Intruder Alert!
Holograms can do more than just attract consumers. They can also protect against counterfeiting, diversion, and product tampering.
ACCORDING TO MARTY KELEM, sales and marketing manager, Spectratek Technologies, a consumer travels at seven miles per hour down store aisles, which only allows a product one-tenth of a second to make its impact. An impulse purchase occurs half of the time when a consumer visually notices the product, but that rate raises to 85 percent when the product is touched by the consumer.
This is one of the main reasons for all of the product displays at the checkout aisles of retail stores. While a consumer is patiently (or otherwise) waiting to be rung up at the grocery store, he or she has an opportunity to peruse the shelves packed with last minute items, like packages of bubble gum and candy. Now, however, with self-checkout lanes, consumers are more concerned with trying to make a speedy get-a-way with their bags of groceries than looking around at the different impulse-buy choices.
Catching the customer's eye was once the only job of holographic substrates, but today, security applications are becoming more and more important, as counterfeiting concerns increase throughout the consumer products industry. Of course, the need for heightened homeland security has driven the need for holograms on passports, drivers' licenses, and other government documents, but security is also an issue in the pharmaceutical, consumer marketed goods, licensed products, and apparel markets.
Behind all the glitter
The holographic market can span many end-use segments, including beverages, cereal, toothpaste, cigarettes, software, games, and toys—more for shelf appeal than for security reasons—but security has become an important manifestation of the use of holographic materials. The reason? The consumer wants to know he or she is getting an authentic item.
"Security brand protection is very important to not only the consumer, but also the consumer product company (CPC)," said Eric Bartholomay, product development manager, Toray Plastics (America). "Sports merchandise, like labels on authentic team hats and golf ball boxes, seem to be an expanding market."
Apart from merchandise labels, holograms have carved out a niche in the pharmaceutical industry. "Rising prescription drug costs and the use of the Internet to purchase drugs (where it is difficult for consumers to know where the medications are actually coming from) makes anti-counterfeiting both a public safety need and a revenue protection measure for drug manufacturers," said Patti Gettinger, market manager, Graphic Packaging International.
As converters know, one way to keep their customers (the CPCs) coming back to them for printing jobs over and over again is to help the CPCs continually increase their revenues. The eye-catching appeal of holograms can seduce a customer into choosing a product on an overpacked grocery store shelf, but there are other ways to help CPCs increase their revenues—and that's where the security features inherent in holograms come into play.
"There is value with consumers easily identifying protection with [holograms] while also receiving the true product. The manufacturer affects revenues by selling their product rather than the knock-off and protecting themselves against litigation from harm that can be caused from using fake goods," said Brad Long, business development manager, brand protection, Kurz Transfer Products. "Incorporating covert and forensic features into the imagery forms a more robust program."
The special features a converter can add to holograms vary from substrate to substrate, but a few of the mainstream choices include "micro indicia" and laser-only viewable images. The quality and brightness of the colors in the hologram also lends itself to the anti-counterfeiting speciality of the substrates.
Kelem defined micro indicia as small writing, similar to the silk screen writing used to create silicon chip arrays. It allows type within the holographic image that is so small and whose resolution is so fine that only the highest quality holographic replication techniques can create and duplicate them. "These are generally lost or illegible when copied or coined," Kelem said.
Laser-only viewable images can be created so that they can only be seen when illuminated by a laser. This means that the average counterfeiter may or may not even realize the hidden message is present. "This creates a higher threshold of difficulty in duplication," said Kelem.
And of course, the quality of the substrate can distinguish a real hologram from a fake. "Often the difference in quality is enough to tell the real thing from the counterfeits," said Kelem.
Steve Tomas, application development manager, FLEXcon, said holograms can offer other functionality, in addition to what Kelem has mentioned.
A money-saving manifestation of holograms, and also a security measure, is the capability for "several different methods for trained inspectors to visually authenticate products without the need for special devices or readers," said Tomas. "However, the same hologram that contains overt security features can also contain covert features that make use of specialized reader hardware. In some cases, [holograms] are used only as a red herring for would-be counterfeiters, while the real covert security device is somewhere else on the product."
Manufacturers of holographic materials know that the more sophisticated a hologram is, the harder it is to be "knocked-off" by a would-be counterfeiter. "More sophistication can be incorporated into the imagery, the material science, and supply chain management. It's a combination of all three that keeps you ahead of the game," said Long.
What machinery is needed?
"Application of holographic security labels does not require special equipment," said Tomas. "In fact, many of them are still hand applied."
Scary but true. Many holograms are still placed on the packaging by hand, but it's the printing and converting end of the spectrum that can and does require special equipment to keep the image in register. As Tomas explained, there are two broad categories of holographic images—wallpaper/background and specific image. The wallpaper images consist of a repeating pattern across an entire web. These tend to convert similar to non-holographic materials.
Specific-image holograms require converters to be able to keep their work in precise register both in the printing and diecutting processes. But that just adds to the security attributes of printing holographic materials.
"From a security perspective, this is not necessarily a bad thing. With only a handful of converters able to manufacture the security labels, the barrier to entry for counterfeiters is raised substantially," said Tomas.
What's the downside?
Using holograms for security measures sounds almost perfect, but it is just that … almost perfect. There are some negatives that converters need to keep in mind before they start using holographic substrates.
One main factor, like everything else in today's world, is cost. But, as Gettinger said, "The increased use of holograms has helped drive costs down through both the better manufacturing scale of existing suppliers and the entrance of new hologram manufacturers, which increases supply," she said. Gettinger also suggests to anyone getting into the holographic business for the first time to spend the capital up front, to make sure they buy the best equipment and materials possible. "By purchasing ready-to-print materials, many headaches and costs can be eliminated," she said.
But in other words, as Long said, "With proper management, there are no drawbacks in using holographic technologies."
What the future holds
Holographic material manufacturers are seeing several different trends in use of holographic substrates in the realm of packaging.
"A trend we have noticed is that holography is making a greater impact in the area of roll-fed labels," said George Buckland, market manager, AET Films. "A number of marketers have included the use of holography in product launches, or have repositioned a product utilizing a roll-fed format."
Another trend that is making some headway is the use of see-through, high refracted index (HRI) material. As Stewart Glazer, vice president, sales and marketing for Crown Roll Leaf explained, HRI is being used as an overlaminate that is usually seen on identification cards. "The holograms are see-through, which is perfect for a drivers license or identification cards," said Glazer.
Bartholomay agreed with Glazer's point about the HRI clear holograms, and added that the cost of the substrate could come down in the near future because converters are adding "bigger and wider machinery for the ability to convert more quantities."
Long said his customers are asking more and more for a new technology called the Contrust feature. "This is a truly distinctive, but simple imaging technology that involves two dynamic opposites. With a 90 degree turn, two separate design elements reverse colors. With this proprietary imaging technology, the Contrust is easily recognized, easily identified, and easily used within the converting process," he said.
And, said Gettinger, "An increased number of holograms are now produced on paper, rather than film. Paper-based holograms increase recyclability of the application and are less subject to the rising cost of oil-based products. In folding cartons, the lower memory of paper-based holograms improves efficiency in folding and gluing."
by Megan Wolf
Assistant Editor
