Lightning Labels Blog

Five Label Industry Predictions for the New Decade

Over the last couple of weeks, as we end one decade and begin another, I have spent some time thinking about where the label industry is headed. So here are my top five label industry predictions for the coming decade.

1. Digital printing becomes the dominant technology

This is really not a difficult prediction. We started the last decade with digital technology in its infancy in the label industry with just a few installations around the world and top speeds of 24 ft/min. Today there are more than a thousand digital label presses installed worldwide and speed has gone to 100 ft/min. HP-Indigo had become one of the top three label press manufacturers at the end of the decade, something that would have been unheard of 10 years ago. In 10 years time I expect HP-Indigo to be the leading press manufacturer in the label industry and the number two and three positions will also belong to digital manufacturers, probably Xeikon and an inkjet press manufacturer. Flexo label printing will still be alive, but it will be a niche in the label industry suitable only for the very long runs.

2. Video product labels become a reality

Last year I wrote about Entertainment Weekly and the video screen that was embedded in their magazine. This was a window into technology that will become widespread in the coming decade. I expect that a high end cosmetics or pharmaceutical company will take the plunge some time later this decade and you will see a running video on their product label. The technology is already available to do this, we just have to wait until the pricing becomes more reasonable.

3. Labels will become more personal

Personalized product labels have been around now for many years. There is an entire category on this blog dedicated to product personalization. Even so, personalization hasn't hit the mainstream yet. This will change in the coming decade. The youth of today are used to personalization and they will become the driving force in this movement as they become the consumers of tomorrow. Now, I don't expect we will go to the grocery store and see product labels with our name on them any time soon. Instead, what will happen is that most products will come with a personalization option. You could buy the generic labeled product in the store or you could order online and create your own personalized label. As digital printing becomes faster and more widespread the cost to offer this option will continue to fall.

4. UPC barcodes will be phased out

By the end of the decade the good old UPC barcodes that we have come to know on every retail product will be phased out. Many people have predicted that RFID will replace the barcode, but it hasn't happened yet and I don't see it happening in this coming decade. Instead, I expect we will move from the one dimensional UPC barcode to a two dimensional barcode such as a QR code. Scanning software could be easily upgraded to read this type of barcode and these codes have the additional benefit of being a marketing tool. Soon all phones will come standard with the software necessary to scan these QR codes, it is already a downloadable application for smartphones now. Initially these QR codes will be printed side by side with regular UPC codes until scanners and their software are upgraded later this decade.

5. Recycling will become a huge issue

It is interesting to me that recycling has not become a huge issue yet in the label industry, particularly in this country. As an industry we produce a lot of waste with spent liner and matrix currently all going to the landfill. Small steps are being made to address this huge problem and by the end of the decade I expect there will be a national recycling program due in large part to the efforts of Calvin Frost, the leading label industry environmentalist. Label buyers and consumers will demand we become more environmentally friendly as an industry, it is starting to happen in Europe already.

Google Sends Out 100,000 QR Code Stickers

Earlier this month over 100,000 businesses around the country received a QR code sticker from Google that looks like the one here. These stickers were sent to the most popular businesses in Google's Local Business Center database. The idea is for companies to stick this postcard sized sticker in their front window.

I have written about QR codes before here and here. For a quick recap, QR codes are two dimensional barcodes that use the cameras in smartphones to direct people to web sites. You can see the QR code in the bottom right corner of Google's sticker. QR codes are very popular in Japan, and no doubt after this move by Google they will become more popular in this country.

Why would Google spend all this money sending these stickers out for free? Of course, they want more traffic to their web site. When you scan the QR code in these stickers, it takes you to the local listing for the business on Google with reviews, photos, and perhaps coupons.

It will be interesting to see how much this really spurs adoption of QR codes here. I can see a day in the not too distant future where most businesses have one of these stickers in their front window.

Now, you don't have to wait for Google to send you one, you can create your own QR code sticker that directs people to your web site right now. You can create a graphic file of your QR code by using a QR code generator site such as Delivr or Kaywa. Then you can print it yourself or, of course, Lightning Labels will be happy to print these stickers for you.

Resources

Google Favorite Places coming to window near you - cnet news

Google Favorite Places - Google

Scannable Retail Stickers to Extend Google's Local Presence - Clickz

Xerox Develops a Breakthrough Silver Ink

Xerox recently announced a breakthrough that could have wide ranging implications for a number of industries. The researchers at Xerox have invented a new ink that can be printed on paper or plastic like normal inks, but this silver ink has a special property - it can conduct electricity. This is a huge development for the new field of printed electronics.

In the future, many electrical components such as simple screens, sensors, solar cells, and radio antennae will not be manufactured by traditional fabrication plants, they will be printed. What this means for the label industry is that a product label may have a regular printed component as well as some kind of electrical device built into the label itself. This electrical device could replace the barcode for identification, or it could be something much more sophisticated such as a video screen.

