Multi-Color is Multitalented

Multi-Color Corporation Adds Decorative Labeling and Contract Services Through Recent Acquisitions

Multi-Color printed the Leinenkugel Apple Spice Beer metallized label with eight-color rotogravure on a special beverage paper.

Take a stroll down any supermarket aisle and you're likely to find a majority of the labeling has been produced by Multi-Color Corporation. Happen to be in the beer aisle? Check out the labels on Miller Lite Pilsner Beer and the Labatt Blue "Cold One" beer can sleeve. How about the detergent and cleanser aisle? Palmolive Mountain Fresh Dishwasher Detergent, Tide Clean Breeze High Efficiency Laundry Detergent, and Purex Lavender Fresh Laundry Detergent are all award-winning labels from Multi-Color. Food and snacks? Take a look at French's mustard and Wrigley's Big Red Chewing Gum 10-Pack

Since the company was founded in 1916, the Cincinnati, OH-based Multi-Color Corporation has become a premier global resource of innovative decorating solutions and packaging services to consumer product and food and beverage companies, national retailers, and container manufacturers worldwide. Its products are shipped to more than 650 customers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Central and South America.

Multi-Color is the world's largest producer of both in-mold labels and heat transfer labels, and a major manufacturer of high-end cut-and-stack and pressure sensitive labels and shrink sleeves. The company's Packaging Services Division, Quick Pak, is a leading provider of promotional packaging, assembly and fulfillment services. Multi-Color has nine manufacturing locations in the United States offering UV flexo, gravure, and offset printing to produce their award-winning labels.

A signature line

But the key to the firm's explosive growth is its partnership and innovative packaging ideas that keeps its clients packages and products current and fresh in consumers' eyes. For example, one of its longest partnerships has been with the Milwaukee-based Miller Brewing Company, which dates back at least 40 years. Multi-Color Corporation has produced a variety of Miller labels, including shrink sleeve, pressure sensitive, and cut-and-stack. Last year, Miller decided to undergo a major repositioning of its Miller Genuine Draft (MGD) beer line with a whole new marketing campaign and a redesign of the beer's look and labeling.

"Miller Genuine Draft is our signature line with Frederick K. Miller's signature on every bottle," explains Annette Crampton, senior manager of packaging development for Miller Brewing Company. "We wanted to adopt new design work on the label that mirrored the new image of a 'beer grown up.' We wanted the labeling to differentiate the beer and be more sophisticated. We weren't just redesigning the label but repositioning the entire brand."

Prior to the change, the MGD bottle featured a cut-and-stack label with full wrap neck in black. The new labeling, devised in conjunction with Multi-Color, called for a new clear plastic label to better show off the golden color of the beer. They also added more gold coloring to the label to emphasize the quality of the beer and to help MGD target more sophisticated, older beer drinkers in the over-30 demographic. A new back label was also added to the bottle to allow Miller to affix the mandatory copy needed on each bottle and allow the front label to focus on the design.

"We went through multiple designs," says Crampton. "We started the design work in April 2005 and completed it in October 2005. We brought Multi-Color in to the process very early on to help us with the testing. We wanted to use two different metallized gold inks on the label. But we did a lot of the work upfront to determine the printing parameters. By the time we got to the actual printing production, everything went pretty smoothly."

To produce the label, Multi-Color sent the job to its Norway, MI, gravure plant for mechanical and laser-etched cylinders. The complexity of the clear label and the intricate type required the gravure engraving process. "Most of our labels are produced gravure," says Kevin O'Brien, Multi-Color's national account manager for Miller Brewing. "Gravure lends itself to the process due to the high volume of labels and it is more economical to run. Plus it is a premium process that produces a finer dot quality."

"This is probably the highest-quality label I've ever worked on," remarks Crampton, high praise from the account executive. "Both sides put in an extreme amount of diligence. Multi-Color and Miller forged a good partnership and worked together to achieve the look we wanted. The package launched successfully and the feedback has all been very positive."

In April 2006, the Miller Genuine Draft label received the Miller President's Award from Miller Brewing Company, the most prestigious award bestowed upon a product's label.

High-quality recognition

Multi-Color's expertise has been recognized by a number of prestigious awards. Most recently, the firm won the World Label Award for the Olay Total Effects resealable label and the GAA Gold Cylinder Award for Leinenkugel's Apple Spice Beer metallized label. Multi-Color has also won 16 TLMI awards and four Packaging and Label Gravure Association (PLGA) Print Quality awards.

