Two major global trends in packaging printing: Top-class finishing and security printing
By Norbert Sauermann, Germany
In the run-up to drupa 2008, the world’s printing and finishing experts agree that there are two major trends at work — highly finished packaging materials and packaging as well as security printing. The print media fair (May 29 – June 11) promises to offer everything packaging designers’ and printing service providers’ hearts desire. The combination of printing inks, the appropriate printing substrates, the right printing machinery and finishing technologies as well as the industry’s innovative drive is unparalleled and stimulates vital impetus for the future development of packaging printing.

State of the art: The more sophisticated, the better
The European packaging printers and finishers are pulling out the stops — all in aid of a result that’s shiny and chic. Gold and silver dominate, but other metallic effects also catch the eye. Varnish, UV varnish, matt and gloss varnish, foil stamping, cold foil, rapid-drying inks — all of these are finishing effects intended to entice customers into purchasing at the point of sale. Printers are able to work on all
surfaces, on the broadest spectrum of substrates — in fact, it’s impossible to try and put a figure on just how wide that spectrum is.

Sheet-fed offset packaging printing is regarded as the most highly industrialized of the individual segments — the range of printable substrates is broad and extends from corrugated board and plastics in every imaginable thickness to tin plate, composites, lightweight/ heavy/double-sided paper and cardboard. And there are virtually no limits to what printing machinery builders can achieve. With processing speeds of up to 18,000 sheets per hour, the set-up measures are about to undergo further automation, resulting in increased cost effectiveness.

Gravure printing is big in China and Japan, above all because of the large print runs common in those countries. Another important factor is cigarette printing on the reel, especially as tobacco is booming worldwide.

Is the RFID boom cooling already?
Among the highly active packaging printers and designers, security experts are some of the most hard working. A search for the keyword “RFID” alone turns up tomes’ worth of patents, conferences, products and articles. Major printing service providers have been relatively quick to establish their own companies that focus exclusively on the high-tech field of security. Even within this narrow field, there are a host of diverse sub-sectors: RFID with special machinery for producing the substrates and transponder labels, not to mention holograms of every
variety, diffraction foils, lenticular effects and other technologies.

In recent years, the printing and packaging industry has been swept up in the euphoria surrounding all things RFID. Now, the mood may be gradually becoming more subdued. The first setbacks occurred in the USA and Germany where data
protection officers complained of customers being turned into open books. A second criticism is undoubtedly to be found in the fact that cost-effective labels are neither within reach nor market-ready. As of late September 2007, the global status quo was: Depending on the size and type of RFID labels, their intended application and the size of print runs, prices range between EUR 0.05 and EUR 0.80 per label. This is clearly too much for most products. Experts therefore have a far more sober outlook on the debate and the move is consequently to RFID labels being used exclusively in manufacturers’ and traders’ logistics chains.

Capture, save, play: From security code to gimmick
Data handling is playing an increasingly important role. In the form of labels and barcodes, the printing and packaging industry are provided with large quantities
of customer data. This data and ultimately the print data are being put to use in a variety of ways ranging from security codes to what you could call gimmicks.

As a general rule, security printing aims to provide protection against counterfeiting and thus grey markets and product piracy both within European countries and beyond. The damage to goods that safety measures on packaging are intended to prevent is very costly. Help is at hand in the form of a wide palette of options extending from guilloche printing through holograms to security thread. From among this wealth of possibilities, colour codes and colour combinations stand out thanks to the millions of possible variations. Another increasingly attractive option is so-called fingerprints whose characteristics aren’t apparent at first glance.

Printers — very often label printers — active in this business dovetail their print data with the manufacture of electronic control devices. Formerly traditional printers, these companies are increasingly evolving into equipment suppliers. The devices offered include hand-held devices or checkout systems that verify the printing inline. Consequently, a rapid and glitch-free interface between the control device and ticket is necessary.

What’s possible in this field reaches its zenith in ATMs — and here, too, label printers provide the security printing, including among other things special security inks for banknotes and bank cards. They also supply the control devices in the ATMs, which operate at the speed a customer expects of an ATM. Up to 1,800 tickets, vouchers or banknotes per minute is currently the norm. In future, an even higher reading/control speed will, however, be called for.

Cross-promotion thanks to sophisticated data handling
In English-speaking countries, daily competitions are immensely popular. The few offset printers active in this line of work go to great lengths. Very often the data handling for the organization, control, printing, shuffling and packaging of all the bingo cards can only be semi-automated. On top of that, a sophisticated logistical delivery system is in place. Once collected, data within the cross-promotional media mix is initially used for the printing of tickets, for instance. The same data, however, forms the basis for the printing of flyers, advertising spreads or the creation of Web sites. For example, the user may recognize the magnifying glass on the Web site, which enlarges the key, recurring advertising copy as being the same as what appears on the flyer, advertising spread or packaging. Of course, the label or ticket will also bear the magnifying glass.

A further example of an application is an on-pack promotion for soft drinks in the form of a printed key. The scratch-and-win specialist marks the keys with printed codes and covers them with a special scratch-off layer (thermochromatic or other security inks could be used). The print data are also passed on to a display manufacturer who is producing the base for a PC. These computers stand in discotheques or pubs. If the code on the key is the correct one, the beverage packaging displayed on the screen opens and the disco patron has won a prize — at the same time, of course, internalizing the advertising message once again. The code on the packaging serves as the trigger for a digital process and vice versa.

For many confectionery suppliers, the identification and deciphering of bar codes is a priority. A silver strip is applied over the inkjet-printed codes to hide them from view. In this way, the customer can only read the code after making the purchase. Buyers can then enter the code on their home computers to participate in a competition. The play instinct pure and simple is successfully satisfied here through the code and printing. Very much as by-product of the process, the labels are also specially secured so that they cannot be removed from the packaging before the customer has paid for the product.

In the USA, expensive branded goods are advertised in dedicated combined marketing campaigns. To this end, the packaging finisher creates the printed product. A transparent film can be peeled off the product and positioned in front of a specific area on a PC screen to try and solve an online puzzle. What’s particularly attractive is that the branded goods manufacturer, with the help of the packaging printer and the necessary print data/winning codes, can also run off the customer mailings.

Booklets very much en vogue
Booklets with safety instructions and product information are proving immensely popular around the world. Spread over many pages, they offer extensive product descriptions but are nevertheless printed and packed in a compact format. Anything and everything, from a good cheese to a fine wine, today comes packaged with a booklet. The detailed package inserts supplied with medicines have long been a familiar feature of pharmaceuticals. The printer is also responsible for pharmacies’ label application systems. The special peel and reseal properties required come courtesy of the printer who also produces them on post-press machines. Labels can also be produced to serve a secondary function as hangers for infusion bottles.

Label printing is frequently performed on a narrow-web, eight-colour multi-process printing machine that allows for the combination of flexo, screen, offset and letterpress printing. What’s more, the versions of these machines used for pharmaceuticals are also equipped with extensive safety inspection systems. With the appropriate licenses for these fields, booklets of 16 to 32 pages can also be processed and folded in miniature format.