EXPERT SPEAKER: DIGITAL PRINTING FOR FAST-MOVING CONSUMER FOOD MARKETING CAMPAIGNS
Since the day it launched, the Internet has clearly had a huge impact on our lives. We can contact people on the other side of the world with just a simple mobile videocall, we can purchase products with little more than a click and we can search for anything, anywhere.
In this context, the consumer has become the focal point of companies’ marketing strategies and this means that understanding their tastes, predicting their future needs and building strong relationships is key. It is the reason why information and services are increasingly customised. Nonetheless, we need to keep in mind that excess information can have a negative impact on mood and the relationship people have with brands. This is where the possibilities afforded by digital printing come into play.
- How can we use digital printing to boost our marketing strategy? On the one hand, seasonal marketing strategies focus on using opportunities throughout the year to boost sales and/or enhance the impact products have on consumers. Some of these occasions include Christmas, Black Friday, sales, the summer season, St Valentine’s Day and so on.
We need to adapt our message and creativity to match the occasion and digital technology can help us do just that. We can use it to design imaginative packaging that stands out from the rest and that transmits the company or product’s personality to create successful and groundbreaking seasonal marketing strategies.
We can use this technique to let our creativity flow and come up with singular designs that have an impact, generate a great deal of interest and give shoppers a unique shopping experience.
It is also important to enhance consumer interaction with our packaging and we can achieve this through customisation.In this new communication and consumption model, the user, not the product, is the cornerstone. Ensuring that people engage in marketing in the first person is key to delivering a wholly satisfactory experience. Customisation strategies generate mass participation and, in turn, a great return on investment.
- Why does customisation rouse so much interest among consumers?
Here is just some of the data:
- 44% of consumers say they would switch to an alternative brand if consumer experience with that brand was customised. The sooner companies do this, the less space in the market they leave for competitors.
- We can customise anything. Younger generations are keener on customised products because they have grown up in a world in which technology has given them personalised treatment.
- 70% of consumers are prepared to pay 10% more for a customised product. A slightly larger investment in packaging represents added value for consumers and increases the return on our investment.
Clearly, digital techniques are the printing systems that adapt most successfully to special editions, whatever their nature. Now the marketing departments in fast-moving consumer goods companies have yet another ally for creating impressive strategies because they can employ digital printing to use the packaging itself as an additional bidirectional communication channel in marketing campaigns.
Expert: Mª Eugenia González (Marketing Director at SPG)