According to analysts, as much as five per cent of world trade is in fake or counterfeit goods and represents a black economy which is costing brand owners billions of dollars in lost revenues.
Manufacturers, especially those supplying markets where counterfeiting is rampant, are always on the lookout for ways of preventing the practice or, at the very least, being able to identify which products are real and which are not.
A recent Today Tonight report by Sophie Hull, on Australia’s Seven television network, valued the trade in counterfeit goods in Australia alone at $5bn a year. Whilst CDs and DVDs are among the most popular items for counterfeiters, everything from clothes, to perfumes and sunglasses attracts the interest of copycat manufacturers.
Enter Richard Tibbitts, a long-time veteran of the printing industry, prepress specialist and co-director or AMMO, an acronym for Australasian Market Manufacturers Outlets. AMMO recently became the regional agent for Hidden-Image, a simple, low-cost security device applied to packages during printing which could revolutionise efforts by brand owners to secure the packaging which identifies, carries and protects their valuable manufactures.
The process is simple says Tibbitts. “The brand owner specifies a graphic element which will form part of and be printed with the rest of the package design. By a patented process at the heart of the Hidden-Image technology, this element – perhaps the company logo or some other easily recognisable graphic – is incorporated in the production file, usually a PDF.
“The PDF-for-print is then sent on to the printer who prints the job as normal, on the usual substrate, be it paper, board or foil, using offset, flexo or gravure. No special printing technique, stock, ink or any other materials are required: it’s ‘business as usual’.”
The package or box is printed and formed in the usual way, filled with the product and sent out into the retail market says Tibbitts. The only difference between it and a counterfeit package of the same design is the special security device is easily visible by means of a cheap, hand-held sheet of plastic. When held at the right screen angle, the plastic will reveal the otherwise unseen (to the naked eye) security device: if the device cannot be seen on the package, it is a counterfeit and appropriate steps can be taken.
Tibbitts believes that Hidden-Image technology will offer many benefits to brand owners, among them high speed of implementation, low unit cost and ease of detection. Unlike other security devices such as seals, foils or holograms which must be added to the finished container, Hidden-Image allows for an effective security device to be embedded in the package design during normal printing. The only additional cost is a one-off the encryption of the artwork to include the secret or Hidden-Image design element, plus a royalty per unit printed based on run-length.
“On long runs, the unit cost comes down to fractions of a cent,” says Tibbitts, “a fact which will be of great interest to brand owners who’ve had to go to the extent of mastering, producing and affixing holograms to packaging to protect their brands”.
He sees applications for Hidden-Image technology way beyond protection of music, video and perfumes. “Hidden-Image is made for packaging in the fashion industry, wines and spirits, pharmaceuticals, food products and more. It can even be incorporated cheaply into plastic bank cards, membership cards or identity cards, postage stamps, gift vouchers and a host of other products, cheaply and effectively.”
The new Hidden-Image brand technology has endless potential, believes Tibbitts, especially in the packaging industry.
His new product could open up brand security as an option to manufacturers or lower value products who previously could not afford the solutions being offered.
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