How digital efficiency is winning over big brands like Luzhou Laojiao and Chando
In early summer 2025, I joined the U.S. branch of Shenzhen Jujin Packaging Co., Ltd. Previously, I discussed digital enhancement equipment from the perspectives of both the sales side and the equipment user side. Now, I am discussing practical digital enhancement solutions directly with end-brand clients, which allows me to engage more closely with the client-side needs of digital enhancement processes. Additionally, being in the U.S. and with Shenzhen Jujin Packaging serving as Seegold's global strategic partner, our joint activities have given me a deeper understanding of Seegold's applications in the American market. Today, I will narrow my focus and share with you my perspective on the application of digital enhancement technology on the user end.
Cosmetic Packaging Applications
As a mainstream application in the digital enhancement market, enhancement applications for skincare and beauty products continue to emerge. However, due to the cost of enhancement, they are mostly used in high-end skincare products or seasonal gift box sets. Currently, imported inks generally cost around 800–1000 RMB/L, while domestic inks are around 300 RMB/L, making them still relatively expensive. For ordinary card boxes, cost remains a limiting factor. Of course, gift box applications often combine flat patterns, and overly simple styles are clearly less suitable.
As shown in Figure 1, when the packaging box is gently opened and the surroundings settle down, the built-in music box plays a beautiful melody, presenting the product alongside it. The central silver-white snowflake immediately unfolds, and as this romantic snowflake blooms before your eyes, the 'product lift platform' in the center of the box rises simultaneously. Such a magical opening and closing experience is unforgettable. Above it, many 'hollowed-out snowflake designs' can be seen, which are complemented by blue-gold digital hot stamping and silver holographic stamping on top, giving the snowflakes a dreamy and brilliant effect. The unique metallic transparency of the digital hot stamping keeps the colors bright and vivid, harmonizing with the embedded snowflake carvings to present a romantic snow scene that never melts, cleverly integrating with the nature-inspired corporate culture background of the product itself.
Figure 1: Chando Himalaya's Naturalistic Brand
This gift box has a production quantity of 3,500 units and is a typical application of exquisite gift box enhancement craftsmanship.
Applications in Alcohol Packaging
High-end alcohol packaging, from Jiannanchun and Shuijingfang to Zhu摘要 and now Shede, has utilized enhancement techniques in premium categories. To meet the market's ever-evolving packaging demands and appeal to the tastes of younger consumers, packaging also requires creative new elements.
As shown in Figure 2, the Shede liquor box features a double-door design, giving it an overall dignified and elegant look. In Figure 3, the four characters '雄姿英才' are first gold foiled digitally, and then a UV digital overlay is applied on top of the gold foil, further highlighting the three-dimensional effect and the metallic texture of the gold. The text's tactile dimension also provides visual appeal to consumers.
Figure 2: The Shede wine box features a double-door design, giving it an overall dignified and grand appearance.
Figure 3 Shede wine box with hot-stamped gold UV shows a three-dimensional gold stamping effect.
In Figure 4, the details of the knight are particularly exquisite. The edges of the waves are highlighted with gold hot stamping, the knight's cloak and armor use digital hot stamping, and the horse's body features three-dimensional UV. The entire image is layered with great attention to detail-from the horse's mane to the knight's cloak to the texture of the waves-using digital layered hot stamping for three-dimensional effects, making the whole scene vivid and extremely refined. Of course, the precision of digital enhancement registration also ensures accurate alignment and perfect detail consistency across multiple runs. This wine box had continuous repeat orders in 2025, with a total volume reaching 200,000 pieces. At the same time, the automatic registration technology of digital enhancement ensures the stable high quality of large batches from different production runs.
Picture4 Shede liquor box digital enhancement details in a three-dimensional presentation effect
Another category is short-run or personalized products that quickly respond to market demand. For example, Luzhou Hongxu Packaging Products Co., Ltd. collaborates with Luzhou Laojiao, combining with various cities to continuously launch city co-branded Luzhou Laojiao products ranging from dozens to hundreds of pieces, achieving a win-win situation for both the liquor company and the packaging enterprise. Luzhou Laojiao utilizes Indigo printing, Cool Flash digital enhancement processes, and laser cutting machine forming, producing on demand throughout the entire process. Orders are delivered in about 2 days, and the digital enhancement equipment reaches nearly a million prints annually.
In Figure 5, the characters "Hunan" use digital gold stamping, while Hunan's local landscapes, pavilions, and towers are rendered with detailed layering to reflect the depth of the scenery.
