A new era
The introduction of technology such as quick response codes (QR), barcodes, near field communication (NFC), and augmented reality (AR) has made it easier for people to interact with physical printouts such as posters, leaflets, and magazines. These developments have had major impacts on industries, from the National Health Service (NHS) to the transport and hospitality sectors; and it’s evident that a great usage of interactivity is being implemented for public displays, advertising campaigns, and social media.
Interactive campaigns can generate a real buzz if executed correctly. With the rise of the digital world, it has now become even more crucial to connect and engage with consumers. This means that companies must be creative and dynamic with approaches. Being innovative with a campaign can make a huge difference in the outcome, but what exact role does interactive print have in all this?
The benefits
The use of interactive technologies can turn a regular brochure into a fully interactive experience that draws the user to multiple channels of a business. Talking Print is an example of what a company can achieve when you bring sound, light, and vision to print. The company specialises in bringing marketing campaigns to life, offering smart solutions while making great use of cutting-edge technologies to create print that gets people talking.
David Hyams, founder of Talking Print, says: “I qualified as a graphic designer in the 1980s. I started innovating with digital print, specialising in combining personalised print with the internet. I then started Talking Print in 2012. The mission is to help creatives and printers add sound, vision, and lights to print.”
O Factoid: Talking Print appeared on the 2020 series of Dragon's Den, unfortunately it failed to get investment, but the company is always looking for partners O
In this industry, innovation is often rewarded, and with consumers surrounded by an array of mobile devices, companies want to do everything possible in their power to get people’s attention.
“I would say the print industry is reactive rather than proactive. The printers that add our services and products into their portfolio of offerings really do reap the rewards. They show their clients how to innovate with print by generating new revenue streams. The technology and quality of a product is now a lot better than when it was first introduced some ten years ago,” says Hyams.
This advancement in tech has allowed Talking Print to develop Talkies - audio cards and video books that allow you to add elements of personalisation where you can use your own audio files and imagery. Hyams says: “Video brochures have been sold to the business-to-business market for around ten years. At Talking Print, we realised there was a large untapped market for the business-to-consumer. We created a unique online personalised video and audio card product called Talkies.
“We hold the largest UK stock of video modules giving customers the ability to receive made up books and cards in a matter of days.”
Talking Print is proud of the products it creates for customers and has made a device called the Talkman to help spread the message of what the company can do. This sample of tech can be ordered from the Talking Print website. Designed like a cassette player, it’s built with NFC technology that allows the user to interact with it by sliding a card inside, where it will play a jingle about the services that Talking Print can provide customers. If you have an NFC enabled phone, you can place it on the back of the Talkman, where it will bring you to the Talking Print website. The Talkman gives you an insight into what dynamic printing is, and is an imaginative marketing tool that is interactive for the user.
The Talkman is a dynamic marketing tool for Talking Print which uses NFC technology
Hyams adds: “We are probably the only company in the UK doing what we do. Brands are asking for exciting new ideas, and now you can help them by working with us. We take away all the difficulties. Our expertise is in sourcing the right parts, and we have long experience and good relationships with the Chinese manufacturers, so we know just where to go and where we can source quickly.”
Personalised print solutions are – as the name suggests – very tailored to the individual, but what about on a day-to-day basis, just how much of an impact does interactive print have, and is it solving any problems? The answer is yes. It’s making it a much easier process for companies to connect with customers on a much wider scale. It has completely changed marketing campaigns and offers much more interaction between the business and the consumer.
Simon Lewington, chief executive officer at The Printroom Group, says: “The print industry is innovative, it has to be, but the print industry cannot be just print if it is to survive. In order to grow, there are a vast majority of print suppliers that I feel have to be problem solvers for marketeers. This involves helping to come up with fresh new ideas for their marketing campaigns, helping with exhibitions by not just printing but delivering with set up and storage as well. The Printroom Group has invested in our online marketing portals too. This is another offering that solves our clients’ problems.”
A sensory experience
Since it was founded in 2006, Novalia has been adding interactivity to surfaces like packaging, books, posters, event installations and museum displays. Some marquee projects include the creation of Mctrax for the fast-food establishment McDonald’s and a fully-functional public display for Bud Light. Novalia utilised its conductive ink technology to create a paper placemat with integrated Bluetooth connectivity as it turned food trays into music production stations. The company has also had collaborations with Ikea, Chrysler, Becks, and Pizza Hut as they present immersive experiences through interactive designs.
The Talkman is a dynamic marketing tool for Talking Print which uses NFC technology
Chris Jones has held a senior position at Novalia for over 12 years, where he is responsible for the business development and regularly presents Novalia’s tech at conferences around the world. He says: “I accidentally got involved in developing conductive inks back in 2000, before this there wasn’t an interactive printer or an interactive world. I had a small project to try and develop methods of printing and RF antennas using printing machines. I failed miserably at producing useable antennas, but I could print pretty conductive pigments into inks. It was exciting to be able to produce an ink system in the lab.”
