Application and Development of Domestic Cigarette Printing Design Process

The trend of tobacco package design printing

Before talking about development trends, first summarize the current status of the domestic tobacco industry.
A. Separation of industry and commerce, mergers and reorganizations, and the development of the Group’s National Tobacco Monopoly Bureau has a specific layout. From mergers within the province to inter-provincial mergers, the establishment of three major tobacco centers in China:
(1) The first center: Shanghai is the leader, combined with Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, etc. around Shanghai, with "China" and "Red Eagle" as the core brands;
(2) The second center: taking Yunnan as the leader and the "Red Tower", "Yinyan" and "Honghe" brands as the core;
(3) The 3rd Center: Take Hunan as the leader and radiate Hubei and Guangxi with the core brands of "White Sand" and "Hibiscus King".
B. The "Catalogue of White Labels for Cigarette Products" was introduced, and cigarette brands will be greatly reduced;
C. The "Framework Convention on Tobacco Control" will enter into force three years later and will bring tremendous impact to the tobacco industry;

In summary, we have come to the trend of tobacco package design printing:

Trend 1: Tobacco package printing production will be highly concentrated. The cigarette packaging printing market has become more competitive, and small and medium cigarette pack printing companies will face a change of production.

Trend 2: Tobacco package design and printing will develop towards the "simple" and "luxury" poles.
A variety of high-end cigarette packs will do their best for “luxury” performances, and the curtain will slowly fall. Only a few high-grade cigarettes that are recognized by the market can be preserved. With the entry into force of the "Convention" and the convergence of China's tobacco and the world, the demand for cost reduction will inevitably lead to a resurgence of "minimalistness."

Trend 3: The cigarette pack printing will be developed from multi-color gravure web printing to web multi-color offset printing and flexo printing.

Since China has joined the WTO, China’s tobacco is bound to integrate with the world’s tobacco. In the case of foreign tobacco’s siege to the Chinese market, China’s tobacco must not only hold its own position, but also must think of ways to step out of the world and go global in order to develop. And grow stronger. The foreigners' aesthetic habits, life appeal and other factors must be carefully considered. The design of cigarette packs is mostly light-colored text lines. The whole package design reflects a kind of “fresh,” “clean,” and “elegant”. style. This style of design, the printing process is simple, in addition to multi-color gravure can continue to play its unique advantages, play an important role in the cigarette pack printing, in the printing net tune the net image has a good performance of the flexographic printing And offset printing will be further developed.

Trend 4: Green smoke labels will be increasingly valued by cigarette companies.

First of all, due to the increasing publicity of the harmfulness of cigarettes in the society, cigarette companies will use the “green” packaging as a selling point to improve their health image. This will become a new trend. (Shanghai Panda’s new “hard box” “panda” Cigarettes claim that they all use environmentally friendly materials). Cigarette companies not only continue to improve their cigarette formulations and production processes (Platinum “Hongtashan” and “True Dragon” filter plugs are made from two sections, one of them contains activated carbon), and they are constantly required to be decomposed on the packaging materials themselves. It does not pollute the environment, and it minimizes waste and minimizes environmental pollution. Therefore, environmental protection inks, white cardboard and transfer foil materials will become the mainstream of cigarette packs in the future.

Trend 5: Cigarette hard packs will become the mainstream of tobacco packaging in the world.

2004 is destined to become the most extraordinary year for the Chinese tobacco industry. In addition to the drastic advancement of industrial and commercial separation and mergers and acquisitions, under the call of the “Big Brand” and “Big Market” shouted by the State Bureau, all cigarette companies have resorted to all kinds of tricks and launched fierce attacks on brand innovation and brand promotion. . In particular, high-end cigarette products staged a "landfall landing," and for a time, "smoke everywhere, together," to form the "Warring States era" of the current high-end cigarettes. 20 to 30 yuan is no longer high-end, 30-50 yuan everywhere, 60-120 yuan / package is not new. It should be said that all brands have high-end tobacco available, and its representative products are:

Shanghai Cigarette Factory: Round-shaped design hard pack "panda", ex-factory price of 800 yuan / bag, cigarette retail store just launched 4800 yuan / bag. There is also a retail store that is priced at RMB 2300/bar. Therefore, the soft pack "Zhonghua" is not the top-grade cigarette in the Shanghai Cigarette Factory.

Yuxi Cigarette Factory: "Platinum Yuxi" 320 yuan / article, "Platinum Hongtashan" 160 yuan / article.
Kunming Cigarette Factory: The "Yunnan Impression" was launched on July 9, with a retail price of 600 yuan/bar. And the original best product "Need Yun Yun" has already retreated.
Honghe Cigarette Factory: On July 12, China launched its first horizontal design, the "Honghe V8." The retail price of soft-pack products was 610 yuan/bar, and that of flip-top products was 550 yuan/bar.
Changsha cigarette factory: "Need for white sand" 1,000 yuan / article, "Treasure white sand" 300 yuan / article.
Changde Cigarette Factory: The diamond soft pack "Sugar King" has a retail price of up to 850 yuan / Xuzhou Cigarette Factory: The most upscale "Su Yan", with a price of over 1300 yuan per article.
Chengdu Cigarette Factory: Soft pack "Boutique", 400 yuan/article.
Zhengzhou Cigarette Factory: 16 boxes of "gold leaf" 500 yuan / article.
In addition to the above examples, other tobacco plants have high-end cigarettes, which are not listed here. However, these high-end cigarette packages have the same characteristics:

1 Excessively pursuing the gentrification of cigarette packaging, most of them are crowned with titles such as “boutique”, “treasures”, “greatest” and “XX Wang”. They can't wait to be wrapped in gold and silver, and go into the extreme of luxury. Some cigarette cases Exquisite workmanship, so that smokers after smoking cigarettes, there is a sense of waste when throwing away cigarette packs. Smoke makers and cigarette makers have forgotten that the basic function of cigarettes is only a consumer product. Cigarettes can only stay for a day or two or even hours in the hands of smokers and are quickly discarded. High-priced cigarette packs consume large amounts of social resources and are then thrown away into rubbish. This is undoubtedly a waste of social resources. Most consumers want to buy cheap cigarettes. High-end packaging of high-end cigarettes, abnormal prices can only keep them away. People who pay for cigarettes themselves will never buy such unrealistic high-end cigarettes. People who buy such cigarettes will definitely not spend their own money. The result is that public funds are used for giving gifts, which contribute to luxury and corruption. The wind.

2 Most of these cigarettes are printed using laser holographic aluminum foil. Although printed cigarettes exhibit noble gold-silver metallic luster, their high cost and flexible packaging do not meet the world trend. In fact, the soft packs of cigarettes in the global tobacco market are decreasing and the proportion of hard pack cigarettes is increasing. It is predicted that by 2009, the market share of soft pack cigarettes will be reduced to 30%. Cigarette hard packs will be the main packaging method for tobacco in the world. The Chinese tobacco industry is bound to follow the trend of the world and it is expected that the market share of hard packaging in China's tobacco will also increase to 60% to 70% within a few years. At present, domestic soft and hard packets account for 50% of the market. This tendency toward hard packs is also due to the rapid development of hard pack cigarette packers. Because hard pack cigarette packers pack much faster than soft pack cigarette packers, they are more attractive to large cigarette factories.