Robert Herridge, founder and owner, Packology.
COLUMN: Where next for digital in terms of really truly driving consumer and brand engagement? I mean, despite the valiant efforts of Irn-Bru, Heineken and Nutella to drive forward with personalisation on the pack, isn’t it becoming a little passé?
Actually I really rather like the Nutella named labels as it sends out a little ‘hand’s off’ message to those chocolate monkeys that live in my cupboard, but that aside, as we all know now, and surely never to forget, Coca-Cola started the ball rolling with the ‘Share a Coke’ promotion. They brought digital technology to mass production. Or did they? I recall seeing personalised labels almost 20 years ago, so what was different with Coke? They could have produced millions of labels with back to back traditional print runs of different names, bottled them off, sent them out and Bob’s your proverbial uncle. But the true genius of what they really did, aside of making your Aunt Margaret happy by putting her name on a bottle, was to use digital technology to ensure even distribution of the names throughout the supply chain. Or maybe they didn’t – maybe they loaded the distribution of Farquhars to Waitrose and Callums to Scotland.
So how do we load the benefits of digital in our favour? Yes we can do faster, short runs, offer more flexibility, personalisation and the like – but what can we really do? Why not have weather forecasts on burger pack labels to let me plan a barbecue for the weekend? Take it a step further – packs sold in London may have an urban barbecue image, whereas packs sold in Brighton may have a barbecue on the beach image – not that it is actually legal to have a barbecue on Brighton beach these days, but that’s mere detail. Taking a leaf out the e-commerce domain, we could not only have the weather forecast on the label, but also a ‘customers who bought this item also bought these items – bread rolls, tomato ketchup, firelighters, beer’. Or even a bottle of Coke.
Let’s turn the innovation drive to the creative set – the marketing bods and design agencies. Let them tell us what they can do with our newfound technology. After all they don’t really want, or care too much for, shorter faster runs, they want us to tell them what it will do for them. The answer? Pretty much anything you want.
The possibilities are endless. What’s on TV tonight on your sandwich wrapper, or the latest news. The weekend footie results on your cup of coffee as you walk down the road, along with directions to your next nearest coffee shop to pick up another on the way to the office. So much more useful than having your name on a bottle of pop, because let’s face it you knew your name anyway and would you really buy someone a gift of a bottle of Coke? So let’s take the great work that Coke started and let’s find a truly useful application, and let digital print actually direct and shape our lives.
Actually, as it happens, poor old Farquhar missed out, as they never produced a bottle with his name on it. He spent hours, in vain, searching Waitrose shelves, along with Tarquin and Arabella, looking for that elusive bottle. Callum was fine though.
