Packaging and Design: Staying Ahead of the Curve

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By Richard Burhouse, Commercial Director at API

While legislation means that plain packaging is an increasing prerequisite for many tobacco packs, certain Asian markets still allow brands to reflect their identity through their packaging. Keeping on top of the latest trends and developments in packaging is therefore essential for these brands – and rarely has this been a more challenging task.

With every passing year, we are seeing new trends that are altering the market and our role within it, such as the growing trend for premiumization and segmentation. Global supply and the need to ensure value through environmental product developments are also key. In such a fast-moving and demanding climate, we work hard to stay ahead of the curve and continue to offer tobacco brands the most powerful and advanced foil and laminate solutions that make their products relevant to consumers.

Understanding packaging trends

By understanding the latest trends, API works to enhance customers’ experience of a brand’s packaging and utilise laminates, foils, and holographics to enhance the product, protect the contents and communicate the brand values. Taking inspiration from a cross-section of industries from premium drinks to tobacco, foods to cosmetics, our creative services help customers understand how design trends, covering materials and finishes can be effectively applied to their product’s packaging.

One way API does this is through our annual Trends Folio. A working document for designers, agencies, and brand owners, the API Trends Folio outlines the latest trends in luxury foils and laminates in a compact, beautifully produced reference book that is updated throughout the year. It explores four key trends in detail: from Neon Storm, which takes inspiration from natural phenomena such as sunbursts and comet flases, to Diamond Luxe, whose dark lusters and glitters create a sense of night-time gothic that powerfully conveys high-end luxury.

The API Trends Folio is assembled by API’s  design team, who know from their industry experience how valuable such a document is to creatives in anticipating the trends of the next two years – and they bring this same empathy to the product development process, working closely with in-house design teams from the beginning of the process to familiarise themselves with every facet of the brand and product, ensuring that their essence shines through in the final pack.

To achieve this, of course, it is vital that the brand enhancement products represent the latest in foil and laminate technology, and for this reason the company continually updates its portfolio with new launches. The most recent of these is API’s new and improved TA+ cold foil, unveiled at LabelExpo Europe in September, which offers designers and printers unprecedented quality in areas including fineness of detail and over-printability, and is the latest in a long line of product launches and upgrades to stay at the forefront of the tobacco market.

Delivering for KT&G

An example of API’s three-pronged approach to pack design – made up of brand knowledge, trend awareness, and the latest technologies – is the company’s work with Korea Tobacco & Ginseng Corporation, (KT&G) Korea’s leading tobacco company. The company, which is the fifth largest tobacco firm in the world, turned to API to provide the brand enhancement packaging solution for its premium flagship tobacco product, Esse Change.

Renowned for its innovative design, KT&G wanted to create a sophisticated limited-edition pack for the super-slim tobacco product to coincide with the celebration of the Korean lunar new year. Working closely with the company’s raw materials r&d manager to explore options, API focused on a luxury design that captured the lunar celebration and added a dynamic element for Esse Change users while maintaining the demanding production requirements of a super-slim pack.

With this in mind, API provided KT&G with the latest Fresnel Lens PET laminate, which created a depth and kinetic focus that radiated across the pack and allowed a sophisticated interplay between the pack print and design. Using KT&G’s artwork as its basis, API worked closely with the lens design to deliver maximum depth within the hologram for Esse’s limited-edition product. This ensured the demanding technical requirements of the super-slim pack were met.

Over nine million limited edition Esse packs were produced in time for the new year. The packs were manufactured in less than three months and involved a number of global supply chain partners to ensure production was kept to schedule.

Custom holographics and Fresnel lenses, when combined with API’s precise registration capability, are exciting technologies that give real depth to a brand’s packaging, and link with the trend for shelf presence and the wow factor demanded by consumers across a wide variety of categories.

Film-free Transmet laminate

As well as the need to provide brands with impact for their limited-edition packs, tobacco companies are also looking for materials that are sustainable and minimize their environmental impact. Transmet is API’s film-free laminate option for paperboard, which provides an all-over, print-receptive coating to the base material in a bright metallic finish.

Transmet has been recognized as the market leader in its field, and its film-free finish provides brand owners with a fully recyclable material. Its brightness and physical characteristics are class-leading and suitable for use across all commonly used printing technologies, providing stand-out shelf impact and enhancement to a wide variety of branded products.

In addition, API recently oversaw a significant increase in production capacity for its Transmet laminate with the upgrade and commission of a new Transmet module on the company’s state-of-the-art Laminator 4 production line in the UK. The unique characteristics of the Laminator 4 ensure that Transmet laminates are manufactured to exceptionally high tolerance, a requirement demanded for print registration in the tobacco sector. It also is capable of producing a complete range of laminate finishes, including Transmet holographic, which enables brands to select the laminate style and effect that best adds unique visual impact to their product’s packaging.

Global supply and quality

Alongside a focus on the development of new products, tobacco and other fast-moving consumer good companies are also demanding increased quality and reduced lead-times in supply. A global manufacturing footprint is therefore key to successfully meeting this demand and this has driven API’s recent acquisitions in the US and Europe. These, together with its $8.5million investment in a new North American center of Excellence, have significantly increased the businesses global manufacturing capabilities, ensuring it can provide a combined foils and laminate offering to all its customers worldwide. Accordingly, customers in Asia can now be supplied with products from both the US or Europe, delivering them an improved service, product range, and supply contingency.

The complete package

Foils and laminates by their nature speak to us, delivering impact to packaging that represents the brands values. But it is only when filtered through a strong grasp of the latest trends and a profound understanding of the brand and product in question that their true potential to create exceptional packs can be realised.

Trend awareness, brand understanding, and exceptional global products: it is not enough to have just one, or even two. That’s why API continually strives to keep its products cutting-edge; anticipating the coming trends and global supply demands. Identifying the individual personality of every product and tobacco brand we work with and enabling them to convey their true brand values through their chosen packaging solution.