How To Find The Right Packaging Production Agency Fit For Your Brand

Every brand has different requirements when it comes to packaging, but most ranged packaged goods (such as food, licenced products, skin care, cosmetics, drinks etc.) will require the help of a packaging production agency to create print ready, repro'd artworks. Some brands have their own in-house production capabilities, but these are often under resourced and under invested, making the production process and subsequent updating of packaging very hard work.  

This is where a packaging production agency can help. An agency specialises in the exact service you need, allowing access to the latest technology and skills, with none of the downtime associated with training and lack of relevant resources.

Read on to find out exactly how a packaging production agency can help you with your branding.

Systems
Whichever agency you deal with, you will need to know that they have a full packaging workflow that can be incorporated into your business. This should include a briefing system allowing all stakeholders to approve the brief before the pack goes into production, therefore minimising errors and costly reworks and then an artwork approval process which keeps all of the packaging version history, along with the artwork itself, safely housed and organised. These workflows keep the production process costs down, remove errors and are crucial to licenced products subject to regulatory approval.  

It is a big advantage if the company you are working with have in-house software developers. Having developers in-house provides flexibility to develop tools that suit your brand’s needs.

Creativity
The next decision you need to make is to assess the level of creativity you want your agency to have. Some agencies will have creativity in-house, some won't have any at all and rely solely on style guides supplied by the branding or creative agency and some will be connected to other companies within their group that will be able to add creativity. 

These are not normally Branding Agencies. Branding Agencies tend to be high cost when it comes to production. If you are using a Branding Agency for your roll out and production, the chances are you are paying more than you need to for it and there is a good chance that the organisation of the files and pack changes will  be poor. Brands tend to change their creative agencies more often than their production agencies and this too is important to note. Keeping all your production with one or two production agencies means guaranteed supply even if you decide to go with the creative from a new agency.

Agility and flexibility
Agility can also be a key component for many brands. This agility comes from accessing senior management within the agency to get things done quickly and you do this by being a large enough client to the company you are working with. The world, especially at the moment with Brexit and Covid19, is a volatile place to say the least, and you may not want to be tied down to volumes in a contract should a product not become available. On the other hand, you may not need any agility because you are so well organised, your supply of product is bullet proof and all you need is straightforward high volume artwork production. 

Sometimes a range of additional services is required. You may need product shot or CGI'd for your packaging, you may need packaging mock-ups or renders, you may need design services and production services all from one team to make the process more efficient and to make your workloads more manageable.

Technical skill
For some brands you will need to assess their skill in colour, repro and print process knowledge. There are many artwork production agencies, but not all have colour management and repro capability with GMG proofing. If brand and colour consistency is important to you, then repro and proofing should be part of the mix. 

Pricing
Pricing is often open to interpretation because packaging is often broken down into simple, medium and complex packs. The problem is deciding which is which. What appears to be a simple pack visually can actually be a complex pack to produce. For example, a small pack with a large amount of justified copy can be as time consuming to produce as a larger pack with images on. It is important to get a clear idea (preferably with a visual reference for each type of pack) of what your agency considers to be the marker for each.

So what type of production agencies are out there
and which one is right for you?

The global agency
These agencies aggressively look for the brands with the highest number of SKUs and are often buying each other out in a bid to become the biggest producer. They will be producing in the region of 250,000 SKU's or more per year, so the first question is, how big a percentage of their SKU count will you be?

If you make up a small proportion of their turnover and SKU count, you may suffer from being a small fish in a very big pond and won't have any influence and flexibility. This can be crippling to a brand who is wooed by the idea of working with a large production company but, in reality, it proves the wrong fit.

On the other hand, if you have a large quantity of SKU's, say over several thousand, then you may find these large production companies are a good fit. They do not want to apply too much thought or creativity to the production process but simply process packaging as fast as possible through their production teams. The higher volume clients will always get the better service. Also, if you need a level of flexibility or creativity in your production then again, these Global Giants may not be the best fit. 

The mid-level group production company
There are mid-level production companies that have multiple production bases and value accounts with higher SKU counts of 1,500 plus. They are often involved with the supermarkets and food brands in the UK and they have focused teams working on each account, but perhaps lack the cohesion and flexibility of smaller production companies.

They will often have creative within their group structure, but it is unlikely to be directly connected to the production teams. They will have production systems and, for the right size client, they will often bespoke some of the functionality to fit your business. Production companies within groups tend to be quite competitive between themselves which can raise the bar a little on service too.

Design agencies
Design agencies are great for small one-off projects with a handful of SKU’s. They can produce the design and artwork while at the same time easily maintaining the integrity of the design. These companies won’t be able to handle large volumes and will not be organised with systems and processes for the long term.

Independent production agencies
The Independent agency is the most flexible of them all. These companies focus solely on the client and bend and shape their company around them. The independents are a rarer breed but can often be like gold dust to a brand. They may well have additional services built from years of working with demanding brands. They can move fast to adjust to change within your business, often providing a bridge for change within a brand by taking on additional services while you restructure, and then relinquishing them again when you are ready.

They can flex easily because they are not limited in their recruitment structures and head counts. If a global production house is a water tank holding a fixed amount of water, then an independent is a balloon, capable of expanding many times its apparent size.

Independents invest in getting the job done rather than making a return on investment for their shareholders. By their nature, the shareholders often work within the business and therefore the long-term security of the company is the most important aspect, which means brands get more for their money. Capacity can be the issue here; typically, these independents will be comfortable with 100 to 1500 SKUs per client per year. This ensures that they can give the best possible service while protecting themselves from an over-powerful client.

They can act as sole supplier or as an agile and flexible addition to a global supplier. In large brands there are always areas of the business that don’t get the service or flexibility they need, and the independent agency can bring this without losing all the advantages of having a global brand partner.

So, what kind of agency are we?

At wk360, we are one of very few remaining independent agencies in the UK. We can offer you an all-in-one solution to your product marketing. Get in touch today to find out more.