Label Summit Africa 2014 concludes on successful note

22 Mar '14

4 min read

Label Summit Africa 2014 closed in Cape Town last week as 279 senior delegates came together to discuss local and global issues, hear about applying new technologies and find new ways to develop business strategies with access to industry experts and real life case studies. Held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) between 10-11 March, the two-day conference and table-top exhibition is South Africa’s largest dedicated label industry event.

The second edition of the Summit featured over 20 market leading exhibitors including Flint Group, Kemtek Imaging Systems, MPS, New Africa Inks, Nilpeter, Nuova GIDUE, Omet, Paragon Inks South Africa, Prati and Xeikon.

Attendees included label and packaging converters, designers, industry suppliers and brand owners with representatives from Appletiser, DairyBelle, Parmalat and Unilever amongst others. Networking activities were ample as delegates broke the ice at a private dinner and reception and private tour of Nitida wine estate, where they had the opportunity to taste some of the wines; then blend, bottle and label their own.

The conference program was packed with 14 sessions including a mix of technical presentations, business case studies and panel discussions. Highlights included the keynote speech which was delivered by Filip Weymans of gold sponsor Xeikon.

Weymans outlined the growing importance of personalization and how packaging is acting as a trigger in creating positive emotions between the consumer and brands. He went onto explain how trust in brands is being instilled at a local level as the market is adapting to embrace the use of social media platforms to build communities in specific regions.

Other stand-out presentations from the first day included Dr Séamus Lafferty of Accraply. Lafferty looked at South Africa’s position in the shrink sleeve label market and challenged converters to up their game in raising quality standards to compete on a more global footing.

Lafferty defined the massive opportunities open to converters to easily increase their market share by drawing on the importance of investing in and using the best materials available going forward. HP’s Christian Menegon and Graham Finke of Didget Printing presented on the merits and value of adopting an alternative digital business model.

They explained that to meet the rising use of personalized consumer engagement campaigns, a digital printing capacity can create a whole new set of rules and opportunities as printers can enhance the brand owners’ sales efforts by being capable to process short run jobs.