The annual brand conference organised by Digital Labels & Packaging will feature a host of interesting content. The keynote speaker and first handful of presentations have now been announced. 

This year’s Digital Print for Brand Success conference will take place on 21 November when it returns to the IET London: Savoy Place, a venue that has proven extremely popular with delegates.

For the 2019 edition, the organisers have announced that the keynote will be given by Mark Shayler, director and owner of Ape. Using his unique disruptive and sustainable innovation approach, Mark works with global brand owners such as Coca-Cola, P&G, Unilever and Bacardi, and big businesses, including Amazon, Samsung and Kyocera, ‘to help them think differently and stay ahead of the competition.’ Most recently, he was involved in the launch of a new craft range of Coca-Cola Signature Mixers, which was developed together with a number of famous bartenders.

Under the title, ‘The consumer conundrum: looking small but thinking big’, Mr Shayler will look at how brands have to move faster and smarter in today’s world of belief-driven consumers, who are no longer solely influenced by the traditional hierarchy of marketing. He will explore why big brands are changing their behaviour in an attempt to understand who their consumers are and stay relevant, and how small brands have disrupted the status quo.

The designer’s view on using digital print for brands will come from Pearlfisher’s head of realisation, Jennifer Newell. She said, ‘Digital print technology is significantly changing the way the design industry thinks and operates, but it is also presenting us with significant challenges. Despite the rapid pace of innovation, a number of factors – including client workflows, their contracts and procurement restrictions, misplaced perceptions, budgets and volumes –sometimes prohibit a design vision being achieved digitally.’

Ms Newell will discuss how to overcome these challenges to ensure digital print remains a progressive solution for designers and clients alike. Through examples and strategies, she will share how digital print can be used to create meaningful experiences that add value and better meet the desires of today’s consumers looking for more premium offers, new levels of customisation, originality and sustainability.   

‘Creating a brand is all about tapping into human psychology – adding an intangible desire (and a higher price) to what is often a good product, but objectively no better than a dozen others,’ said Steve Osborne, managing director of brand agency, Osborne Pike. By creating a set of associations in the consumer’s mind and having ‘distinctive assets’ that trigger those associations time after time, a successful brand significantly improves the odds of being bought.

The book series ‘How Brands Grow’ recognises 25 types and 7 classes of potentially distinctive assets, but most brands are lucky if they have more than one (usually the logo), explained Mr Osborne. He stated. ‘As we enter an era in which digital disruption is changing the environment of brands profoundly, increasing, enhancing and ‘weaponising’ your distinctive assets is essential.’ In his talk, he will explain how to do just that.

Disrupting brand packaging will digital will be on the agenda when Johnny Hobeika, who is the managing director of ePac Holdings Europe, takes to the stage. He will explain how ePac Flexible Packaging uses a digital-only approach to disrupt brand owners’ conventional expectations of time-to-market, marketing promotion, anti-counterfeiting and digital engagement with their customers.

There are already ePac 15 sites in operation across the US, and now, with the establishment of a European division, the company is setting up shop in the UK. The first facility will be in the Midlands and it is due to start producing packaging printed on the HP Indigo 20000 later this year, led by Mr Hobeika.

More speakers will be revealed over the coming weeks. For more details and to book tickets, please go to www.digitalbrandconf.com.