Digital printing drives carton advertising, e-commerce packaging trends and customized consumer experiences

Digital printing technology can bring sustainability and consumer loyalty benefits. In addition, leveraging digital printing to enable customized consumer experiences, carton advertising and more sustainable packaging solutions is a major trend in e-commerce packaging.

Over the past 20 years, e-commerce has generally grown in popularity, with the most notable surge occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Ryan Fox, a market analyst for corrugated packaging at Bloomberg. During that time, carton consumption has also surged: "In the two years of lockdowns during the epidemic, we saw carton consumption grow by almost 2 million tons," he said. Although e-commerce has returned to normalisation to pre-epidemic levels, it is still considered a strong market.

Chris Bradley, chief marketing, design and sustainability officer at Aurora Enterprises, said more and more brands are doing business through online marketplaces such as Amazon, Walmart and Target, rather than shipping merchandise directly to customers. Aurora Enterprises also offers printing solutions, which blur the lines between primary and secondary packaging, especially as the greater use of digital printing technology expands the same graphics from internal packaging to external shipping boxes.

"If they can get packages through the supply chain without having to repack them again in the market, they can avoid fees and control the brand experience," says Mr. Bradley.

Another benefit of digital printing, which sends digital documents to a printing press that uses inkjet rather than plates like flexo or offset printing, is that it can be printed on the inner surface of the carton, panelists said. With the increase in package theft during the pandemic, "as far as I know, there are several brands that have pushed a lot of graphics inside the carton" to prevent passers-by from knowing what's inside, while still providing a good customer experience, Fox said.

Still, custom and in-carton printing comes at a price. "In-and-out printing isn't always cheap," Fox said, "but when you're talking about a corporate gift, spending a few extra dollars on packaging can make a huge difference."

01

Effective advertising medium

Kerry Saunders, vice-president of market development at EFI, a digital printing technology company, said that in retail, especially ecommerce, "it is difficult to stand out, break through the market and build loyalty". "Packaging is a valuable activation platform for brands and retailers. It will really help these brands or retailers develop a better customer experience, which translates into better loyalty and higher repurchase rates."

According to EFI research, packaging is the second most effective channel for driving business growth. While consumers can install filters or blockers to clear online ads, ads on cartons reach them directly.

Mr. Sanders cited a domestic logistics company's claim that "the likelihood of a repurchase based on a premium packaging experience increased by 14 percentage points year-on-year", a "significant change in loyalty metrics". He also pointed to an analysis by Kantar that found consumers recalled ads printed on Amazon cartons 4.1 times more than traditional media campaigns, calling the cartons "mini-billboards".

Carton advertising is an emerging advertising category, "Ms. Sanders said." We're seeing that now in North America. We're not seeing it anywhere else in the world, but it's a very effective form of communication. "

E-commerce packaging is also a growing medium for third-party advertising, such as Amazon cartons with commercials for newly released movies or TV shows.

02

Unboxing Positive Consumer Experience

Customization and an emphasis on user experience is evident in the "unboxing" trend sweeping social media, where content creators open their new cartons in front of the camera and detail their initial impressions of the product and packaging. Receiving and opening a carton results in users experiencing emotion rather than logic, which provides unique marketing opportunities.

"When you receive a cardboard box that has been carefully decorated or even tailored, it's a premium experience and it creates emotion," says Ms Saunders. "These brands or retailers have the opportunity to build loyalty from that emotion. It's very powerful and very unique for corrugated boxes."

Subscription cartons - which ship products such as pet supplies, cosmetics or meal bags on a weekly or monthly basis - are an example of a curated experience that rewards consumer loyalty. They've become more popular, and so has demand for corrugated paper. "It's always an unpacking experience; you haven't heard of someone doing an'unpacking 'experience," Bradley said. "One of the very successful things I've seen is customizing each carton for subscribers, which creates word-of-mouth and the'wow' factor."

03

Sustainable Development

Brands can also use the carton surface to illustrate their sustainability work, Bradley said. This can be achieved in a number of ways, such as displaying a standard sustainable forestry initiative or Forest Stewardship Council certification seal, or mentioning a specific brand-led sustainability initiative. Bradley mentioned that a former employer printed information about the "Save the Bees" campaign on its packaging, which "built some very strong brand attachments with our customers, who were very excited about the program."

The focus on sustainability "has a lot of momentum behind it, and people seem to really care about it," Fox said, adding that carton buyers are looking for three key sustainability factors - the right size, the right amount and recyclability. He noted that research has found that consumers are more likely to recycle cartons after seeing recycling information, such as a scannable QR code, for recycling instructions.

Digital printing is another way to promote sustainability, Mr. Sanders said, in large part because there are no large plates to deal with when design changes occur. Traditional printing methods result in "millions of plates to manufacture, transport, store and/or recycle each year," using less energy and using ink in a way that doesn't compromise recycling.

Using digital printing allows brands to achieve more variability and customization at a lower cost, as digital files can be easily replaced, rather than creating entirely new plates for every small adjustment. This allows brands to slightly alter packaging designs for different regions, for example, "We're seeing more and more of this," Sanders said, "They're asking for this design interpretation, not just printing a million of the same design."

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