Page 37 - Print21 July-August 2022

Business
position. The artisan spirits producers are creating a product where one clear liquid (vodka and gin) looks very much like any other clear liquid (water). Value is imparted by the packaging and label. And little else says quality better than a splash of gold or silver foil.
Victor Albergel, executive vice president of MGI, the provider of digital embellishment technology, points to a study by the University of Chicago which found that consumers have two seconds to identify a brand on a supermarket shelf and will make a decision to buy it in another 1.9 seconds. The use of foil will cut the time needed to identify the product in half, increasing
the chance of it ending up in the shopping trolley. On such margins are market shares won or protected.
The MGI JetVarnish 3D Web is just one of a number of approaches
Message on a bottle: Labels the key differentiator
to applying foil as part of a digital production package for labels. Kurz, HP Indigo, AB Graphics, and Xeikon are also able to apply foil to short run labels. Before these types of solution were available, conventional hot foiling would be considered part of the static element of a label with variable print content.
Another approach comes from Actega, using a technology shown by Landa at drupa 2016. This uses nano particles of silvery metal
which stick to a digitally applied adhesive. A first beta site has
been announced by AB Graphics, Actega’s development partner. This is Springfield Solutions in the UK, an all-digital label printer, combining HP Indigo and Screen inkjet presses with ABG Digicon finishing.
The interesting feature about this technology is a total absence of waste. There is no unused foil to rewind and process in some way. Actega thus strikes at a rapidly growing concern for brands
and their customers, namely sustainability. This has spurred demand for the use of more easily recyclable materials, films that are made from the same polymers as the packaging the labels is attached to for example.
Avery Dennison has launched
a collection scheme for release papers while developing label stock that does away with release papers, and so the major source of waste in pressure sensitive labels. Environmental concern is only going to increase with the use of recycled content and particularly thinner materials to cut consumable consumption.
The choice of label of this type
will be necessary to continue the story of products that declare an environmental stance, adding to credibility of a claim, or at least removing that brand’s vulnerability to claims that it is not walking the walk.
If this is a more discreet form of marketing via the label, the use of augmented reality is a rather more overt way of engaging with consumers.
Belgian beer producer Martens Brouwerij produced a series of bottles where a different character from a Belgium sitcom was printed on each, using a direct to shape technology and Xaar printheads. The approach limits the materials that
the bottle could use, but enables the brand to control the numbers of each
design, printing at the normal rate of a filling line.
A phone app is used to trigger a short film where the character comes to life. When two bottles are in
shot, the app sparks a conversation between the characters the phone
is pointing at. The brewery has not repeated the campaign, perhaps because of the limitations of what materials can be used when printing direct to shape. This will be solved and a number of ways of decorating cans, bottles and other cylindrical objects are now available, though none yet at production speeds.
A new threat is coming from a proposed design to print on a metal, plastic or glass container using nanography, but this is some years away, founder Benny Landa admits.
Augmented reality remains, perhaps triggered by scanning a
QR code as much as by image recognition. One of the most developed apps in this regard
is Living Labels, which has been adopted by several Australian and New Zealand drinks brands. The
19 Crimes red wines offer a different picture of a deportee from the UK
for each of the different wines. The app identifies the image and the label comes to life with an actor relating the life story of the individual transported to Australia and the crimes committed.
Lindeman is using the same technology to provide background to how the wine is produced with other brands linking to their own content.
It works for wine because the bottle will be on a table for a while, giving time for interaction once at home rather than in store where getting online can still be problematic.
The QR code is also being used
to link to additional content beyond the label, perhaps a recipe using the product, more about the provenance of the product in hand, how to recycle the package after use,
an element of verification. A new generation of QR code technology is under development and promises greater engagement for the brand, and legislation allowing, personal details of the consumer.
The role of the label is evolving, less something static and into creating greater engagement with the brand, perhaps also encouraging a repeat purchase. It is evolving
from its original purpose into something dynamic, and that means opportunity for print providers. 21
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