POP: The Dilemma – “What is the best way to produce displays?”

A Fresh Approach to Harnessing Digital Technology.

Point of Purchase (POP) displays have become one of the most powerful tools available to advertising and marketing agencies for consumer goods.

Since more than 70 percent of buying decisions are taken at the point of purchase, the rewards for successful POP displays are enormous.

Part of the appeal of POP displays is their novelty and focus. Optimum message, size, shape, colour, content and distribution require careful planning to preserve this advantage.

They should be well targeted, unique and tailored to the customer profile. As such, the most effective campaigns may comprise displays numbering from only a few dozen up to several thousand units. They should be economical to produce with media and ink suited to the intended purpose.

Durability, strength, colour reproduction and matching, and price are also factors. The name of the game is flexibility in addressing the marketing managers' message and the agencies' concepts in a POP space.

Innovative technologies leveraging new business models
Just as the POP display has revolutionised promotional marketing, so digital technology has delivered the versatility and speed for POP printing. An estimated 75 percent of the output of the hundreds of flatbed inkjet printers installed worldwide comprises POP applications. Today's question is, "How suited is this technology for POP display production?" Most POP displays are designed for indoor use.

Depending on the product being promoted and the situation of the display, use of solvent or UV curable inks may not be acceptable to the end user because of their odour, or even toxicity. POP quantities vary widely, while some POP displays are generated in run lengths of several units, requirements for national brands and stores can run into the hundreds. Use of appropriate media is also an important factor and is selected on the basis of price, possible print quality, and robustness.

Corrugated boards account for nearly 50 percent of the market, followed by foam board, corrugated polypropylene, acrylics and foam PVC. While a printer's bed size is important when considering the final display size, the ability to print more than one display on a single sheet can affect production efficiency. Similarly, media handling can add to costs if loading and unloading is not automated. The HP Scitex FB6700 is a six-colour press incorporating a print controller and RIP, a fully automated loader, the press and drying unit, an automated un-loader and an in-line laminator.

The press prints up to 160cm x 320cm at print speeds up to 150sqm/hr sheets up to 12mm thick at resolutions of 600 dpi or 29 full size sheets/hour. By adding an inline laminator, users can turn a traditionally manual job into an automated process that is fully integrated in a single-system workflow including substrate loading all the way through finishing and ensuring final output with extra protection against wear and tear.

The press now has new software that features an intuitive graphic user interface, job queuing and preview window, last-minute colour correction, and additional features, to enhance workflow and improve productivity.

The HP Scitex FB6700 opens new market opportunities for the POP display market. Using environmentally friendly water-based pigmented ink, the HP Scitex FB6700 can print on substrates such as corrugated boards foam board, styrene or fluted polypropylene.

Colour quality is assured through the use of ICC profiles so that products printed on the HP Scitex FB6700 can be integrated with similar conventionally printed materials. At the heart of the HP Scitex FB6700 press is the unique Aprion inkjet technology that uses specially designed heads, arranged in an array to ensure fast, even coverage on a wide variety of substrates.

Putting the Theory into Profitable Practice
Two companies, five thousand miles apart, have installed HP Scitex FB6700 presses. While their businesses are different, both are developing new business, and new markets, through the capabilities of their HP Scitex FB6700 presses. Duran Dogan Packaging (Duran Doğan Basim ve Ambalaj San A.Ş.) of Istanbul, Turkey, exemplifies the new approach to market-driven packaging and POP display production. With blue-chip, international brand, customers, the need to maintain print quality, colour standards and response times, and be, themselves, a driver of innovation, is a commercial imperative.

Maintaining and increasing market share called for a way to respond to the demands for short-run, fast-turnaround jobs which are very expensive to produce with offset litho. Added to Duran Dogan's challenge is its need to distribute to many countries in the Eastern Mediterranean, Middle-East and North Africa, so delivery times must also be considered in production schedules.

Ceylan Duran is head of displays at Duran Dogan and sees the move into digital inkjet POP printing with the HP Scitex FB6700 as one that will further differentiate the company. "Print quality and the sheet size was the main consideration in choosing the equipment that would enable us to offer something new," Ceylan Duran explains, "and the HP Scitex FB6700's flexibility in printing different sizes is greater than offset's." Duran Dogan was also looking for something that would be cost-effective and would receive maximum utilisation.

The company also liked the fact that the HP Scitex FB6700 used standard file formats, enabling their designers and prepress department to use virtually the same workflow as the were using for offset jobs. "The market itself is changing, so that many of our customers are requesting shorter runs," Ceylan Duran continues. "This is especially true if the POP displays are for use with a local promotion or in specific stores. We are finding that some of the large super-markets are requesting runs as low as six displays at a time. The good thing for us is that with the HP Scitex FB6700, we can deliver these jobs in 48 hours. "At Duran Dogan,' Ceylan Dogan says, 'the jobs we print on the HP Scitex FB6700 typically have a run-length between 30 and 50 units. For these lengths, the HP Scitex FB6700 is by far the most effective means of production.'

POP and Packaging Production in Pennsylvania
VT Graphics, of Yeadon, Pennsylvania, exemplifies the new thinking that digital technology has brought to the sometimes staid world of corrugated converting. Founded in 1966 as a plate making trade shop for corrugated converters, VT Graphics seized the digital opportunity in 2004 with the purchase of a HP Scitex FB6700 press, a Kongsberg DCM digital die-cutter and a 60" GBC laminator. The capabilities of this combination were recognised and led to the formation of Digital Impact, a new VT Graphics operation to produce POP displays for the promotional packaging market. According to Bob Mormile, President of VT Graphics, the goal is to focus on production runs of 150 - 500 saleable units.

'The new equipment makes high-quality, short-runs cost-effective,' says Bob Mormile. 'This is an area where there is a lot of interest and potential. Longer runs are possible, but 1500 units is about as short a run that can be printed conventionally at acceptable costs.' Digital Impact's business by VT Graphics is focused on corrugated board, mostly B and E flute, though it will handle other substrates on request. "As a maker of flexographic plates, we were looking for ways to expand our business without getting into competition with our customers, the corrugated converters," Bob says. "HP Scitex FB6700 has enabled us to do that.

Our strategy has been to provide a service to our existing customers that they can sell on to their customers. Samples and trial versions are cheaper when printed digitally, and once a design is agreed, we have a good shot at getting the plate making business for the long runs." The business is not just about samples and trials; it's about developing that 500 - 1500 unit market and creating more opportunities for the end-user. Using the HP Scitex FB6700's variable data printing capability, POP displays can be tailored for specific retailers, stores and neighbourhoods.

"It's an exciting venture," comments Bob. "We have something new to sell, and so do our customers. Offering the fast-turnarounds that the HP Scitex FB6700 can deliver, combined with the digital die-cutting and laminating facilities, means that we're a one-stop shop that customers can buy into direct, or through the converters."

Delivering and Responding to the Evolution of POP Displays
It may be wrong to classify the POP display market as mature. True, POP displays have been around long enough to be part of the worldwide retail scene, and for everyone to understand their value. Yet, less than a decade ago, POP displays were mass production commodities, printed by offset or flexo, and die-cut and finished with conventional mass production techniques.

The advent of digital wide format inkjet printers enabled the production of one-offs and trial runs. These, however, were still costly, requiring the printed output to be laminated to the final substrate and then hand finished. Following this traditional childhood, the POP display market is, perhaps, best described as in its adolescence: lively, developing rapidly, predisposed to change, exploring new horizons; sometimes brash; sometimes subdued; exciting and, above all, constantly striving to be noticed.

BOEBLINGEN, Germany, May 24, 2007