All the way with digital

Digital packaging printing enables customer relationship management (CRM) activities to include products with personalised images and messages, fully compliant with brand identity specifications, and on the same substrates as conventional, static packaging.

Brands are enhancing the relationship with customers by offering personalised packaging - from design-your-own beer bottle and soft drink labels and sleeves to candy wrappers and tissue boxes. These custom items interact directly with individual customers who are able to create messages and designs, or upload images for digital printing as flexible packaging, shrink sleeves, labels or folding cartons.

The potential of digital print reaches way beyond the label. Personalised digitally printed flyers and brochures have been driving up ROI for years now, using content which can also be incorporated into online and mobile media as pioneered by marketing teams such as the one at BSkyB. This kind of personalisation ensures relevant messages are delivered to targeted groups of your customers.

According to Forbes.com, 61% of US consumers feel more positive about a brand when marketing messages are personalised. Following Sky's lead, you could be producing completely bespoke and targeted packaging in the not so distant future.

The value of digital, given the high quality and versatility of the solution, is driving more brands to adopt the technology. The benefits
of short run, fast turnaround digital printing have been apparent in the label segment for years and are becoming more apparent and
appreciated by flexible packaging brand managers. They are becoming more prevalent in niche craft beer and wine companies. As
digital printing innovation continues, brand managers are recognising its potential to shorten supply chains, control stocks, streamline
logistics and reduce or eliminate material waste and warehousing, while maintaining print quality and brand identity standards.

Digitally printed runs are getting longer as the productivity of the presses and workflow improves.

Digital for flexible
Print quality, reliability and versatility are what flexible packaging converters of today and tomorrow are looking for - along with the right economics and format.

With digital presses that can print on the same stocks as gravure and flexo presses, it is possible to produce short runs of flexible packaging that match those produced conventionally in longer runs. This gives retailers the flexibility to receive products in advance of main deliveries or to build up supplies to meet unexpected demand. Short runs also reduce the cost of producing and storing large inventories of packaging materials and goods. Printing less at one time also lowers the risk of wasting
materials that become obsolete before they're used. However, unlike labels, the bulk of demand for flexible packaging needs a 29 inch or B2 format, which until now was not available.

International brand managers demand accurate colour matching. Materials printed digitally need to match those printed conventionally, and also need to be replicated across the substrate range.

Converters will also be looking for a digital press that prints beyond the standard colours for a digital press that can print five, six and seven colours. The ease of mixing special colours and loading them onto the press is a significant consideration. There is no point gaining time by digitally printing a short run, only for it to be lost in lengthy colour changes and makereadies. Flexible packaging printing also uses white ink as a colour in its own right or as a backing colour; the opacity of the white needs to have comparable quality to that achieved conventionally.

All colours, including white and other special colours, should be capable of being printed to the same high quality on the full range of substrates that flexible packaging buyers demand. Some digital presses can print on a very wide range of media, including PE, PET, BOPP, CPP, PA, PVC, OPS, metallised film, bio-degradable films. Some digital printing systems use too much heat in their processes to handle some materials.

Advantage digital
Firstly, digital print offers many advantages to packaging companies. It can be a successful method of driving traffic and creating a buzz around a brand, as proven by Coca Cola's global 'Share a Coke With' campaign last summer.

Designed to allow customers to 'share a coke' with friends, family and loved ones, the initiative featured a number of the world's most popular names digitally printed onto 375ml and 500ml bottles of Coca Cola in 35 European countries over 750 million packs. Without digital print, the project would not have been possible; printing the labels using analogue methods would give the same number of individual bottles, but they would then be labelled and delivered together. Randomly printing names sequentially is the only way to get the right distribution at the point of sale.

Coca Cola produced over a billion labels correcting the misunderstanding that digital is only suitable for short runs. The campaign was the largest job on record for Indigo label presses, and increased both social media engagement and sales. And its effect reached way beyond consumers. "Share a Coke" has shown the packaging industry what is possible, created enormous interest, and pushed digital label acceptance forward in companies of all shapes and sizes.

Challenges
Despite all of the advantages on offer, there has historically been reluctance in the industry to adopt digital printing processes on a large scale . What has helped this sector to lead the way is the development of systems enhancing the input and output of the digital systems. This includes MIS and prepress workflow on the front end and finishing of many types on the back end.

Folding cartons are a potential 2014 market, but there are some issues that need to be addressed before that will happen in earnest. The front end needs in cartons, and the other packaging types as well, can be handled by existing systems with some modifications for digital presses and the
increased volume of orders that result. The
bottleneck shift to finishing will be the most significant challenge. We have seen an increasing acceptance of the 30 inch format size by carton manufactures and there have been a good number of 'half size' analogue high productivity presses sold into this market over the past 2-3 years. These presses are being used for orders of 5,000 cartons or less on a regular basis. As converters have found ways to finish short run half size sheets through conventional assets effectively, this indicates that the implementation of digital printing systems for cartons should be smooth.

The next hurdle is less technical and more marketing: digital press manufactures do not really understand where their presses fit in
addressing the unfulfilled needs of that sector. Too often, we are seeing marketing materials that talk of the marketing benefits of running personalised packaging through digital presses. While innovative and providing a wide field of choice, the real need is for production efficiencies and operational relief in the supply chain. If the personalisation programmes will yield X euros over the next five years, operational relief will yield 100X or even 1,000X. There will be a tipping point, potentially in 2014, when continued improvements in the hardware and machinery will lower the cost so that it is attractive to all companies.

Training, support and financial assistance should also be considered when choosing a digital press. While digital flexible packaging
printing may still sound like a step into the unknown for traditional converters, some suppliers offer financial packages that should be investigated to protect cash flow and ensure profitability. Selecting a press is only part of the process of going digital. Training by suppliers should go beyond the press operator and include sales and marketing advice, because selling digital print is different from selling conventional print.

Finally, integrating a digital press into a well established conventional workflow can have a major impact on a company's success. Digital press manufacturers that have existing partnerships with prepress and finishing suppliers will be able to help construct a digital end-to-end solution that best meets the requirements and integrates seamlessly into existing and future
operations.