2020 was a transformative year for labels and packaging. Much of that had to do with the pandemic driven shift in consumer behavior, which in combination with new digital press introductions has affected packaging procurement models. This has accelerated the existing trends and now bodes well for the digital packaging evolution.
Some Background
In the 1990’s digital print was introduced, with a flurry of excitement and lots of projections about how this would lead to the explosion of variable data printing, one to one marketing and the ultimate demise of offset printing. The reality is that it took digital print almost 15 years to reach the level of offset print volume. If digital print was introduced in the early 1990’s, and it has taken so long for it to reach its predetermined goals, in the case of digital packaging production, are we in for the same long ride or can we learn from history?
