Managing color in the cloud

The PantoneLive portal allows brand owners to store and share key color assets, making it possible to manage and communicate colors accurately to any supplier around the world. Carol Houghton reports

PantoneLive, a cloud-based color service that provides instant access to essential brand color standards – digitalizing the traditional analog process – was recently unveiled at a launch event in London. It is the first service under the Pantone Digital Business Unit, a newly created division of X-Rite that combines Pantone’s color expertise and X-Rite’s color science and technology resources.

Importance of color

‘Everyone cares about color,’ said Ron Potesky, senior vice president and general manger, Pantone. ‘Our reaction to color is almost instant and has a profound impact on the choices we make every day’. Research results presented at the press conference showed that 70 percent of purchases are made in just a five second window and brand color is a key influencer. Interestingly, 97 percent of the consumer sample said they would choose a product behind the first on the shelf if the pack appears discolored; color accounts for some 60 percent of acceptance or rejection of a product. Potesky concluded: ‘For consumers, product color and quality go hand in hand’. We have to get the color right first time and every time’.

A new service

Pantone is widely accepted as the definitive color reference library, helping users achieve the same results across different printing processes and substrates. However, varying standards across the globe, substrate restrictions and differences in Pantone-based guidebooks mean it is not always accurate. Over time, this variation can mean that brand colors become unrecognizable. More than a quarter of brand owners surveyed said they ‘frequently’ encounter inaccurate color and this results in additional costs through the supply chain.

‘The growing complexity of the international supply chain, and brands trying to drive down price without sacrificing color control, was an opportunity for X-Rite to reduce the challenge by creating new tools,’ said Tom Vacchiano, president and CEO, X-Rite.

Sonia Megert Marshall, vice president, Pantone Digital Business Unit, believes the launch of PantoneLive will change how and when decisions regarding color are made. ‘Today, expectations are hard to meet; swatches are exchanged, there is a struggle to meet deadlines and so on. But we don’t need to do it this way. That is why we developed PantoneLive technology. Brand color now lives in a cloud.’

PantoneLive uses CxF (Color Exchange Format) to hold all the associated color metadata that needs to be shared, with measurement and verification based on objective spectral data rather than subjective visual evaluations and costly adjustments on press. This profile is then available to all authorized users across the supply chain from designers and printers to ink suppliers and pre-press professionals.

It is estimated that some 80 percent of brand launches already use digital elements including ‘virtual’ pack design and simulated shelf space. Paul Baker, principal scientist, package development at Procter & Gamble remarked that ‘going digital has transformed the way of doing business’. At the same time brands are adopting simpler color palettes, requiring less inks and minimizing spot colors. Both trends are fully supported by the PantoneLive ecosystem.

Preferred partners

Sun Chemical and EskoArtwork are both recognized as preferred partners in the PantoneLive project. Sun Chemical recently announced that its own SmartColor system has been retired from the market and integrated into Pantonelive.

Felipe Mellado, chief marketing officer for Sun Chemical, said, ‘Every PantoneLive color request to Sun Chemical will be created using this global platform. Since PantoneLive’s color definition is derived from real ink on real substrates with real printing processes, brand owners can predict from their design concept how their brand colors will reproduce on a wide variety of substrates, from recycled carton board to clear film or white polypropylene.’

Carsten Knudsen, president and CEO, EskoArtwork, explained how the partners’ expertize fitted together: ‘Pantone brings the color standards and language of color, X-Rite brings measuring devices, Sun brings a common ink format while Esko brings color management and integration to the workflow’.

Esko's Color Engine is the enabling technology which supports the PantoneLive color management process across the pre-press packaging workflow. The combination of PantoneLive spot color profiles with Esko’s patented spectral ink model provides accuracy and predictability for spot color simulation.

In addition, Windmöller & Hölscher, a leading supplier of flexographic central impression and rotogravure printing presses, is recognized as the PantoneLIVE technology partner serving the flexible packaging industry. In this capacity, Windmöller & Hölscher will extend the capability of its EASY COL on-press color matching system to incorporate access to the PantoneLive ecosystem, allowing converters to reduce press set-up times and assure the quality of important brand colors on press.

PantoneLive is designed as an open system, however, and it is expected that other industry suppliers – including ink companies – will join in the near future.

In terms of pricing, PantoneLive uses a subscription model which requires an annual licence. Costs are different depending on position in the supply chain and how users need to access the system.

Pharmaceutical market

In addition to communicating brand identity and quality, Mike Cheetham, CEO at Chesapeake, said accurate color also helps in the fight against counterfeiters, as any color variation creates doubt in the consumer’s mind and opens the door to counterfeiters. Using PantoneLive on one job, for example, Chesapeake was able to reduce color variation by 84 percent and improve process controls, which led to zero rejections from the print run and 100 percent client approval. PantoneLive is creating another positive impact on Chesapeake’s business. The company previously stocked as many as 3,000 different inks in its Leicester, UK, plant and now stores only 537 without reducing color choices. 

The Heinz Beanz Blue Project

Produced by the UK subsidiary of US-based H.J. Heinz Co., Heinz Beanz are consumed in more than 60 countries worldwide, including Russia and China. Since the early 1940s, the product has been a staple of the British public – every day more than one million cans of Heinz Beanz are consumed in the UK. Paul White, innovations manager, Heinz UK, explained: ‘As one of the UK’s most loved brands, our customers expect consistency.’

Responding to changes in consumer lifestyles, Heinz leveraged its famous ‘blue’ brand beyond the traditional can label to other packaging formats, including resealable fridge packs and single-portion pack Snap Pots packed in cartons.

A color audit of the Heinz Beanz palette was conducted to identify all the colors currently used to produce the signature blue. It assessed litho for wet glue primary labeling on the can; gravure-printed shrink sleeves and laminated OPP for the primary packaging of Fridge Packs; flexo shrink PP for secondary packaging for cans; as well as litho sleeves for secondary packaging on the Snap Packs.

Consumer tests showed that the biggest color matching challenges were presented by the flexo and gravure printed shrink film and litho printed carton board. Out of date swatches and color books meant the Heinz blue (pantone 7467) was not being matched by the printer – in fact there was a total color difference of 8.9 dE.

The company turned to Pantone and Sun Branding Solutions, a brand lifecycle management agency, to manage the process. Once Heinz had identified its preferred color, PantoneLive provided the closest match in its database and published these standards on-line to all partners in the supply chain. EskoArtwork and Sun Branding validated each stage online, ‘stress testing the process’ before the color profile was uploaded.

Heinz was delighted by the results, as Nigel Dickie, director of corporate and government affairs for Heinz, affimed: ‘The digital tools gave us unprecedented control and consistency from different print processes and materials. Across all of our packaging formats we saw a reduction in color variance of 50 percent and saved time by establishing one color target that can be applied to all our Heinz Beanz designs. The results with our Beanz packaging have been so remarkable that we plan to extend PantoneLive to additional product lines, including Heinz soups and Spaghetti Hoops.’

This article was published in L&L issue 2, 2012