The Hershey Company has been leveraging the power of digital printing technology to transform its iconic chocolate bar packaging into a celebration of women. Now in its third year, and coinciding with International Women’s Day, the #HerShe campaign, sees Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar packaging being used to promote and honor female talent across the world.

First launching the campaign in 2020, Hershey collaborated with HP Indigo and used a productive, cost-effective HP Indigo 20000 digital press, by Brazilian print service provider Camargo Cia de Embalagens Ltda, to develop 320,000 limited edition #HerShe chocolate bars. The campaign, which featured artwork to celebrate the talent of female musicians, illustrators, photographers and poets throughout Brazil, saw huge success. In Brazil, the parallel social media campaign reached close to 2 billion impressions.
      
Fast forward to 2022, the campaign is being run in collaboration with HP Indigo digitally printed packaging for a third time and will help make “invisible women, visible” by supporting gender equality through a global movement that celebrates female achievements in science, business, sports, activism, and music. This year, the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bars will feature a QR code, also printed with an HP Indigo 20000 digital press, that will open consumers’ eyes to the many contributions of women, beyond each bar. In addition, HP will be unveiling a film with Hershey, amplifying how HP Indigo’s digitally printed packaging can be used, but also to elevating brand engagement through the co-creation of user generated content, to become the ultimate vehicle for cultural relevance and on-pack storytelling.

The HP Indigo 20000 digital press was selected for the campaign, designed with diverse labels and packaging applications in mind. “Empowering women, and advancing diversity, equity and inclusion is a business priority for us. We invite new perspectives, ideas, and experiences in everything we do to reflect the diversity of consumers around the world. Throughout the campaign, HP has helped us to open our eyes to the power of digitally printed packaging, allowing us to engage with our audience in a creative and unique way while celebratingwomen and their achievements globally,” comments Santhi Ramesh, CMO International, The Hershey Company.

The HP Indigo 20000 digital press 29-inch image width can capture the majority of packaging applications, including flexible packaging, shrink-sleeve, wrap-around labels, and in-mold labeling, and contains the only digital color printing process that matches gravure printing, delivering high resolution printing and perfect registration. This enabled Hershey to meet its strict brand colour needs using 7 ink stations, while also bringing the female voices and stories to life.

Commenting on the campaign, Jose Gorbea, global head of Brands, Agencies & Sustainability, HP Indigo, says, “I’ve loved seeing how the #HerShe campaign has evolved over the past 3 years and I’m excited to see what other personalized storytelling opportunities HP’s digital print technology can achieve in order to make tangible connections and further engagements with consumers.”

Recent research carried out by WARC (Sept 2021) on the Marketing Effectiveness of Digitally Printed Packaging, in which more than 9,000 marketing campaigns were analyzed and benchmarked, highlighted that brands have the potential to double their sales and marketing ROI when they utilize personalization and most importantly, user generated content in their packaging.

“This can be achieved through digital print, and it is why now 70% of digitally printed packaging campaigns, like Hershey’s, are being used strategically as the lead communication touchpoint of the marketing mix to build brand equity,” adds Gorbea.