Your POP Program Just Achieved Elite Status

See How You Can Take the Accuracy Challenge

Retailers trying to leverage POP to drive sales are often caught in the classic cost vs. quality trap. By leveraging multiple print methods, multiple substrates and sometimes even multiple print providers, they can achieve the lowest production cost for each POP element in their stores. However, doing so often results in a reduction in the consistency with which an image is reproduced. A roast beef sandwich printed on one device may look "medium rare" while the same image printed using another method may look "well done". A soft drink on one signtype using a styrene substrate may look different from the same soft drink image printed on paper. The differences result from color casts left by the various print methods and substrates. For example, note the picture below.

The challenge for the retail marketers and for the print provider is to determine which of these images is "right". The printer may have used the same art file for both prints. But which output has the right color? Even more importantly, once we determine which color is right, how can we reproduce this color across various print methods and substrates?

Protecting your "image"

To meet this "accuracy challenge", GSP has become one of fewer than 50 printers in the US to achieve G7 Master Printer Qualification, the standard for color calibration across multiple print methods. G7^® is a Method defined by the Print Properties and Colormetrics Working Group of IDEAlliance that enables printers to reproduce a similar visual appearance across printing types and substrates. G7^® specifies the components of an image that define a similar "visual appearance" to the human eye. To do this, the G7^® Method:

• Defines a colormetric definition for gray balance.
• Specifies gray balance in the midtones, image weight and image contrast from the highlights to the shadows which are the factors that determine likeness of the visual appearance of an image.

So how will GSP's G7 Master Printer Qualification help retail marketers? First, G7^® will ensure consistency from one POP element to the next. GSP's G7^® production methods, can, for example, ensure that an image of roast beef printed using one production method appears just as rare as it would using another. Secondly, G7^® will ensure consistency from one production run to the next. G7^® will empower GSP's retailer customers to promote their brand and proprietary foodservice offerings from one month to the next with confidence that each run of the graphics retain a similar visual appearance. The result: without sacrificing their budget, retailers can ensure that shoppers see a consistent representation of their offerings throughout their stores.

To contact a GSP professional, please visit our contact page by clicking here.

To learn more about the G7 Master Printer qualification by IDEAlliance, please click here.