He adds: “Novalia works with electronic designers and software engineers. We’ve got traditional print and product designers in the team. It’s about bringing those skills together in one place and understanding what we can achieve with the tech. A lot of our work is development, and the projects that we do are manifestations of what we have developed.”
Another key contributor to Novalia is Madeleine Kelleyan, head of experiential at the company. She is very aware of how important user participation is to interactive print and how it should be presented as a hands-on experience. She says: “Sometimes people don’t know what they want or sometimes they have a little understanding. It might be something for a festival and they’ll want it to be immersive, so we will take that and think about the capabilities of the technology that we have and then try to come up with the most creative way to implement that to fit the brief.”
“We don’t want any experience to feel the same. We want it so you can put our tech into a placemat or an interactive wall at a festival or inside a pizza box and that interaction will feel different every time. It’s about taking a sheet of print and an idea of what that experience can be and then assigning assets like graphics and sounds to that and then thinking about how the person is going to interact with that as well.”
But with the pandemic, participation in public displays meant their usage dipped. This is due to the interactive elements used in the design process. Most designs are created to work with the touch of the fingertips.
Bringing sound and vision to print is one factor, but making an interactive display safe during the height of a global pandemic is an entirely new type of design process. Nevertheless, it’s something that Novalia has approached head-on.
Kelleyan says: “The biggest risks are pandemics, it was looking and trying to adjust the technologies during covid, so whether that’s using proximity sensing, so you’re not directly touching something or if we could take the experience you have in public and translate that to something much smaller so people can interact with it inside their home.”
Jones adds: “During the pandemic, we saw a lot of public projects drop off the end of a cliff, but we were supported by Innovate UK, a government funding scheme and we put together a project that was able to recognise touch through gloves and thick soled shoes, not just fingertips. We were able to make floor mats and floor pads to work with our existing technology.”
But then along came that pesky pandemic and it set us on the road to a real steep change in how individuals weave together the fine threads between their physical and digital worlds ”
The future of interactive print is still very much in the hands of the user. The return to some version of normality means excitement for the sector.
Kelleyan adds: “At the moment, people are interested in the experiences they can control and ones that translate really well into being shared on social media. We have seen a huge explosion in that area, especially in London and the bigger cities where you see these enormous interactive environments with projection mapping or things where their appearance changes. Coming out of the pandemic these types of interactive displays will be a big thing going forward.”
Future prospects
The first QR code was invented in 1994, with the first NFC tag created in 2006. Today, interactive tech is constantly adapting. The QR code has become a regular thing in our lives, and in years to come, AR will have the same impact.
Adding a QR code to a news story can heighten the experience for the reader by offering multiple layers of content
AR is essentially an extension of what is seen through a camera lens, most commonly used with smart devices. This interactive experience has the ability to enhance real-world environments, it’s being utilised well in the gaming industry, but in the future, it will be dominating interactive print.
Founded 20 years ago, VCCP Media looks to pave the way forward by using creativity and innovation in its methods as it looks at utilising new tech solutions. Harry Evans, account executive for VCCP Media, says: “As a media practitioner, I’m continuously exploring and embracing new tech solutions to help address the challenges we face day-to-day, something that reverberates throughout VCCP Media. But I will also be the first to admit that I have an old-school side too (yes, I buy the Sunday Times every week). Therefore, anything that allows us to use tech to enhance the likes of print is fine by me.”
A recent campaign by VCCP Media for Compare the Market showed how a good design of QR codes should be showcased
In years to come opening a newspaper could very well be an augmented experience, but for now, it’s important to stay grounded and focus on what can be done with the current tech on offer. Harry says: “Bringing print to life, both from an advertising and editorial perspective has undoubtedly become easier with tech developments and can be a brilliant tool for boosting the reader’s experience, but I can’t help feeling that we’ve only scratched the surface of how we utilise such solutions.”
But as technology changes, so does the way we interact with it. Understanding new methods can take time for both the business and the consumer.
“While digital technology has continued to evolve, the most significant recent change has been to the trend of human behaviour. Solutions such as Shazam and the now discontinued Google Lens have been there for some time as a means of connecting online and offline content, however, the key barrier has often been the willingness to adopt these technologies. But then along came that pesky pandemic and it set us on the road to a real steep change in how individuals weave together the fine threads between their physical and digital worlds,” says Evans.
“At VCCP Media, we’re ensuring that the use of such solutions are not included simply for the sake of it, but we ensure that they are used in ways that are integrated creatively and improve the user experience and the ongoing customer journey.”
Interactive print has allowed a 200-word printed news article to become a hub of information. The inclusion of a QR code or NFC tech can take you to an online updated version of that article, where you can interact with it and gain new understandings.
Evans concludes: “Inspiring the next generation will be about continuing to prove that media is so much more than X’s in boxes. The best and most diverse talent will be drawn by innovative and exciting work in an environment which allows them to thrive in what they do.”
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