Technology is the bridge that connects you to your customers. And with printing and labeling, the industry still remains relatively generic. That’s why Rafi Albo, owner of SEGMARKETING demonstrated how his company is bringing physical packaging into the digital world and the role that digital printing plays in that equation at the third annual Digital Packaging Summit last month.
“98-98% of labels and packaging you’re printing aren’t connected,” he said. “It’s just substrate and finishing and a lot of glue, but it’s not connected to anything. The brands are saying we want to show the experience to our customers in real time.”
That’s where Albo introduced personalized packaging through augmented reality. For example, he highlighted kid’s shampoo. Typically, he said, a parent purchases the shampoo bottle and the packaging is pretty generic. In some cases, digital printing can help to personalize the packaging, but it’s usually a logistical challenge for a brand to incorporate personalized labels into its product line. However, through a mobile app called Arilyn, Albo demonstrated packaging personalization in the digital world.
As an example, a parent can buy a bottle of shampoo and send a photo of his or her child to be digitally printed on the label. And you can scan the product with the app to experience a video, telling a further story of the brand in real time, incorporating the virtual reality experience.
“The most important thing is that you show this stuff to your customers,” he said. “When they see this, something really interesting happens. It starts the cycle.”
This post was excerpted from the Print Impressions article, Bringing Physical Packaging Into the Digital World.