Figure 5: Luzhou Laojiao and Hunan Co-branded Edition
Figure 6: This Fangshan co-branded edition uses a laser stamping technique. The colorful laser effect combined with embossing makes the dragon and phoenix flourish magnificently on the paper.
Figure 6: Luzhou Laojiao and Fangshan Co-branded Edition
Figure 7: The three liquor boxes of Taihu Bay are ingeniously designed. When the three boxes are placed together, they depict the spring scenery of Taihu Bay. The lake, mountains, and the sailboats on the water are all crafted using digital embossing and hot stamping techniques, resulting in a delicate illustration. Even the swallows on the right box are highlighted using digital UV techniques to enhance texture. If given as a gift, this set design undoubtedly adds an artistic touch to the visual appeal.
Figure 7 Taihu Bay Series Wine Boxes
The above three orders are frequently reordered throughout the year according to customer demand, with each order ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 boxes. The ability to deliver quickly is highly competitive.
Short runs and diverse options can be expensive and time-consuming for brands and packaging companies if they aim for visually striking results. Traditional production cycles are long and costly, making them unprofitable. Digital enhancement equipment, while enabling fast delivery, can also accommodate different designs and enhancement techniques without compromising the boxes' quality. It takes full advantage of the features of digital enhancement, such as plate-free printing and skilled craftsmanship. Digital printing entered the business printing sector first and was quite successful. Expanding into the packaging field, however, relies heavily on digital enhancement. As a traditional packaging company, Luzhou Hongxu Packaging has undoubtedly opened up a new landscape for digital packaging through its success.
In addition, wine-related cultural and creative products, such as Moutai merchandise, sometimes specify the use of digital enhancement techniques for certain packaging. We are pleased to see that brands are gradually becoming familiar with digital enhancement and are selecting solutions that align with the characteristics of their products.
Applications in Bakery Food Packaging
High-end pastries and seasonal gift foods are increasingly adopting digital enhancement techniques in their packaging.
The ever-growing range of snacks constantly challenges the market, and monotonous candy packaging struggles to capture consumers' attention. Designers believe that packaging presentation needs to change. Figure 8 shows a candy box that won the iF Design Award, with innovative designs in visual appeal, structure, and unboxing experience to enhance its playfulness, interactivity, and functionality.
Figure 8 Opening candy box design
The designer of the candy box believes that nothing can be more recognizable than the original ecology, so the structure design boldly adopts orange sectional drawings, with bright colors, novel structures, eye-catching and direct visuals, and the opening method of the packaging has also been interesting. Break open the orange, pull out the core, put it in your mouth, and then close it with a "bar", restoring the shape of the orange, making the process of eating sugar full of a small sense of ritual.
The most eye-catching thing is the surface process treatment, with the help of SeeGodi's 3D UV technology, the pulp and juice drip on the surface of the packaging box one by one, presenting a lifelike and realistic effect. Just looking at the packaging makes you salivate, triggering consumers' desire to buy. Candy has no meaning, candy is just candy, how to package it, that is the fun of packaging designers.
Animation cultural and creative applications
This is one of the application types that have gradually become popular in recent years, in gift companies, high-end cards or bars use efficiency enhancement technology to add a sense of exquisiteness to handicrafts, especially used in limited edition or high-end bars are deeply loved by young hipsters, and there are many exported to Japan in recent years. In recent years, nearly 30% of the flat sheet digital efficiency enhancement equipment has also been purchased by such printing enterprises.
Such exquisite bronzing and UV layers are presented on the bar and card with a diameter of 5~8cm, which can only be touched by digital enhancement. Most of the character decorations and text in Figure 9 are gilded with lines, and small decorative elements, such as stars, flowers, and text, use digital UV of different heights to express a delicate sense of layering. This type of card usually has a print volume of 1000~20000 sheets, and the delivery time is about 2~3 days.
Figure 9 High-end digital enhancement stamps and cards (Image from Dongguan Heyu Printing Co., Ltd.)
High-end digital enhancement has applications in both domestic and international contexts for anime and cards, and the high-end models from Gaodi are specifically developed for such applications. Currently, major domestic cultural and creative enterprises and card printing companies, such as Zhejiang Kayou Animation Co., Ltd., have also successively purchased digital enhancement equipment.
