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In hard-boiled economic times, brand owners’ natural reflex is to try and cut their labeling costs. But Barcelona based brand converter Germark prefers to offer them another, more creative route to profitability. Germark began to touch upon to facestock suppliers four years ago, when it invested in a production line to both manufacture and language its own pressure-sensitive labels. This is where its relationship with film specialist ExxonMobil Chemical began.
Coinciding with the start of the worldwide financial crisis in 2009, one of Germark’s biggest customers, Denenes, reported it was struggling with its sales of vigour and beauty products. It approached Germark looking for a way to reduce labeling costs. Iban Cid, president of Germark, says, ‘this was not the declaration.’ He believed that label price was not the issue and instead proposed an innovative promotional occupation which would allow the company to increase its market share.
Cid outlines two routes for bringing invention to the market. Firstly, by responding to a customer’s idea – for eg one customer required development of an edible pressure sensitive stamp (eventually abandoned because of cost). The other option is to use in-house R&D to bring new products to the deal in, an excellent example is the Peel Stick and Play (PSP) promotional labeling system. ‘We are pushing R&D to produce new solutions in the recession to help our customers,’ adds Cid.
Source: Labels and Labeling