Heidelberg UK has joined forces with impregnated smell specialist Celessence to enable printers to offer their customers an easy way to add an extra dimension to printed material.
Celessence can recreate different scents and deliver them with a micro encapsulation technology. These are used in its Ultra Coat product comprising 30% capsules and 70% of blend formulation. This in turn is added to Heidelberg’s coatings for different print technologies for online application on sheetfed litho or label presses.
The scent is released when the surface of the material is touched breaking the tiny capsules and releasing the aroma. “We are talking to some customers about projects in the run up to Christmas,” says Heidelberg UK’s head of consumables Grant Anderson. “And then around the corner is St Valentines Day with the chance to enhance print with the smell of chocolate or roses.”
The product is not unique to Heidelberg, though the partnership that came after Celessence ran tests with different types of coater, is. Anderson says that these showed that Heidelberg’s inline coaters delivered the best results. Other printers have used Celessence to add an aroma to books, magazines, point of sale material, packaging, labels and jigsaw puzzles as well as the more usual perfume samplers.
More recently the technology was used to add that extra dimension to 50,000 copies of the Metro newspaper by applying a smell of gingerbread to a cover wrap to promote Tesco’s Christmas offerings. Metro’s head of innovation and partnership Natasha Acquisito explains: “This fun, fame driving campaign shows the power of print possibilities when it comes to immersing the senses and creating standout for brands – alongside a perfect activation for disrupting the commute and ultimately, an epic Christmas launch.”
The microencapasulated scents have generally been applied through a dry offset process or screen or flexo printing, hence the partnership with Heidelberg UK to optimise a version that can be mixed with a water based or UV coating for application as an inline product.
Interest in adding fragrance to print has increased as a means of creating a difference with digital communications. Celessence Technologies joint managing director Suzanne Powell says: “Scent in print has the ability to completely change the way in which consumers react to printed media and we are delighted to be in partnership with Heidelberg.”
The subject was one of the topics at the Power of Print seminar in London where Simon Harrop who set up the Aroma Company suggested smell is suited to a print led treatment. There has been much research into smell and the emotions it triggers and therefor how to use this in many different settings, though not in the digital world. “The over reliance on digital is quite frankly stupid,” he began. “We live in a world of visual overload, with the number of brand messages we see each day increasing ten times since the arrival of digital media and our ability to react has fallen off a cliff.
“Print media can cut through all the noise. Brand engagement is essentially emotional and most of a purchasing decision happens in a non conscious part of the brain.”
