LMAI Brand Owners event at Delhi

Label manufacturers association of India (LMAI) organized an event for their Printer Members in the evening of 30th March 2018 titled:  “Brand owner’s perception of labels in changing scenario” at RADISSON BLU MARINA HOTEL CONNAUGHT PLACE New Delhi. The program had lead sponsors as AveryDennison, SMI Coated Products and DuPont. Support sponsors were Vinsak, FIG, Creative Graphics and J N Arora Group.

Speakers at the event included:

Barun Banerjee: Head of Packaging Nestlé South Asia region, Nestlé India Ltd.

Rahul Bhargava: Vice President, Packaging, SUN Pharma

Kousik Saha: Associate Director - Head Packaging Commercialization, PepsiCo

Amiya Pradhan AM- Corporate Packaging Dev., Dabur IndiaLtd. (FMCG division).

Deepak Manchanda: Packaging Expert

Sandeep Zaveri

The event having been restricted only to printer members and sponsors comprised of label printers and sponsors to the event yet it was fully booked and over 100 delegates attended. Past president LMAI, Sandeep Zaveri of Total Prints Mumbai who anchored the evening, opened the event by welcoming the guests and introducing the speakers to the audience. 

Kuldip Goel

LMAI President Kuldip Goel, Managing Director of Any Graphics NOIDA speaking next apprised the audience of his programs. He dwelled on his efforts and successful implementation of tree plantation in NCR Delhi; this would in time be undertaken at various places across the country. He informed that this brand owner program would also be conducted in different zones of the country. He also announced the launch of a web Portal “Advantage” that would help label printer members of LMAI to offer their surplus left over raw materials and excess equipment to other members. Lastly he announced that LMAI will be hosting the LMAI awards on the sidelines of Labelexpo in November this year and will also be hosting the L9 Meet at that time. L9 is the global confederation of nine leading label associations in the world.

Barun Banerjee

Speaking first and setting the tone for the evening Barun Banerjee from Nestle, speaking from food perspective, expressed the imperative need for change and asserted that change is the only constant in an every evolving packaging scenario. He said that there are now three megatrends: 1. Visual & Tactile Changes 2.Green Initiatives and New Technology. 3. Digital Print and Personalization. He also spoke about the different decoration technologies that the brand owners are looking at to enhance the shelf appeal, sustainability and reducing the adverse impact on environment as also the need of combining digital capabilities in label production so as to enable variable data and personalization.

Rahul Bhargava from Sun Pharma gave information about requirements in respect to pharmaceutical packaging. He explained the need to adhere to statutory requirement and compliance through information on labels and packaging. Stressing that it is expected of all pharmaceutical and health care products to be labeled correctly for consumer safety, the responsibility is clearly with Brand Owner. Besides the aesthetics the label should have space for Product Name, Active/ Inactive ingredients, Strength, Directions for use, Warnings, Purpose & use of drug product, Drug facts etc. He also mentioned the need to ensure that the migration of solvents or plasticizers from inks on labels or adhesives into the plastic containers does not take place as it would impact the performance of the products. Lastly he informed about the font sizes that need to be adhered to while providing information on labels.

Kousik Saha

Kousik Saha of PepsiCo focused his presentation to beverage labeling and mentioned the four imperatives i.e.

•         FMOT (First Moment of Truth) which was about brand positioning, Label Printing and Decoration. He spoke of the decoration technologies needed to catch the consumer’s eye.
• Brand visibility/product positioning/consumer engagement/marketing campaign’;  Here he mentioned the impact of personalisation by adding variable and personalised images on labels.
• Regulations/Legal/ Claims.;  He spoke on amendment of PCR 2011 which deals with Font sizes of Net quantity, Best before, MRP, Consumer helpline to be 1.0mm and above as per principle display panel area. Guidelines of legal metrology
• Barcode/MRP, Date of Mfg / Expiry/Net content etc.;

He summed up by talking about performance parameters that were needed like GSM variation – Label orientation on gripper drum, release from vacuum drum leading to line stoppage, Elasticity – cut length variation, Eye-mark to eye-mark distance – cut length variation, Core damage – alignment of reel, loading on labeler, Static on label – Unwinding, labeler stoppage, etc.

Amiya Pradhan from Dabur spoke in reference to the labeling needs of the FMCG segment. He stated that a label projects the identity of a brand or the product, so it needs incorporate Branding Elements (Brand/ Sub Brand), Mnemonics (Major Ingredients), The Prepositions, Aesthetics, Visual/ Sensoria and Legal Metrology and other details. He extensively impressed upon the need to dress up the label so as to appeal to demanding consumers. He asserted that good “Branding & Packaging” can do magic in generating millions even from a freely available Item and that labeling and packaging can involve and engage target customers. He also spoke on the need for quicker response and turnaround times when developing something new.

