5 ways to reduce your artwork costs:

In 2012, would you like to achieve:

• Better brand consistency?

• Quicker artwork approvals?

• Lower design, artwork & repro costs?

Design, artwork and origination costs can be a significant drain on a marketing

budget, and because they are a necessary part of the product development process, this

spend tends to be prioritised ahead of consumer communication activities.

In many businesses, spend is not challenged as vigorously as in other areas, partly due to:

• A lack of knowledge of how the process works

• Marketers’ protectiveness of ‘their’ agencies

• Each agency protecting its own ‘turf’

• A lack of clear accountability through the process

The good news is that the world is moving on and this gives manufacturers the opportunity to

achieve quicker approvals and better printing results whilst unlocking savings to increase

media spend budgets.

The European market is showing how things are changing:

• Design agencies are trying to hang on to artwork production

• Printers are trying to maintain control of the printing process and specific relationships

with plate makers and repro companies……

• Improved technology is driving down the real cost of print preparation and production

costs every year

• To grow their businesses, traditional repro companies are reinventing themselves as

Print Management Agencies (PMAs)

• Everyone is moving ‘upstream:’

- Design agencies are taking more of the idea generation /strategy setting business

- PMAs are moving into design and artwork production

• BUT.….smart brand owners are forging relationships with PMAs to sit in the middle of

the process, driving clear accountability, adherence to brand standards and lower

costs

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When you set about developing new artwork for your activities, here are 5 things to consider:

1) Formalise the process for collecting accurate pack copy information. Make sure that

pack copy is developed and written down in an approved packaging manuscript: using

live artwork as a basis for checking pack copy is an expensive alternative

2) Appoint a Print Management Agency to assess whether the right agencies are

performing the right roles in your artwork origination process

3) Install an electronic artwork approval process (a good PMA will install one at minimal

cost): they formalise responses, allow remote access, speed up approval times and

reduce artwork rework

4) Determine which print jobs need creative input and which are less complex: does a

range extension need to be handled by the design agency, or can the PMA adapt the

pack art by tweaking existing artwork?

5) Stop your marketers from attending print runs: their expertise is marketing, not print

evaluation. A good PMA will attend first print runs on your behalf and guarantee the

results.

Depending on how efficient your process is today, these five tips could save 15% to 50% of

your annual packaging origination bill.

At Temple Grey, we have experience of running this process in food businesses across Europe

and we’ve achieved significant savings and process improvements. We are also able to draw

on latest trend information from leading PMAs in the European market.

If you would like us to review your packaging origination and print process, please give us a

call.

Mark Ventress

+64 22 120 4671

Tony Mattson

+64 21 998 975