From Chemistry to Connection - The Role of Marketing, Communications, and Storytelling in (Industrial) Print

This article is based on a podcast discussion with Natalie Thrall from Nazdar, click here to listen to the podcast.

Industrial print has always been fluent in technical language. It speaks in adhesion, viscosity, curing, opacity, colour gamut and performance data. But as Natalie Thrall, Marketing Manager at Nazdar, explains on the FuturePrint Podcast, the way innovation is communicated is changing.

For a sector built on chemistry and precision, this is no small shift. The products may be complex, but the message increasingly has to be simple, visual and human.

Thrall’s starting point is refreshingly clear: customers are not thinking about your brand. They are thinking about themselves.

That observation may sound obvious, but in technical industries it is easily forgotten. Manufacturers often want to explain the science, the process and the years of development behind a product. Buyers, however, want to know what it enables. Does it make their business better? Does it solve a production problem? Does it give them something useful to take back to their team?

This is particularly true for Nazdar, a global ink manufacturer operating in a deeply technical space. Its products may sit behind the scenes, but they appear in everyday life - from graphic T-shirts to industrial applications and highly specialised printed products. The challenge is to make that invisible chemistry visible.

Thrall gives a useful example: high viscosity ink. The science behind it is complex, but the story can be told in ten seconds. A printhead lays down a single-pass white onto uncoated cardboard, and the result is immediately clear. No dissertation is required. The proof is visual.

In that sense, the best technical marketing does not dumb things down. It sharpens the point. It removes friction between innovation and understanding.

For Thrall, this means focusing on applications, collaborations and commercial possibilities. Customer success stories are particularly valuable because they connect performance to reality. A metallic ink on a concert poster, a high-opacity white on recycled board, or ink used on NFL helmet decals all tell a more compelling story than a technical datasheet ever could.

This matters because the behaviour of B2B buyers has changed. The old model of relationship-led sales has not disappeared, but it has been supplemented by digital research, peer validation and content consumption long before direct engagement begins. Buyers are forming opinions earlier. They are comparing suppliers before a conversation starts. They are looking for trust signals.

In response, Nazdar has refined its content strategy around clarity and channel discipline. Rather than rely on long, wordy e-blasts, Thrall focuses on where customers are most active and receptive - LinkedIn, the company website, industry media and short-form video.

The strategy is built around three content pillars: Nazdar’s R&D capability, its leadership in sustainability, and its new technologies and partnerships. This gives the company a framework for consistency without making the content feel repetitive.

A good example is Nazdar’s solar installation at its Garden Grove facility in California. The project could have become a dense internal newsletter. Instead, Thrall turned it into a 25-second video, using drone footage to show the 142 solar panels now powering the facility. The message is simple: sustainability is not just a claim, it is visible in the way the company operates. See example link here.

That point is important. Industrial buyers are not only assessing products. They are assessing companies. They want to know whether a supplier has vision, reliability and values that align with the future they are trying to build.

Yet consistency is difficult in a fast-moving world. Themes such as sustainability, digital transformation and AI can easily become generic. Thrall is alert to that risk, particularly when it comes to brand voice.

As a writer, she is cautious about leaning too heavily on AI-generated copy. The danger is not just factual error, but sameness. If everyone uses the same tools in the same way, distinctive voices can disappear.

Her solution is to draw on real expertise inside the business. When a subject requires scientific depth, she hands the microphone to the right expert - such as Nazdar’s R&D leaders. This keeps communication credible. It also reinforces an important principle: brand voice is not manufactured externally. It is drawn from the people inside the company.

This becomes more complicated when confidentiality is involved. In OEM work, some of Nazdar’s most exciting projects are protected by strict NDAs. For marketers, this is both frustrating and familiar. The most interesting stories are often the ones that cannot be told.

The answer is to work around the edges without breaking trust. Nazdar can highlight capability, agility and problem-solving without revealing bespoke chemistry or customer-sensitive applications. When use cases are available, they become extremely powerful.

The NFL helmet decal story is a case in point. A long-term Nazdar customer produces decals used across American football helmets. The inks must be tough enough to withstand the demands of the sport. The story is timely, relatable and performance-led, but it also connects Nazdar to something culturally recognisable. That is industrial storytelling at its best: specific, credible and easy to understand.

Internally, