The first Print21+PKN LIVE event for three years saw a succession of brand owners and print service providers step up to share how their innovative use of digitally printed packaging was driving their sales growth.
Held in the dazzling surrounds of the State Library Victoria, Amplify & Engage attracted brands, retailers, printers and industry suppliers, all of whom were recognising the opportunity that digitally printed packaging is providing.
Opening the event Print21 + PKN publisher Lindy Hughson and Print21 editor/ PKN associate editor Wayne Robinson cited research from leading industry analysts Smithers, which is forecasting a 3.1 per cent CAGR for packaging over the next five years, but an 11 per cent CAGR for digitally printed packaging, representing a virtual doubling of the market size.
Keynote speaker was behavioural science strategist Sonia Friedrich, who outlined the predictable way the human brain responds and makes decisions, and what that means for brands. She said it was a crucial area to understand, with research showing that those who implemented behavioural science in their marketing, incuding packaging design, achieved far greater sales uplift than those who did not.
Michael Dossor, who led the Hungry Jack’s Uno campaign, then outlined what steps he had to take to achieve what has been termed Australia’s most intelligent campaign, and in a theme that ran throughout the presentations, shared how home-grown Australian innovation had driven the success. The Hungry Jack’s campaign was a fantastically complex project, with everything from data management and security, to having to re-invent label applicators to stick the cards onto the cups, to producing 17 million unique and traceable labels, and involving MCC Labels, Detpak and marketing agency TLC working together.
Hughson then invited those team leads up to the stage for a panel discussion that she led, which drilled down into just how the campaign was produced, some of the challenges faced and how they were overcome, and what the success of the campaign means for the future.
The conference then swung from the major corporate that is Hungry Jack’s to the other end of the scale, with examples of start-up food and pet food entrepreneurs now being serviced by ePac, the pouchmaking print service provider that is enabling small brands with small budgets to have a big brand presence.
Jason Brown, managing director of ePac ANZ was joined on stage by one of his clients, Brian Nasr, founder of Healthy Food Crew. The duo shared how they focused on control, freedom and opportunity to give the emerging wave of SME food, nutritional and pet food entrepreneurs the packaging they wanted, at the time they want it, in the number they want. They shared multiple success stories that their clients were seeing.
They referenced Friedrich’s comments on eliminating friction points, and in fact, one of the themes of the day was the way the many speakers, from many different areas, referenced each other’s comments throughout, highlighting the common energy, opportunity and focus that digitally printed packaging is providing.
Following a short break for tea the next session kicked off with Ryan Davidson, founder and director of craft beer outfit Little Bang Brewing Co, keeping the crowd entertained with his company’s story of how he took on the big brands, and how using the HP Indigo Mosaic software to feed into the labels printed for his cans by Peacock Bros. the company has been able to produce multiple versions of can design, giving the beers a personality and effectively a salesman in every store. He said he once had 12,000 differently named beer labels produced in a day.
He outlined how the company turned its weakness – super small size compared with the big brewers – into a strength, by using its personality, always printing in CMYK because they weren’t continually trying to shave costs, and putting deliberately confusing labels onto the cans to cause customers to pause in the aisles and pick up a can.
Next up was print service provider and self-described print geek Leon Wilson, from Ballarat-based Revolution Print, with an inspiring story of transforming the general offset jobbing printer into an advanced digital set-up.
Then six months ago, Revolution took the step to begin digital label printing, with Wilson taking the time to understand what the market really needed, and setting up his digital label printing business accordingly. He had clearly thought it through well, it took just a month to get it up and running, first month of production saw it break even, and it has been in profit every month since.
How digitally printed packaging is helping brands drive sales growth was the headline of the day, and exemplified perfectly by Jordyn Evans from Mingle Seasoning. She presented a TikTok-style video showing how working with Matt Ellis, at his Luminar digitally printed packaging business, had enabled her to take what was a start-up kitchen benchtop business, to one that now has its products stocked on the shelves of the nation’s major supermarkets, with the digitally printed sachet packaging playing a key role, enabling the company to grow by 1200 per cent, while keeping its packaging costs aligned with its growth.
The final session of the day was a high-level panel moderated by Wayne Robinson, with Paul Haggett from Opal, Joe Foster from O F Packaging and Close the Loop, Paul Sanelli from technology developer EFI, and Zaidee Jackson from Ball & Doggett considering the challenges and opportunities from their perspectives of people and companies in the vanguard of digitally printed packaging.
The event then moved into a networking time over drinks, which lingered late into the day, as delegates discussed the presentations and what are clearly multiple emerging opportunities.
Hughson closed Amplify & Engage, and thanked the sponsors Currie Group, HP, Ball & Doggett, EFI, and Jet Technologies.
See the next issue of PKN Packaging News for a full report on the event.
