Episode 2 - Beyond the Barcode: How Print Still Wins the Brand

Host Stefan Casey of Lightning Tree is joined by Camilla Young of GS1 UK, Fred Lill of Lil Packaging, and Thomas Herman of Path for a wide-ranging look at packaging through three lenses: stories, scanning and sustainability.

Thomas opens with the role packaging plays in brand storytelling, arguing that people remember how a brand makes them feel rather than what it tells them, and that physical touchpoints still cut through in a world where paid media is increasingly restricted. Fred brings the sustainability angle, talking through the tension between reducing waste and reducing meaning, and the surprising resurgence of formats like the pillow pack. The panel also tackled the well-known say-do gap in sustainable packaging, where consumers claim they'll pay more for sustainable options but rarely do at the till, and discussed how adding real data and specificity, rather than vague green claims, might finally close that gap.

Camilla explains the shift from traditional barcodes to QR codes and the scale of that change across the industry, including GS1's role in bringing competing retailers and brands together to build shared standards rather than fragmented ones. The conversation moves into the economics of digital print, the cost gap between flexo and digital inks, and why serialisation and track-and-trace, driven partly by counterfeit and grey market challenges, might be the business case that finally tips digital print towards the mainstream. Towards the end, the panel discussed how AI and tools people already use for shopping recommendations are quietly turning marketing into a data problem, and closed things off by designing an imaginary World Cup gift pack together, tying storytelling, sustainability and accessibility into one example.

PodFEST is a series of panel conversations recorded live over two days in London, made to give FuturePrint's channels a steady flow of thought leadership content through the autumn. A new episode goes up each weekday.

Watch the full series: https://www.futureprint.tech/podfest-videos
Find out more about PodFEST: https://www.futureprint.tech/podfest-2026-1

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