Janaury 2012 — In the old days, changes in design were generally few and far between. A commonly held belief was that by making too many changes it would weaken the brand image and confuse the consumer. Not so today. Consumer markets are more highly fragmented, maturing, over-saturated and increasingly commoditised, making a brand’s ability to stand out from the competition far more of a challenge, far more critical. Making carefully thought out changes, when judged prudent or, as its more commonly termed ‘differentiation’ is the key to brand standout. Brand differentiation can (if done correctly) help maximise valuable ‘face-time’ and help move a product from the retail shelf and into the consumer’s shopping trolley prior to that valuable sale at the check out.
Packaging does more than contain and protect – though no one would deny these remain prime objectives, but packaging is also an advertising medium that the brand owns, and if utilised effectively over time it builds recognition, awareness and – so behavioural psychologists tell us engenders trust.
Making on-pack changes from time to time should not affect product sales – in fact quite the reverse (all though there is one caveat – but more about what cannot be altered or should be altered with care later on).
In a digital informational age where nothing including technology stays the same for long and in an environment characterised by prolific media fragmentation, consumers are constantly evaluating products for ‘fresh-appeal’. Product packaging changes can reinforce the notion that the product contained therein has been improved, that it’s tastier or confers some new benefit. Modification to existing packaging may be relatively minor and of a time limiting nature such as the addition of coupons, regional marketing messages, competitions, new ingredients, barcode information and special pricing (two products for the price of one, and so forth). Alternatively the make over may include the introduction of new packaging materials and formats. If that is the case changes to brand image must be kept to the minimum in order not to alienate or confuse consumers until brand recognition is firmly re-established.
The one area of packaging design and reproductive change that all should consider carefully before making any change is colour. Seductive copy, layout and typeface are important but its colour that first sparks the interest. Colour can define the brand, creating recognition, acting as an aid in memory encoding/decoding, and providing brand differentiation.
Colour must be chosen carefully because colour provides a wide range of specific mental associations. In fact colour has a physiological, psychological and sociological effect, it defines a brand, but is also used on a sub-conscious level to impart information or a message. For example, it’s no coincidence that dark blue is used by financial institutions, pharmaceutical companies and for government information. Dark blue conveys authority, dependability and conservatism. Colours such as bright reds and yellows on the other hand are popular with fast food outlets – red is said to be an appetite stimulant while yellow is a positive colour, and is easy going.
Because colour has such a powerful influence and plays an important role in building a winning brand – greater emphasis than ever is being placed on faithfully reproducing an agreed colour on products such as packaging. Achieving consistency in colour on press can be difficult for a number of reasons. To start with colour sense is subjective and is often in the eye of the beholder. Problems that arise may range from geometric meta-merism, a phenomenon exhibited by colours that appear to be a match at one angle of illumination and viewing but no longer match when the angle of illumination is changed: caused by gloss and/or substrate surface texture. Other problems can occur when using certain colours on specific substrates. For example, in situations such as printing on transparent films for bread wrapping, the scattering characteristics of an opaque white ink layer, affects the appearance and colour of the finished product greatly.
Devices such as the K Printing Proofer have been developed by RK to enable users to obtain high quality proofs using gravure, gravure-offset or flexographic inks. The K Printing Proofer, a device measuring just 400 x 500mm, the Printing Proofer can accommodate any flexible substrate (printed or laminated) including film, board, foil, PVC, etc. In addition to producing gravure, gravure-offset and flexo proofs using interchangeable print heads, both wet and dry laminated samples can be produced on the machine using the gravure head with RK’s own K-Lam laminating accessories. Optimum printability is ensured via the fine micrometer control (0.01mm) of impression and doctoring control. Two or more inks may be printed simultaneously for comparison purposes.
Printers and converters want to minimise any unpleasant surprises, systems such as the original award-winning FlexiProof 100 and ever popular variant the FlexiProof UV for instance, enable users and producers of flexo inks to resolve colour matching and many other problems off-press, rather than on press, which in turn saves many metres of on-press waste.
Because this bench top system enables users to accurately simulate flexographic printing for all pre-press applications, the FlexiProof eliminates the need for pilot runs to be carried out on the production press, thus contributing to production efficiency. Moreover, the FlexiProof and indeed many of the other colour communication devices for processes such as litho, web offset and gravure can be used by all supply chain members so that results are demonstrable and showed to be achievable.
Of course its not just the supply chain providers that benefit customers, the brand owners and marketers become more involved in the production process via the quick and easy run off of presentation samples.
Colour matching, the ability to determine wear resistance, gloss, scratch resistance, and other issues surrounding printability makes devices such as the multi-tasking FlexiProof, valuable in the production environment, and valuable when it comes to developing new products.
For further information email sales@rkprint.com, www.rkprint.com
Source: RK Print