Deepak Manchanda

Deepak Manchanda, packaging and design consultant, despite being extremely unwell that evening, made a huge effort to stand up and make a wonderful presentation titled “EMERGING NEEDS OF LABEL DESIGN; Delivering customer delight in an increasingly Regulatory Environment”. Stressing that design is the foundation of a good label or package as it  delivers Brand Communication, Design – Delight- Desire and  dwells on Disruption–Experience and Regulatory needs. The design establishes relationship between packaging and communication with the end user. He gave examples of designs that contributed to success of brands and products.

In the ensuing panel discussion moderated bay Harveer Sahni, all the speakers together with

lead sponsors represented by Pankaj Bhardwaj of Avery, Ajay Mehta of SMI and Prasenjit Das of DuPont, discussed besides other issues, sustainability. Rahul Bhargava mentioned that they were going thinner on grammages to reduce the impact of wastage on the environment, Pankaj Bhardwaj informed that Avery Dennison was pioneering in efforts to make recycling of release liners possible and Ajay Mehta stressed the need for interacting with brand owners to offer products that were sustainable. Barun Banerjee and Kousik Saha informed that the industry brand owner constituents were coming together to recollect plastic materials and recycle in their efforts to aid sustainability. He also appealed to suppliers to offer a single polymer substrate rather than multi substrate ones so that recycling becomes convenient. Harveer Sahni updated the audience about Any Graphics NOIDA and Mudrika Labels Mumbai having been announced the winners at World Label awards and also appealed to label printers to participate in forth coming LMAI awards.

Dinesh Mahajan, Prakash Labels and treasurer LMAI proposed a vote of thanks after Sunil Jindal made a presentation on the new LMAI portal announced by LMAI president.

The author had requested comments from those who attended this event, their responses are reproduced as here under;

Rajeev Chhatwal, Kwality Offset Printers; The presentations given by the brand owners were helpful in understanding needs of the Industry, this should help us all in planning our way ahead. Hope to see more such events in near future.

Honey Vazirani, Leap Digiprint Pvt. Ltd.: The event was well organized and well executed. I was also quite impressed with the companies and the delegates that LMAI managed to get as speakers. The last panel discussion should have also had a label printer on the panel because our industry is already stuck between giants (big customers and big suppliers!). Food was good as well! Overall comment: An informative and pleasant networking evening!

Ajay Mehta, SMI Coated Products: It was a very innovative and successful event which is well appreciated by us. This is the need of the hour and we have been suggesting that we to do this kind of programs where there can be an open interaction between brand owners and Label manufacturers. We look forward to many such events in future. 
Gaurav Nema, Pragati Global: I must say the event that happened on Friday was one of its kind and it made us learn about the aspects of packaging from the brand owner's perspective. Sustainable and re cycled packaging is need of the hour globally and this aspect was covered well. I however feel that a dedicated session should be organised for this aspect alone.I suggest that more such events should happen in different cities so that fraternity gets the maximum advantage.

Sandeep Zaveri, Total Prints: Printers should have more time to interact with brand owners, the idea is to improve our industry and stop the price war, reverse auction and many other aspects.

KPS Shetty, Sai Printers: It was an excellent event. We could listen to brand owners about their expectations.

Anuj Bhargav, Kumar Printers: Great initiative. More such interactions would truly help the industry.
Barun Banerjee: Thanks for creating that interactive space for user and label partners forum.

S. Mahesh, The Manipal Group: It was a great experience in terms to understand brand perception towards to label industry. It is motivating us to work towards their expectations.

Deepak Manchanda, Design and packaging consultant and speaker: "The event was a rare type of occasion where well recognised brand owner packaging representatives were available to mingle informally among competing label convertors as well as raw material suppliers. This is indeed a welcome initiative by LMAI to provide a platform for knowledge sharing and break down formal business processes into more innovative and networked ways of working together. It was impressive to see participants who had specially flown in from other cities to attend also."

Trilok Mittal, Wonderpac: The event was very fruitful for label manufacturers. Brand owners created awareness which today is the need for smart and security featured labels. We would like to attend such programmes as we become aware of the changing needs of brand owners.
Vivek Kapoor, Creative Labels: Great Work! 
Prasenjit Das, DuPont: It was one of the better events that I have attended after a long time. The idea of calling Brand Owners and listen to their views was very unique and informative. In most of the events we as a supplier listen to each other’s product benefits but in this event we could understand the views of the end users. This will definitely help us understand the VOCs much better and plan our strategies to meet those.
Mukesh Goel, Gopsons: It was indeed a great event and helped us in understanding the brand side as to what they need and their future expectations. It will definitely help us to realign our future strategy.

Amiya Pradhan, Dabur: It was a privilege meeting you people and sharing our views in front of the association. It was indeed a nice platform for the exchange of valuable feedback from both sides (the user and the converter industry). It really will strengthen the partnering between users and vendors towards sustainable innovation and value engineering.

Sanjeev Sondhi, Zircon Technologies: It helped us to prepare ourselves for future investments based on customer's requirement.
Pankaj Bhardwaj, Avery Dennison: The event was very useful in getting brand owners perspective and some very useful insights. I also liked the panel discussion bringing some very important points to the fore.

Written By Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi March 2018

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