With a Case Study article, you’re able to showcase—named or unnamed—a customer whose success has stood out from the crowd. You’ll focus on best practice takeaways that can benefit peers, as noted in the Marketing Insights article, “An Easy Way to Create Engaging Case Studies.”
For a sample of this approach, see below.
It’s a challenge not unusual in the fast-paced world of pharma: One product will need a bunch of SKUs suddenly, while another will need geographic versioning, and still another will need unique identifiers to its carton. Package design needs are constantly changing.
That’s why it wasn’t such an unusual situation when a Midwest-based pharmaceutical company needed 25 mockups of 11 different folding cartons.
The Challenge
Small projects with so many variations always create a layer of consideration. But this project had one other factor making it particularly challenging: The company needed its mock-ups rather fast––in just a week.
With such a time constraint, traditional flexography wasn’t the right option. With 275 pieces to print, flexography turnaround estimates were running three to four weeks out.
Also difficult was so many versions. So many plates to produce using conventional means would be quite costly.
The Solution
The company needed to switch to digital. “With digital printing, you’re not adding a plate cost to the job, as you would with flexography, and software makes it easy for users to make design changes,” explains John Doe with Company X. “Change-outs can be performed quickly and easily and at no extra cost.”
With digital, the project was able to be completed in seven days and at one-third of the cost. What’s more, the quality of the pieces was identical to the commercial product that was completed later in very small runs.
Although speed was important, the quality was also important. Digital is the preferred option for brand owners seeking a first-generation image with each printed piece. It’s also a good choice for those looking for high levels of correction control, as digital printing allows for 100 percent verification of printed material on the press itself, in regard to both color and graphics.
Lessons Learned
Coming out of the successful project, the pharma company notes the following lessons:
It pays to calculate ROI. Although flexography can be a cheaper option for standard, long runs, it often is less efficient for short runs or those needing flexibility. Digital printing offers the ease and efficiency of “printing on demand.” Savings can be found in such circumstances because digital printing doesn’t carry the same plate costs, image distortion fees and expense in producing a minimum run as flexography. Notes Doe, “Talk with your printer. Many factors can influence cost of your project, from label size, number of SKUs, substrate costs to type of project, such as whether it is a simple reprint or a reprint with changes.”
Keep an open mind. The ability to quickly and efficiently produce identifiers on demand led the pharma company to recognize additional opportunities, including applications in track-and-trace barcodes for serialization compliance with the United States Drug Quality and Security Act and other government standards.
Pharma companies can determine whether they want a label solution or even preprinted cartons with coding already applied. Relying on outside expertise, such as a printer that can produce pre-serialized labels, literature and cartons, can provide savings around manpower, resources, turnaround time and floor space as well as access to compliance expertise.
For more information on digital printing services, see www.CompanyX.com