We are not there yet, but when this technology becomes mainstream it will transform many industries. I predict we will start to see some of this become mainstream in the next three to five years. We have already seen some interesting developments that I have written about recently that gives an idea of what we can expect.

Related Articles

PrintedElectronicsNow.com - New Silver Ink Developed by Xerox

Digital Beat - Xerox develops silver ink for wearable or throwaway electronics

Video Ad Running in Entertainment Weekly Magazine

Yes, you read that right. There is a video ad running in the current edition of Entertainment Weekly magazine. This is not an ad on their web site it is actually in the print edition of the magazine.

This is a world first. A paper thin video player is being embedded in the magazine that will begin running when a reader opens the magazine to the ad pages. Unfortunately, you can't go out and just buy this magazine, it is only being sent to some Entertainment Weekly subscribers in the Los Angeles and New York City areas. The advertisers are CBS and Pepsi, with CBS featuring video of its upcoming fall TV shows and Pepsi promoting its Pepsi Max diet cola.

This is highly significant news in many ways. It means that video technology has advanced enough for screens to be paper thin. It means that a suitable power source to run these video screens has been developed that is also paper thin. So, it is only a matter of time now before we see these video screens on a product label. Sure, in reality we are probably many years or even decades away from seeing video ads on the shampoo bottles in your local grocery store. But I can see a day when high-end cosmetics, pharmaceuticals or wine carry a video ad on their label. I expect it will become common place in this coming decade.

One of the big obstacles to overcome will be environmental. I presume this magazine can no longer be included in the recycling stream. But this is not an insurmountable problem. Recyclers often have to allow for new materials. There will be a public backlash if the recycling stream is not able to handle this kind of electronics. Before video ads in magazines or on product labels become common place I expect this challenge will have been overcome.

Related Articles

Esquire Magazine Makes Printing History

Print CEO blog - Video Ad to Run in Print

Advertising Age - Details of the CBS and Pepsi Ad

YouTube Video Showing Ad in Action

New Barcode Scanning Technology Teaches iPhone New Tricks

"Coca #5 iPhone 3G" by nao-cha (left), available under a Creative Commons License

Last week I wrote about the RedLaser iPhone app, which allows serious shoppers to compare in-store prices with online ones by scanning barcodes with their iPhones. In the near future, RedLaser technology could also help you remember to pick up the milk, or select the perfect bottle of wine for any occasion.

Coupons, Inc. is currently figuring out how to integrate the barcode scanning technology into Grocery iQ, a grocery shopping application that works both the iPhone and iPod Touch. The finished product will reportedly allow you to scan grocery items directly into your shopping list on your iPhone, find and print coupons for those items, and re-arrange your grocery list to match the layout of your favorite supermarket.

Applied Ambiguities, LLC is also incorporating RedLaser technology into their Cor.kz Wine Info iPhone app. Fast Company has ranked Cor.kz as one of the 25 “must have” iPhone apps. Adding barcode scanning functionality to Cor.kz will make it easier for users to locate detailed information on almost any wine currently on the market using their iPhones.

You might be also be interested to know that RedLaser’s creator, Boulder-based technology startup Occipital, LLC, has also released the barcode scanning technology to iPhone developers everywhere. According to the RedLaser website, your iPhone could soon be able to perform all kinds of neat barcode scanning tricks. Here are a few to fuel your imagination:

• Pull up lists of a list of book reviews for books you spot at your local library (just scan their barcodes)
• Beam a list of movies you’d like to watch from the movie store to your TiVo at home (just scan their barcodes)
• Find online coupons for products you frequently purchase (just scan their barcodes)

New technology like RedLaser is giving barcodes an increasingly important role in product sales, which makes it more important than ever to have your barcode labels professionally designed and printed by someone you trust.

The (Possible) Future of Packaging

Last month on the Eye on Packaging blog, David Bellm featured this interesting video. It is the brainchild of Capsule, a packaging design firm in Minneapolis. Before you become alarmed Gobee Rocket Rations is a fictitious product. The video was created for the Packaging That Sells Expo in Chicago as part of their Futuristic Packaging Gallery video series. The idea of the series is to challenge package design firms to think about what might be possible in the future.

Whether or not we will have children's drinks that interact and inform, one thing is for sure, product labels and packaging are going to become more intelligent. With the advances in electronic ink and printed electronics the label printer of the future will need to know as much about electronics as they do about ink.

QR Codes Coming to Wine Labels

Last year I wrote about QR codes that were being used by Ralph Lauren. I recently discovered two Portuguese wineries that have just started using QR codes on their wine labels. If you take a look at the back label here you will notice a normal bar code and also a funny looking square next to the bar code - that is the QR code.

The idea behind QR codes is that you can embed information in them that can be easily scanned with a cell phone camera. The most common use of QR Codes is to embed a web site URL, so you can direct the person to a specific web site when scanning the label.

