Forum 2016 Kicks Off with Understanding the Customer <em>FIRST</em>

Lancelle
Lancelle

FORT WORTH, TX—After months of planning, Forum 2016 kicked off Sunday at the Omni Fort Worth Hotel in Fort Worth, TX.

Proceedings began just after noon, with opening remarks from Platinum Plus sponsor Kodak’s Paul Lancelle, an FTA Flexo Hall of Fame member, who spoke to the theme of Forum 2016: Power of the Past, Force of the Future. He said that while existing technologies may seem revolutionary, they are always usurped by future creations. “The thing is, it’s not about what’s now—it’s what’s next,” he observed.

Lancelle was followed by FTA President Mark Cisternino, who presented plaques to two outgoing FTA and FFTA board members: Allen J. Marquardt, chair of the FFTA Board of Trustees, and Lon Robinson, immediate past FTA board chair.

That gave way to the first session of Forum 2016: Understanding the Customer FIRST, chaired by Schawk!’s Robb Frimming and GROUP360 Worldwide’s John Gleich. The first presentation came from Gail Wong, designer logistic manager from General Mills. Wong noted the average number of items carried in a supermarket is more than 42,000 and used that statistic to lead a discussion of the importance of attractive packaging.

“Packaging is part of the brand experience,” she said, offering images of a number of foods that included Pillsbury cookies (“Not too yellow and not too red,” she cautioned) and Larabar’s 24 varieties, largely distinguished by the shade of their packaging. Wong revealed one of the trends she has observed in her recent career is a move toward subtler shades of background colors.

Wong
Wong

Wong said that her company fully endorses Flexographic Image Reproduction Specifications & Tolerances (FIRST) and mandates partners do so as well. With flexography growing, there is no time to reprint jobs or worry about matching to proof, both things that an adherence to FIRST helps to avoid. The company also requires presses at partners to be calibrated to those at General Mills, and embraces a closed loop workflow.

She concluded by offering a challenge to the industry to match expanded gamut, while displaying seven colors from seven printers, all a slightly different shade. Working to close this gap, she said, will help to attract customers to choose a specific package off the shelf.

“Print quality is the final obstacle,” she concluded. “If done right, it can lead to market share growth and the chance to stand out on the shelf. If done wrong, the reverse can happen.”

Wong was followed by Dawn Connell, marketing coordinator at Snyder’s-Lance, Inc. Connell spoke to the opportunity a snack company is afforded by its relationship to customers, allowing Snyder’s-Lance to play to their interests with unique colors and eye catching graphics. “Packaging establishes our brand equity as well as consumer loyalty,” she said.

Connell listed a number of challenges, their solutions and their benefits:

  • Brand Integrity
    • Challenge: Consumer confusion
    • Solution: Master proofs, charts, logos
    • Benefit: Consistency
  • Design Complexity
    • Challenge: Flexo’s “inflexibility”
      Connell
      Connell
    • Solution: Early engagement
    • Benefit: Level set expectations
  • Nationwide
    • Challenge: Location
    • Solution: Comprehensive SOP
    • Benefit: Speaking the same language
  • The Great Color Debate
    • Challenge: What color will we get?
    • Solution: Accurate profiling
    • Benefit: Predictable proofing
  • Time After Time
    • Challenge: Inconsistency over time
    • Solution: Web based process control tools
    • Benefit: Real time data to review accuracy

To illustrate the importance of meeting CPC needs, Connell asked which is worse: A toddler, angry they haven’t gotten their way? Or a marketer, who can’t use a design with which they’ve fallen in love?

Trimming (far left) and Gleich (far right)
Frimming (far left) and Gleich (far right)

The session concluded with Gleich and Frimming, who referred to both Wong and Connell’s concerns to implore those in attendance to consider FIRST as a means to meet CPC expectations. Gleich pushed the download of the FIRST Design Guide as a tool to establish consistency in things like file structure, photography, type and design elements, file formats, and preflights.

Frimming took several pages from FIRST’s playbook and walked through data evaluation. “There are plenty of data points to collect,” he said. “It’s what you do wit that data that matters.” Gleich returned to ask flexographers to visit the FIRST Web page, and submit their comments to help continue to push the industry forward and make FIRST 5.1 a useful tool.