5 key steps to solving the problem of brand color inconsistency.

Today, brands use a wide range of substrates - from plastics to metal and glass to paper and corrugated - to differentiate their products on the shelves, convey their brand identity, and grab consumers' attention. Whatsmore, several different printing technologies are used to create these varied types of packaging, ranging from offset, flexo, gravure, screen, and, increasingly, digital.?

?The packaging process is becoming increasingly convoluted, and achieving the right color with different substrates and printing technologies can be challenging for brand owners, especially color consistency.

?Lack of color consistency can adversely affect your brand's image, with consumers ignoring products with inconsistent coloring. Bear in mind that, according to the Pantone Color Institute, more than 65% of purchasing decisions involve color. Brands must get color consistency right.?

?There are 5 key steps to solving the problem of brand color inconsistency:

?Key 1: Define and Digitize Your Color Standards.

?The common practice for matching colors is based on approved physical proof, with the approval process completed by visual evaluation. There are, however, various environmental and subjective factors that can affect the finished product: lighting, surrounding colors, and different people's perspectives making the evaluation process inaccurate.?

?Each step in the production line currently creates another copy of a copy for the next person to work with. As you can probably imagine, the color becomes incrementally less accurate each time.?

?This is where the power of digital standards comes in.?

Instead of giving each process a new copy to work with, they all need access to the original color data. Digital standards allow precisely that. From design into color separation,?and from ink matching to printing, every member of the packaging supply chain is now able to reference the exact color specified by the Brand. This results in the best possible color matching all the way down the line.

?When any supplier in the packaging supply chain needs to use one of your brand colors, they all reference the same digital standard, reducing errors and improving color consistency.

?Key 2: Ensure Achievability by Setting the Right Expectation.

?Once your Master brand standards are defined and digitized, it's critical to consider how those master colors will look on the particular substrates to which they will be applied. The target color have to become substrate-dependent.

?Substrate colors can vary in color, causing colors to appear differently. For example, a brand color printed on a white folding carton board will not look the same when printed on brown corrugated, even when using the same ink and printing process.

To print on a white folding carton board using an offset press, the Dependent Standard for that substrate and printing process defines the closest possible match to Master Standard. By using agreed-upon Dependent Standards, your expectations are clear and also known to be?achievable color target.

Now everyone can meet your requested brand color target, regardless of the substrate or printing technology used to produce your packaging.

?Key 3: Communicate Effectively.

?Once you have implemented a digital color library with both Dependent color standards, everybody in the packaging supply chain can work to the same digital standard, which is removing subjective discussions into the objective analysis.?

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Everyone is aligned on the expectations, no matter how many suppliers are involved, where they're located, or what they're producing. Changes or additions to your brand color palette are communicated instantly to everyone. There's no need to reproduce and send new physical standards to packaging suppliers – they receive updates automatically.

Key 4: Standardization and Compliance.

To ensure the same color language is spoken Brands have to introduce standardization and compliance. This can be done with PantoneLIVE from X-Rite Pantone. This way brands can optimize and consolidate their brand color palette into a simple, digital set of brand color standards, giving them instant access to easily identifiable areas of print quality improvement, making the process less costly and cumbersome.

?PantoneLIVE makes it easy for brands to check and manage the compliance of their suppliers across their packaging supply chain and around the world, giving them consistent results regardless of when, where, and how their packaging is produced.

Key 5: Obtain Feedback and Monitor Results.

Once the digital color standards have been established, brands need a reliable way to verify that these standards are being consistently achieved.

?In the age of automation and digitalization, it is easier for brands to stay informed of the packaging process. The ColorCert Suite from X-Rite Pantone enables digital communication of exact color and print requirements, producing near-real-time data for each press run in an easy-to-understand dashboard.

Printers measure and control color consistency during print production. This job quality data is displayed in the ColorCert Quality Control Software. At the end of each production run the data is uploaded to in a Brand Scorecard. The print job is awarded a score based on tolerances for the prime, spot and undertones. This cloud based score-carding allows brands to set clear expectations, monitor print quality on press, and see data reports instantly.

The result is that both Brands and printers leverage the value of ColorCert Suite for a more strategic and holistic approach to color management.?

X-Rite Pantone helped No7 Beauty Company set clear packaging color expectations for Soap & Glory.

Soap & Glory's bespoke pink draws consumers to the brand's impactful indulgent bathing, skincare, and gift products on the shelves of Walgreens, Boots, and hundreds of other global retailers.

Getting the iconic pink just right and ensuring that it is consistent across printed packaging formats is key for brand awareness and consumer engagement.?

For years, No7 Beauty Company used physical references to communicate color expectations and get quick alignment from print suppliers. But as time went on, the brand began to recognize a lack of color consistency across printed packaging, point of sale, merchandising, and marketing materials.?

?"Moving from physical color references and visual evaluation to a digital color program has dramatically improved Soap & Glory's printed packaging color consistency. Instead of spending time and money relating to the subjective acceptance or rejection of printed colors from S&G printers from around the world, we can now monitor print quality across multiple sites through X-Rite Pantone's connected PantoneLIVE and ColorCert software solutions. Giving printers ownership over print quality means they don't ship if the color isn't right, preserving our brand identity on the shelf. It's win-win for everyone."?~ Craig Davids, Global Artwork and Print Manager – Walgreen Boots Alliance.