SubscribeThe Right Background API Foils is one of the world's largest producers of stamping foils. The company was formed following the merger of five renowned names in the industry - Astor, Whiley, Dri-Print, Peerless and Shanghai Shenyong. It has manufacturing sites in the UK, the US and China.
As a global operation, API Foil’s distribution network covers over seventy countries, with wholly owned sites in Australia, France and New Zealand.
Interpreting The Brief
API Foils was approached by printers, Polestar Taylowe, to supply holographic foils for four Colgate toothpaste cartons. Due to changes in the marketplace and increased expectation from consumers, Colgate’s introduction of a number of additional premium brands and variants has led to more opportunities for API Foils to demonstrate the power of holographic foils.
Colgate’s decision to use holographic foils on the packaging of certain products was prompted by a range of requirements including the desire to reinforce their high quality and premium positioning. For a well known brand name such as Colgate, the quality of its packaging is essential to preserve its positioning in the marketplace and high quality effects used on cartons help to convey a strong and positive message about the product contained inside.
2) In addition to design led factors, the product’s cost saving ability and the environmental benefits it could offer were also deemed vital during the decision making process. Having previously used laminate products, Polestar Taylowe had been asked by Colgate to look for cost saving solutions and a move to foils offered significant material savings for the client. Furthermore, foils were able to address the more stringent environmental considerations in markets such as Germany, by making the packaging more environmentally friendly and helping to reduce associated recycling charges.
As part of interpreting the brief, quality assurance was also key and as a result, it was essential for API Foils to monitor its foil supply and review the application procedure to make sure that any problems caused by the foiling process itself could be rectified beforehand.
The Right Approach
As a manufacturer, API Foils understands that reliable foil quality, high performance products and punctually are an essential part of the specification process. It also feels that it is important to take a consultancy approach to its role when dealing with brand managers and printers. This approach is key to ensuring vital processes such as validation can take place, which in turn helps specify the right foils and highlight and resolve problems on an ongoing basis.
This means that all parties involved receive API Foil’s support before, during and after the foil specification, adding value to the service and achieving the best performance results at all times. API Foils’ close involvement with the project has effectively helped to prevent any application issues from spiralling to a level where they have a detrimental effect on the end results or cause delays to production.
3) It is imperative that situations such as this are avoided as production issues can lead to supply problems and ultimately impact on the end user. In a competitive environment such as this, where a number of brands and own label names are vying for customer loyalty, difficulties with supply can damage the brand’s reputation with consumers and retailers, and lead to both going elsewhere.
API Foils works very closely with Polestar Taylowe and Colgate and advocates the three-way partnership as key to the success of the ongoing project. API Foils finds this approach provides support to printers, as it means that comprehensive information can be given to the client regarding the application process and the effects that can be achieved by different foils on different substrates.
By encouraging this kind of openness between printers, supplier manufacturers and clients, everyone is clear on the end results required. It also means that expectations regarding timings and achievable effects can be controlled.
The Right Results
In this environment, the effects achieved by the foils need to speak for themselves. Quality, or lack of it, is easy to assess even by the untrained eye – consumers for instance. If a foil is not performing the results are patchy and also lack permanency, as the foil comes away from the substrate easily. To retailers and end users this gives the message that the product is second rate, something that directly opposes the message that a brand would wish to portray by using holographic foils.
4) For these reasons, API Foils’ approach to the project was focused on getting the foil-stamping environment exactly right at all times. This partly involved educating the parties on optimum conditions for stamping foils, but was also a focus for API Foils, which used its pre-sales expertise to recommend the best foils for each individual job and, its marketing support department to monitor the ongoing progress of the project – and ongoing quality control.
David Jarvis, Business Development Manager at API Foils, explained: “The work we have done for Colgate Palmolive demonstrates how foils can be best used on packaging to confirm the quality positioning of a brand”.
“We have noticed a steep rise in the use of holographic foils especially over recent years, as brand managers have come to realise that it is also a valuable tool in the fight to achieve stand out on shelf. Consumers are presented with an array of choices these days, and evidence shows that they are influenced by innovative and distinct packaging.
“Holographic technology can also be used by brand managers to convey the benefits of their product. For example, the cleaning and refreshing qualities of toothpaste are effectively communicated by a silver holographic foil in an appropriate pattern. The differentiation provided by foils, combined with its effectiveness at communicating product properties, makes it an invaluable tool for long term brand building.”