clear label with simple messaging that appeared to be scrawled onto the jar in a ‘homemade’ style.

"In terms of the text, it is chalk-board type writing and it stands out very well because of the method we used to print it," says Berkshire Labels sales director Grant Picking. "We put down two whites and a cream spot colour, and then a varnish over the top.  It had to be quite dense, and so another hit of the white was something we found we needed in the testing process."

EPC is very happy with the end result.

"We call it the naked look," says Fowler. "Our aim was to stand out on shelf and we seem to be achieving that as sales, completely unsupported and off promotion, are 148% up on last year. I’ll let the packaging take some credit for that as people do buy packaging and so this is a great result for the rebrand, alongside the great product within."

Monsoon Home Range and Glossop Cartons
Derbyshire-based Glossop Cartons was brought in right from the early stages of the designs for new packaging for the Home range of products, such as body lotion and perfume, for retailer Monsoon. The aim was to create a carton that provided a prestigious feel and antique-style effect.

"In discussion, we were able to advise on the kind of board that would give the required effect, while still being suitable for carton making, and on a process that could work with the budget," says Glossop Cartons sales executive Mark Lenton.

In the end, the job turned out to be one of the most complex the company had ever undertaken. It consisted of a 10-colour print (all colour-matched spot colours, including one metallic), a gold foil block and a blind emboss on an antique, textured board.

"The main concentration was in getting the colours correct - 10 colours including a metallic, colour-matched to fabric references and printing onto an absorbent and textured substrate," explains Lenton. "We ran the job as two passes on our Mitsubishi press in UV inks to allow instant drying. We then co-ordinated with our finishing supplier for a foil block and blind emboss, this achieved, the finished sheets were cutter/creased and glued back at our factory."

Lenton admits to being wary of the varrying results that can be achieved when printing on substrates of different absorbency levels and textures, so there was always a concern that the client needed to be aware of the differences in the final look of the carton in comparison to the linen swatches and Pantone references supplied by the designer. In the end, though, he says the quality of the press and the skill of the Glossop print staff meant that the final result surpassed expectations of what could be achieved.

"The client was very happy and we have expanded the work we do with them," says Lenton.

"On Uncharted 3, we wanted something authentic and vintage, something that would resemble a journal to reflect the game," explains AGI World head of concept design Rudy Martinez. "In order to achieve that, we needed to give the packaging a leather effect – and so we had to work out a way of achieving that through print techniques."

The company used special software to emulate print techniques, which allowed it to shortlist ideas. This shortlist was then put on a proofer to create mock-ups. 

AGI World business development manager Stuart Hobbs explains that this testing process was extensive and that the client was heavily involved.

"We were very, very active in talking to the client throughout," he explains. "The product evolved throughout the process, I think we went through seven or eight stages of the book before we got to the final product. It was about coming up with a costing acceptable to them, but still giving them the simulation of the finish they wanted."

The final packaging is a lay-flat book printed four-colour plus white on silver board, incorporating soft-touch lamination and debossing. This is held together with an
acetate O-ring. The gold foil effect was created using silver board printed with some yellow and magenta ink, then die-cut and debossed.

"The client had not seen soft-touch laminate before and so that was new to them and they were amazed that you could get that old world feel," says Hobbs.

Tim Gittings, sales director at AJS, says the job presented a number of challenges. For starters, it needed a combination of 10 colours, three varnishes and silicone. Then colour matching the self-adhesive label to the litho printed box also presented difficulties, especially the gold, which required a mixture of silver, gold and rubine red to achieve.

The job ended up being printed in two passes and Gittings says AJS was very happy with the result. The Body Shop was also very pleased with the high-impact final product.