Eight digital label converters across Europe have produced Coca-Cola’s biggest personalised brand campaign, printing 800 million personalised labels on HP Indigo WS6000 series digital presses.
The campaign, Share a Coca-Cola, was launched across Europe on May 1 and is designed to help the company engage directly with its consumers in 32 countries. It substitutes the iconic logo on bottles of Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola light and Coca-Cola Zero with 150 of the most popular first names, nicknames and terms of affection in each country.
The project combined conventional printing technology with HP Indigo digital printing to create 800 million high quality personalised labels.
‘Packaging plays a critical role in the Share a Coca-Cola campaign because it connects the physical bottle with online communication channels, including social media and user-generated content sites,’ said Marit Kroon, marketing manager. ‘The ability to personalise such a high volume of labels with HP Indigo digital presses, while achieving the quality and consistency that Coca-Cola requires, opens up new possibilities for creative campaigns moving forward.’
The project was led by Peter Overbeek from ESHUIS, a label converter based in Dalfsen, Netherlands. It consisted of eight label converters across Europe who coordinated production of the personalised labels on 12 Indigo WS6000 series digital presses.
‘During the months of continuous printing, the HP Indigo WS6000 series digital presses have proven to be exceptionally reliable, achieving record productivity and press uptime of 86%,’ said Peter Overbeek, managing director. ‘With such a strong European network of PSPs using HP Indigo digital presses, the opportunities for brand owners like Coca-Cola are endless.’
The static content on the labels for this project was first printed conventionally on a 38-micron BOPP wraparound material. All of the presses used for this project were set to the same configuration and settings for complete alignment and consistency during production.
Additionally, to ensure the brand colour was maintained across all machines, HP Indigo formulated the Coca-Cola red ink. This ink served as the benchmark for all of the conventional and digital printing for the Share a Coca-Cola campaign.