Digital enhancement has inherent advantages in these applications. Technically, the materials for such cards are usually gold and silver cards or films. During each production process, such as after hot-stamping with UV, the paper experiences slight stretching and deformation. Ensuring precise registration for secondary processes is exactly where digital enhancement technology excels. For image designs with such small areas, expressing fine details and layering requires high precision, accurate registration, and strong adhesion while supporting multi-pass process registration-tasks best handled by digital enhancement technology. Additionally, digital enhancement requires no plate-making, and its fast production characteristics meet the needs of small print runs and on-demand production.
Applications in decorative paintings
In the era of personalized decorative paintings, enhancement undoubtedly offers flexibility and personalization. The recently awarded "Sunflower" in the United States is a typical example of a decorative painting. Domestic digital enhancement machines occasionally produce various decorative paintings, such as Thangka religious paintings or household and office hanging paintings like the "Galloping Horse".
Figure 10 The Sunflower decorative painting, created by the Shenzhen Jujin Craft R&D Center, recently won the "Best Use of Digital Decoration" award at the 32nd FSEA Gold Leaf Awards in the United States in 2025, thanks to its innovative digital decoration process. It also received a feature cover story in the authoritative U.S. printing industry journal, PostPress.
Figure 10 Sunflower Digital Enhancement Process Decorative Painting
This decorative painting utilizes the VisGao Ultra 6500SHD device and HP Indigo 12000 digital press, combined with 3D cyclical printing technology and the RSP™ high-precision algorithm (±100 micrometer positioning), to achieve complex texture layers and three-dimensional decorative effects. Matte silver foil cardstock is specially selected, and the UV prediction system precisely controls ink flow and material tension. Through laser gold stamping, foil stamping, and multiple UV layering, a unique metallic luster and curved texture are presented, making the intricate and stunning design of the sunflower poster possible.
The decorative painting belongs more to the realm of art, and the success of this project demonstrates the perfect integration trend of digital printing and artistic design.
Domestic and International Cultural & Creative Business and Variable Data Greeting Card Applications
Based on mature online printing for greeting cards and photo printing, this has always been a mainstream application abroad. The difference here with domestic practices is that foreign online printing is based on their own servers, allowing customers to place orders directly through their own operated servers. In the example in Figure 11, New Year greeting cards can have three color foil stamping options; even a single foil-stamped card can be chosen, priced at $5.01, fully utilizing the advantages of variable data enhancement. In North America, annual orders for variable data greeting cards reach up to 10 million copies, becoming a reliable cash cow for businesses.
Figure 11: Shutterfly's online order interface in the United States and personalized red envelopes and invitations from Hong Kong's Eprint Company
Hong Kong's Eprint Company is also adopting a similar model. Users can place orders on the website for their own personalized enhanced red envelopes, calendars, and invitations, with quantities ranging from 10 to 1000, all of which can be produced.
In cultural and creative products, washi tapes made using roll-to-roll enhancement are increasingly popular among young people. Washi has a small surface area, various complex patterns, and a wide range of products. On washi about 5 cm wide, digital enhancement excels at adding complex and precise details. As shown in Figure 12, the princess's dress edging, diamond headpiece, and scepter are accentuated with holographic stamping, instantly making the image vivid and beautiful.
图12 Highly popular exquisite washi paper among young people (photo provided by DMS)
The application of flexible packaging is gradually expanding
This is an area of significant growth in added-value applications over the past two years. Compared to a few years ago, the number of flexible packaging equipment suppliers has increased substantially. Many domestic manufacturers of wide-format digital printers have joined the ranks of roll-to-roll digital added-value equipment suppliers. Coupled with supporting domestic consumables, flexible packaging added-value applications are gradually expanding from coastal regions to inland areas. I roughly estimate that there are over 200 roll-to-roll digital added-value machines in the domestic market alone, far exceeding the number of sheet-fed machines installed. This has led to the booming development of the application market, such as for washi tape, food packaging, and sanitary products.
Figure 13: The text and border of this flexible packaging "Liu Guang Xian Zhi Thin Paper" use digital added-value hot stamping, echoing the product name "Liu Guang." Another version, "Cranberry," applies 3D UV to the text, enhancing the brightness and three-dimensional effect of the product name. Packaging using digital added-value technology clearly increases the product's shelf appeal.
Figure 13 Application of enhanced soft packaging for well-known hygiene products Sofy and Kotex (image provided by DMS)
Finally, I believe that with the continuous efforts of digital enhancement equipment suppliers, consumable suppliers, and printing companies, as well as the increasing awareness of brands, more new applications will appear in the future market. Let's look forward to it together!