Digital packaging: making packaging more interactive, customised and individualised

A Appadurai, Country Business Manager – Indigo, HP Inc; Manish Gupta, National Marketing Manager – PP & IP at Konica Minolta Business Solutions India Pvt Ltd; Filip Weymans, VP Marketing, Digital Solutions, Xeikon; Upal Roy, Managing Director India & SA, Packaging Inks & Resins, Flint Group; Prasanna Venkatesh, Managing Director, Zund India Pvt Ltd; Ajay Agarwal, MD & CEO, Insight Print Communications; and share their views on digital packaging, in conversation with Varsha Verma of Print & Publishing. Excerpts.

P&P: How important has digital printing become for packaging companies & why?

Appadurai: The huge transformation in the consumer behavior, millennials becoming important part of the consumer eco system, rapid urbanization is having a massive impact on how brands look at their marketing mix. Packaging has become the 6th P of marketing. Digital is helping brands with mass customisation that has become the order of the day, the recent campaign of Coco Cola with the ‘Share a Coke’ project is the greatest testimony to digital printing’s importance. 12 crore wraps around with 9200 art works were produced and distributed in 85 days. Personalisation in packaging is picking up momentum in India with few chocolate companies rolling out some amazing projects.

Manish: Packaging companies have been traditionally undertaking large print lot orders. However, since last few years, marketers started targeting individual customers to attract towards their brands. As target segment is found as concentrated customer category, packaging is also getting personalised with requirement of variable data to address individuals. Short lot quantity with VDP requirement has increased scope of digital in packaging segment.

Over the longer term, digital printing will be also the spark in the digital transformation of print manufacturing where not only the printing but all the processes in the factory or digitalizing and becoming more automated.

Filip & Upal: Change is present around us all the time, also in the consumer market. With the changing consumer market, packaging that is more than just a package but because an interactive piece in the brand engagement, the demand towards print service providers is changing as well. Demand for large runs has broken down into more versions. This is where digital can provide an economical answer to such trends and make the shorter runs profitable again and also to integrate more creativity in the packaging.

Prasanna: In my opinion, with more customisation and individualization coming in, it has become imperative to look at digital printing for packaging companies. Besides, having a digital printing line adds more value to the company in terms of faster turnaround times, less wastage for shorter run lengths. This makes the company even more versatile.

Ajay: Digital Printing in labels industry has already taken the lead over conventional presses in America and Europe and in India, the overall installation base of digital label presses has gone up by 20% in just one year.

P&P: How is digital printing contributing to the growth of the packaging?

Appadurai: HP digital printing for packaging and labels are gaining traction world-wide with an accelerated pace of customer installations, enabling converters and brands to deliver unmatched possibilities. Today after doing lots of research and understanding big organizations like Parksons Packaging and Huhtamaki PPL did the investments in new & latest HP Indigo technology in India. The potential and unique innovative capabilities of HP Indigo technology today are enabling our customers to produce high-quality, B2-format (20×30-inch format) applications allowing brand owners to communicate with end-users customers, providing a lean and agile supply chain, faster speed to the market, including on-pack messages.

Manish: New solutions have been created in packaging with the help of digital printing. Few solutions involving VDP and regionalisation’s for solutions to promote brand affiliation, brand protection, security etc, are the promoting factors of Digital Printing in Packaging segment.

Filip & Upal: Digital print will not accelerate the consumption of packaging as this is more driven by a growing and changing consumer market. What it will do is make printers more profitable.

Prasanna: I would say that this is complementing the packaging industry. It brings in more versatility and quicker turnaround times for handling short run lengths.

Ajay: Again I will restrict my answers to label industry as I believe that label industry is ripe to adopt digital in a big way. Digital will become a necessary addition to every label converter in a few years from now,without which they will not be able to survive.

P&P: What are the limitations of digital printers for packaging applications?

Appadurai: There are no technical limitations with HP’s digital printing in the packaging application today. Infact our presses are 5- in 1 technology. The HP Indigo 6900 can produce applications that are produced in flexo presses, offset, gravure, screen and lettepresses. We have customers who use the same press for producing labels, cartons, flexibles, iml’s, lami tubes, foil printing etc. Pre press, color management is so much easier compared to conventional technologies. The perceived limitations are around the economic which keeps getting better. The important fact for packaging convertors to consider today is what is happening to run length and turnaround time demands of their customers. I guess all those stats are pointing them to look digital today.

Manish: Current limitation of digital is the productivity and high cost to print large packaging volume.

Filip & Upal: Imagination is the only limitation — every technology has a drawback, digital is no different. Hence, it is important to look at what it can deliver to their business. Xeikon realized this long time ago hence we are providing two complementary technologies — UV inkjet and Dry toner.

Prasanna: This would be still an expensive way for someone who is into large volume productions.

Ajay: Long run jobs continue to be more profitable in conventional presses — also digital presses cannot do Pantone colors. They work on 4 or 5 process color combination to achieve Pantone shades. For example, the Screen L350UV Plus model can deliver upto 84.7% Pantone shades but if a particular shade fall beyond 84.7% — then it has to be done on a conventional press.

P&P: Also how do brand owners look at digital printing for their products?

Appadurai: Today brands look at digital printing as a very important process that can help them to solve the issues of short runs, mass customisation, drastically reduce the time to market and value addition and brand protection through personalization and track and trace solution. Brands love HP Indigo’s digital printing for its unmatched print quality, the versatility with substrates and most importantly for the very unique features like special inks (invisible, white ink, sandwich printing), Mosaic and collage design technology of HP is being used by a lot of brands. Silver ink that we launched for HP Indigo is going to be game changer in the packaging industry.

Manish: Brand owners are interested to utilize digital technology for brand protection, security, initiate target marketing, increase customer loyalty towards their brands, and to initiate various special schemes.

Filip & Upal: Brand owners don’t look at the technology as such. It is up to the printer to map his capability, the capabilities of digital with the needs from a brand owner. The focus areas, where digital adds value for the brand owner, is the higher diversity of the product range and they can help in delivery of any type of run length and a faster turnaround, they can even do the JIT business.

Ajay: Brand owners can experiment with more samplings with digital, they can introduce full variable information — like the recent Coke campaign executed by Hutamaki — where the Coke bottles had names of people and customers can search for a bottle with his or her name. Security features can avoid counterfeiting and QR codes can help customers get more information about the product online. Brands can collect database of end customers using their products.

The list can go on. Digital opens up a whole new world for brand managers to engage with the customers.

P&P: How do you see packaging affecting your product offerings now and in the future?

Manish: As packaging is one of the growth engines in the country, we have introduced our flagship product KM1 which can also be used for packaging and in future also, would be bringing innovative products which would be growth enablers for the industry.

Prasanna: Due to increased personalization and short run lengths, which eventually calls for more digital solutions than the conventional ones, we are always on the forefront of innovating features to increase the productivity aspects of our machines. We have already launched various innovative features on our machine like the Dual beam machines, Overhead cutter camera, the latest fully automated Board handling system, The Tandem operation etc., Also, our machines are already Industry 4.0 compatible.

Ajay: We expect the double our digital machine sales year on year for the next few years.

P&P: What are your current products being used in packaging printing?

Appadurai: HP offers HP Indigo – 6900 (labels, lami tubes, some flexibles, folding cartons); HP Indigo 20000 (for wide web – flexible packaging, IML & labels); HP Indigo 30000 (folding cartons) and HP Indigo 12000 (light packaging).

Manish: Packaging industry is already using MGI technology for Digital Spot UV & Digital Foil and AccurioJet KM1 effectively to create many applications.

Filip: We offer Xeikon Cheetah series (Dry toner) for self adhesive labels (food , Health and beauty, wine and spirits, pharma, craft beer, security print, etc). It can also be used for wrap around labels for beverages, in mould labels for small and very large containers, (standup) pouches, wet glue labels, heat transfer labels and blow mould labels.

While, Xeikon Panther Series (UV inkjet) is useful for tube laminates, foil Flexpack and self-adhesive labels (durable, industrial chemical, Household chemical, premium beer, health and beauty). Xeikon 3500 (dry toner) is useful for paper cups and folding cartons (pharma, confectionery, food, etc).

Prasanna: We offer ZUND High performance Digital Cutting Machines for sample making, short run productions of boxes made of various substrates, POP/POS Floor standing units, cutting varnish blankets, etc.

Ajay: Insight sells the Screen L350UV Plus digital press from Screen and Konica Minolta Accurio label 190.

P&P: Any new offerings on the cards?

Prasanna: Yes indeed, but cannot disclose now.

Ajay: Insight will also be launching a flatbed digital press from HP for corrugation industry. We earlier had this product in our portfolio and we have installed one such press in India. The new launch is targeting the mid range of corrugation printers.

Manish: Yes, few products are currently under development stage. We would announce at appropriate time.

P&P: What trends do you see in packaging in near future?

Appadurai: Today’s consumers enjoy connecting with brands that provide relevancy and appeal to their community and the world around us is constantly changing at the faster rate than ever. Consumers expect the brands they love to evolve as fast as their social media feed. They have become both critics and creators, demanding more personalized service and expecting to be given the opportunity to shape the products and services they consume. Consumers are willing to pay more for a customised product. 1 in 5 consumers who expressed interest in personalized products are willing to pay a 20% premium. It’s all about “ME” which is taking most of the attention and bringing innovation through digital print platform in labels & packaging market.

Brands need to significantly reduce product lifecycle, and as a result speed up the process for hitting store shelves. Traditional supply chain model is changing. With the industry need to be leaner and the emphasis upon cutting both costs and carbon emissions, there is an expectation for further collaboration across the supply chain. Numerous studies indicate that faster cycle times is the primary advantage and using digital printing the future in packaging is going to get evolved for next big change.

Manish: Packaging is one of the growth industries for Konica Minolta. We believe packaging is moving towards attracting individual customers, building environment sustainable products, protecting products from counterfeiting, end to end tracking, and differentiating with smart packaging concepts. In other markets such a wide web flexpack, corrugated etc, new products will come to the market driven by the demand of the brand owners. The next drupa will be a big milestone for this.

Filip & Upal: In the labels, the symbiosis between conventional and digital will re-main and further evolve. All conventional processes will become also available digitally.

Prasanna: More and more digitization coming in terms of Augmented reality, AI, variable data printing, personalization etc.

Ajay: Packaging is growing at very healthy growth rate in India and I believe label industry and also short run/shrink sleeves flexible packaging will be the first to adopt digital in a big way. And we will see few applications in corrugation and board pack-aging that will go digital. Success of Parksons with their first digital installation will define further direction.