Case studies

Sea Horse / Hippocampus case study

The Hippocampus

Talk about a challenge. The recent Pazazz Printing / Phase 2 Labels marketing campaign began with a strong desire to showcase as much of their combined expertise as possible to a very discerning audience. Marketing to marketers and branding specialists, a highly imaginative group to begin with, can be an intimidating experience. "We needed a truly innovative and perfectly executed campaign that would grab the attention of a very creative audience," says Warren Werbitt, President and CEO of Pazazz Printing.

The Hippocampus campaign featured four elements: a die-cut neck tag, a two-sided label, a unique brochure and a hand crafted box. The items make a strong statement about the Pazazz and Phase 2 commitment to sustainability and their corporate involvement with the FSC.

Production of these different elements became a case study on the real challenge of maintaining branding values while utilizing many different substrates, production methods and coatings. And the brand in this case was "Personal‟.

Finished Hippocampus kits have met with critical acclaim. While presenting the final product to their clients and prospects, sales representatives have seen the kits dissected at board room tables by some of the most innovative thinkers in our market and it definitely appears that the original goal, the positioning of Pazazz Printing and Phase 2 Labels as "quality‟ print manufacturers has been achieved beyond original expectations.

The Hippocampus - A Project Summary

The Pazazz Printing Hippocampus marketing campaign was designed to serve several important purposes.

The four principal elements; product box, bottle label, neck tag and brochure were designed to clearly demonstrate the competence of our litho printing and flexographic label division as well as our packaging offering. It was also our desire to make the campaign a very "Real World‟ demonstration of a multi part project, possibly a product launch, involving different substrates and production methods which must result in a cohesive end product where all branding values are respected.

Our intention was to make a statement about the importance of sustainability while recognizing some of our principal or major supplier partnerships. For these reasons, we set ourselves the challenge, right from the beginning, of using a different substrate for each element and a completely different production process for the bottle label.

The product box was certainly the most complex member of the group. Printed 250 line co-res on 80 lb coated one side Sterling Gloss, the design includes a rich black box bottom, one of the toughest colour choices in mounted packaging to produce flawlessly, combined with a process colour panel beneath a black internal tray and a CMYK top which set the tone for consistency of branding colours throughout the project.

Coated 1-side paper is only available in a few brands and is not currently part of the FSC product offering and, while we had already chosen to vary our papers, this highlights a very important step in current production planning where sustainability is an issue. It is extremely important to check, from the beginning, that a matching substrate is available in all of the weights and sheet sizes required for your product grouping.

The brochure with wooden stick closure is also 250 line co-res and is printed on IX FSC Utopia Gloss cover. The neck tag is produced in the same way but on Sappi Hannoart Silk 200m 10 pt. in recognition of Sappi‟s educational support of the print industry.

Not only are the items above printed on 3 different papers with 2 different finishes, but they are also matt laminated. Film lamination is essential in order to avoid all chance of cracking in the finishing and mounting processes, and all parts of our project were die cut and creased. But lamination comes with its own set of challenges. All laminations interact with the colors on the printed sheet, the most common occurrence being an enhancement of the magenta making the product redder than anticipated. The large coverage of CMYK orange on all pieces became the focus for matching and, because of the other planned variants, the production element requiring the most care and advance testing.

To make things more interesting, we chose to use the new "easy emboss‟ spot UV process, on top of the lamination and in register with the printed images. We did this to make the box top and brochure really pop.

The bottle label is a flexographically printed item on specialized substrate and definitely a difficult item to produce. We wanted it to be visible from both sides after application to the water bottle. The back of the label is printed in 5 PMS colours with "flop‟ technology on 2 mil PP Gloss TCRP37 to give the effect of printing on glue. The front is 3 PMS on 2.6 mil. It is matt laminated and die cut in line.

Unforeseeably, after all of the pieces were ready, the plastic water bottles were too soft to allow for smooth and even application of the labels. It is really difficult to anticipate all possible glitches! Our supplier made a new mold and produced another batch of more rigid bottles. We heaved a collective sigh of relief when we inserted the first of these new bottles into our already formed boxes.

As a high quality and branding- sensitive print house, Pazazz Printing is often involved in product launches or campaigns like this one. But we are not often consulted at the pre-production "design and build‟ stage. It is common for a customer to arrive at their press approval with a finished piece produced elsewhere, perhaps a silk screened corrugated material, and expect our presses to achieve a matching result. This creates a problem that can be avoided.

As a follow up to this project summary, we will be publishing a planning check list for the creation and management of a multi-part project that will clearly demonstrate the best ways to work with your designers and manufacturing partners in order to achieve the best outcome.

If you have any questions about this campaign, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at 514-856-3330 ext. 269 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .