Innovation in Print: Scented Varnishes

by Rich B on May 10, 2012

What are they?
Scented varnishes are thin, transparent coatings that are laid over a piece of print. The varnish contains tiny micro-capsules of scent which are broken when rubbed, allowing the scent to be released into the air.

Uses for the Marketer
The great thing about scented print is that it can really evoke an emotional response in the reader. For example, the smell of rubber or oil for a car enthusiast. Or of cut grass or lavender for a gardener. Or how about Xmas pudding for a Christmas promotion? There are a huge array of aromas available, and each has a host of possibilities for the creative marketer or designer to use to engender a specific response in their target audience.

scented varnishes on print

Magazine cover overlaid with scented varnish on the fruit.

And of course, there’s the novelty and attention-grabbing value scented varnishes have. They encourage people to share items, to keep them on their desk or take them home to share with the family.

If used well, scented varnishes can really add impact and longevity to print. The secret, as ever, is in understanding your target audience to get the best out of them.

Scented varnishes can be used on a wide range of printed products – including point of sale, catalogues, leaflets – even business stationery. It can also be used on all kinds of stock – cards, papers, vinyls, glossy or matt.

We’ve had particular success with inserts and direct mail pieces too.

For limitations, check out the Technical Information section below.

Smells Available
Here’s a list of the off-the-shelf smells we have available. It is possible to produce custom scents too – so if you have any specific requirements not covered here, speak to your Webmart Print Consultant to discuss your options.

scented varnish flavours

Technical Information
Once a printed piece has been produced, scented varnishes are overlaid onto the print as a separate process. They can be mixed with other finishing techniques such as spot UV varnish and applied in a single pass. We can print on anything up to B1 size (1020×720) and on anything from 80gsm paper up to 600 micron thick board. Note that we don’t recommend applying scented varnishes to uncoated stock without applying a sealer first.

Pricing
Scented varnishes are relatively inexpensive, with the price decreasing for larger order volumes. They tend to be only slightly more expensive than other ‘standard’ varnish coatings. Again, for a price, get in touch with your Webmart Print Consultant.

If you’re in print marketing and interested in innovative product ideas, either keep reading Printing Brain or get in touch with your Webmart Print Consultant. 

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If you’re reading this, you’ll probably know that Direct Mail is a great way to communicate straight to your customers (if you don’t understand the power of Direct Mail yet, why not dive into some of our Direct Mail Tag articles to find out more?).

Creating ‘sticky’ content in your Direct Mailing is a great way to provide something that’s useful, informative and attractive for your customers. It’s also one of the points on our list of 14 tips to increase Direct Mail response rates article. Stickiness means it hangs around and doesn’t get binned. It keeps on communicating your brand and messages to your customers well beyond its initial impact on the doormat.

But stickiness can be tricky to find – and get right.

Well we’ve come up with something that’s sticky and timely. Namely, face paints that can be printed straight onto your DM and mailed out to customers!

face paint printing for direct mail

Large message area, great stickiness. DM that keeps on working!

For anyone connected with a kid (big or little!) who’s into supporting any of the home nations, sending a DM piece that includes face paints can have real impact. And they tie in nicely to some of the biggest sporting events we’ve had in years.

Firstly, there’s the Euros kicking off in June, then the Olympics at the end of July. So sending out DM that includes facepaints will mean they’re snapped up, shown around, stored, kept for later and passed on. If you mail out to the right profiles within your database, you could be on for some extremely high retention rates – and consequently high enquiry & conversion rates.

And they’re not just great for football or sports of course. There’s a wide variety of colours available, so could be used for more or less any campaign targeting kids or parents.

Here’s a list of the basic colours available – though of course special custom colours can be mixed, meaning the world’s your oyster.

Basic colours: White, Yellow, Orange, Red, Green, Blue, Ochre, Brown, Black, Plus glitter silver, glitter copper, glitter red, glitter, green, glitter light blue, glitter purple, glitter dark blue, glitter gold.

Safety Notice
The face paints use non-toxic cosmetic pigments that are specially formulated for use on skin. However, there are one or two other common sense precautions that should be taken so it’s always worth including a safety notice on any print with face paints. Give us a call if you need our suggested text.

Artworking
It’s important the face paints are placed on a print-free area to prevent users picking up screen inks and applying those to their faces too. That also includes not printing underneath the face paints.

So what’re you waiting for? Webmart offers a comprehensive print and mailing service (and advice on other things like data processing, mailsort, delivery, call centres). So get in touch with your friendly Webmart Print Consultant to find out more. We’d love to chat through this and any other Direct Mail options with you.

 

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