In the case of these Portuguese wineries they are directing wine consumers to Adegga, an online community of wine lovers that dubs itself as a "social wine discovery" service. This is how it works. You scan the QR Code on the wine label and you will be taken to a special page on adegga.com dedicated to that particular wine. You will be able to read other people's comments about it, check wine prices, read comments from the winemaker and much more. Adegga is undertaking a very ambitious project attempting to catalog all the wine of the world with something called an AVIN, which will be a unique wine identifier (similar to ISBN numbers for books). 

Obviously there is not broad use of QR codes yet in this country. But in Japan and Europe they are becoming more common. I expect we will start to see broad adoption of this kind of technology here within 2-3 years. If there are wineries out there that would like to become part of this project then we will be happy to print your wine labels with the QR codes.

Hat tip to Jose Eduardo at the Cortes de Cima Winery in Portugal for informing me about this.

Esquire Magazine Makes Printing History

Last week I bought the latest issue of Esquire magazine. It is the first time I have ever purchased this magazine and I did it because I wanted to own a piece of history. To celebrate their 75th anniversary, Esquire created a cover featuring electronic ink. To be more precise, a small 2" x 5" LCD display is embedded into the paper cover, along with a battery, to create the first ever digital magazine cover.

The screen blinks with the words "The 21st Century Begins Now" and flashes between white and gray. It is really very striking as it sits on my desk among other magazines and papers, none of which are blinking. The battery is supposed to last 90 days or so - mine is certainly still going strong after more than a week.

So what does this have to do with labels? Plenty. I believe we are looking at the future of print right here. It is probably decades off but one day most product labels on a retail shelf will in fact be these LCD displays that will blink, play videos, connect with web sites and much more.

Will paper labels ever go away? No, I believe there will be some product labels made with paper for decades or even centuries into the future simply because paper will be cheaper than electronics for a very long time. But I also expect the first electronic product labels to be appearing on high end products within a decade. Esquire magazine has proven it is possible to produce these thin screens on a large scale. With  improvements in technology you might be buying cosmetics or prescription drugs with electronic product labels some time in the not too distant future.

Ralph Lauren and QR Barcodes

I was reading the latest issue of TIME magazine over the weekend and came across this interesting article about a new initiative from fashion house Ralph Lauren. In conjunction with the US Open tennis tournament beginning on Monday August 25th, Ralph Lauren is launching a campaign featuring a QR Code - these are basically a two dimensional barcode like the one pictured above. 

This is how it will work. Ralph Lauren has placed these barcodes on billboards, in store windows, in magazine ads and catalogs. You will need a cell phone with a camera and software to read the QR barcode. There are plenty of web sites that provide free QR barcode readers - Ralph Lauren has one available for download on its mobile web site. I was able to download one called NeoReader quite easily for my iPhone. When the QR reader is loaded on your phone you scan the barcode by taking a photo within this software. Then the software will take you to the web site using your phone's browser. The QR codes used in the Ralph Lauren promotion will take you a special web site created just for mobile phones where you can buy merchandise direct from your phone.

In Japan there has been widespread use of QR barcodes for a couple of years now. In this country, we are still in the very early stages, but rest assured this technology will become very widespread in the near future. I don't think Ralph Lauren will be making much money on their first foray into QR barcodes, but they are positioning their company as being on the cutting edge, and they are certainly getting good PR out of it.

The QR barcode pictured above is something I created. If you print this page and scan this QR barcode it will take you to Lightning Labels' website on your cell phone. One day soon you will be able to scan one of these codes at the supermarket to find out more information about the product you are buying. For example you could scan a QR barcode label on a banana and immediately find out when the banana was picked, where it was grown and how it was transported. All the technology is available right now to do this (check out ScanLife or Winksite if you want to create QR barcodes), so I expect forward thinking companies to start using this technology in coming months. Of course, if you want someone to print QR barcode labels then Lightning Labels will be happy to assist you.

Scanning a Barcode With a Cell Phone

As you might have heard Google wants to get into the mobile phone business. Instead of writing all the applications themselves, in typical Google fashion they are having a competition called the Android Developer Challenge and awarding $10 million to developers. One of the winners in the first round is Jeffrey Sharkey, a graduate student at Montana State University, who developed an application that can scan barcodes with the camera on your cell phone.

Of course, it does more than just scan a barcode. His software actually analyzes the barcode to determine the UPC or ISBN numbers and then using the internet connection on the cell phone it looks up a database to give you more information. For example, a scan of the UPC code on a music CD (pictured above) returns information about this CD. You get reviews on Amazon, a list of the tracks on the CD, and most importantly a list of places selling the CDs including prices. It searches both online stores as well as brick and mortar stores near your location.

Right now this software only works for CDs, DVDs, and books, but it will only be a matter of time before this spreads to all retail products with a UPC code. Imagine you are about to buy a nice $25 bottle of wine from your local liquor store, but you are not sure whether you are getting the best value. A quick photo of the barcode and within a few seconds you will have a list of all the places near you, as well as online, that have this same wine available and the prices they are charging.

I thought this technology might be ten years away or more, but after seeing this new application it will probably be less than five years when the above scenario becomes reality.