The Olay pressure-sensitive label was printed five-color flexo on a custom label material designed by Multi-Color for easy open and resealability. "This label's outstanding print quality along with a special coating, unique construction, and converting process made it a clear winner in the WLA's Flexo Cosmetics Award for Excellence in Technical Achievement in Printing competition," said awards chairman Mike Buystedt.

The Leinenkugel label won the GAA Gold Cylinder Award for printing and technical achievement. It was printed eight-color rotogravure on a metallized beverage paper developed by Multi-Color to provide a premium look for a special promotional product.

The Miller Brewing Company trusts Multi-Color to reinvigorate the labels of their top-level brands for dramatic brand repositioning.

High-end gravure processes

Unique to Multi-Color is its wholly-owned prepress facility in Erlanger, KY, which utilizes a Think LaserStream system. The 18-year-old facility, known as Laser Graphic Systems, generates most of Multi-Color's gravure cylinders in a fast, economical manner, as well as acting as full-service prepress facility to partner with Multi-Color's clients and prepare files for Multi-Color's litho, flexo, and gravure presses.

"The Think LaserStream system uses laser-imaged, chemically-etched technology, which allows us to control the laser and generate a wide variety of cell shapes and volumes," says Drew Miller, technical manager for Laser Graphic Systems. "Many other systems on the market electromechanically engrave the gravure cylinders which use a diamond-tipped stylus that operates on an x/y axis. One benefit of the Think LaserStream system is that we can etch very fine microchannels, called framing on the cylinders which do not show saw-toothed edges."

Laser Graphics is responsible for etching and shipping gravure cylinders to Multi-Color's three gravure plants: Scottsburg, IN, a 150,000 square foot facility that is the world's largest producer of in-mold labels in the world ; Norway, MI, a 110,000 square foot rotogravure facility producing glue-applied and in-mold labels on paper, metallized paper and a variety of plastic substrates; and Framingham, MA, a 124,000 square foot facility producing heat transfer labels (HTL) for more than 40 years.

"As a full-service prepress supplier, we try to be as innovative as possible," says Miller. Multi-Color was one of the first suppliers to adopt soft proofing for the packaging market, which has cut down the lead time significantly. They have also been upgrading their overall infrastructure with more technical systems and the latest computer hardware.

Supply chain efficiencies

Within the past year, Multi-Color started a new program to "collapse the supply chain." They want to replace the old time-consuming method of sending design and concept to a designer who prepared the artwork and sent your files to a separator then to a prepress shop and on to the printer. The new approach is to work directly with the design firm. "We believe that there is no separator who knows our presses and our unique processes as well as Multi-Color," says Miller. "The closer we can partner with the entire supply chain, the better and more easily the project will be accomplished."

For example, says Miller, a company such as Procter & Gamble or Miller will come to Multi-Color and Laser Graphic with a concept for their packaging. Multi-Color can quote the job a number of ways depending on the process and substrate being used. "We show them a number of different options to help them make the best possible decision based on what they are trying to achieve," says Miller. "This reduces the cost to our customer and speeds up the time-to-market for the customer."

While Multi-Color is known for aiding its clients as they prepare to relaunch their products into the market, the firm is also firmly established in helping startups with their branding and design capabilities. One such firm is Method, a top-of-the-line brand of household cleaning products. Founded nearly six years ago by two West Coast high school friends, the goal of the firm was to produce a household cleaner that was not a toxic object but was all-natural, biodegradable, and stylish. Method began with a product line of five spray cleaners and expanded into dish soap, hand soap, dilutable floor cleaners, wipes, and two lines of premium candles.

"We began to work with Method almost from their startup," says Kathy Fenske, account executive at Multi-Color Corporation. "Our first project for them was an in-mold label for their laundry detergent. But as our partnership began to work so well together we gradually gained the majority of their business." Multi-Color now produces their shrink sleeve and pressure sensitive labels as well.

But producing packaging design for Method requires a very creative team with broad range of decorating solutions. Fenske says Method's products need to be beautiful looking products to be set out on the counter and attractive to the eye. "Method hires artists to create different artwork for their labels," explains Fenske. "They pay great attention to detail and want their products to stand out on the shelf. Multi-Color works closely with Method to help transform their ideas to the package and ensure their designs match up with the best decorating solution."