Chinese cigarette packaging: technology marries aesthetics & security.(Editorial Feature)

Cigarette packaging is big business in China and a large percentage of it is holographic. A cursory glance at any tobacconist's display shows an astonishingly high proportion of brands using holographic accents to attract the attention of consumers

The tobacco industry in China is government controlled and there is little interest in reducing the revenue from this lucrative business. 'Smoking is harmful to your health. Quit smoking reduces health risk' is standard text in Mandarin and English on cigarette packets today but the font size is small. By contrast, the intention of holographic packaging is clearly to promote the products.

Holography = Prestige

At Holo-pack-Holo-print[R], The Holography Conference, in November 2011, Haiming Zhang of Holoart in China offered a paper concerning the state of holographic packaging in China. He mentioned that products in China are very often bought as gifts and bright, colorful, holographic packaging significantly adds to the prestige of that product in the minds of both the giver and receiver. This additional benefit to cigarette packaging was realized soon after holographic packaging was first introduced in China. Its impact has been studied …