Packaging at forefront of battle to boost CDs.(Manufacturing)

As the record business performs the tricky balancing act of fighting illegal downloads as well as selling legitimate ones and maintaining--for now--sales of physical audio product, packaging companies are finding themselves at the forefront of the battle to persuade customers to stick to their old habits of buying off the shelves of their friendly record store.

Packagers would seem to stand to lose out considerably to a rise in downloading, legal or otherwise, but there are crumbs of comfort to be had.

"Packaging can be used to simulate the style and image of the artists in question, thus giving extra value to the consumers by playing on their loyalty and expectations," says Adam Teskey, managing director of CMCS Group. While the need for quality packaging has only been heightened by illegal downloading, Teskey says that "in our case the only real positive side to internet downloading is that the record industry wants increasingly superior packs in order to attract buyers to their labels and artists. This enables us to fully utilise our creative services section and offer new materials, pack styles and colour variations to help our clients to achieve maximum buyer impact."

Luigi Pozzoli, of Pozzoli agrees. "Packaging has always played a key role in adding extra value to music through creative design and special paperboard solutions. We believe packaging today can also be a smart way to defend music against the threat of illegal internet downloads and forgery."

There is also the broader issue of quality versus cost, as CMCS's Adam Teskey points out. "Due to mounting pressure from industry competition and tightening budgets record labels no longer view quality ...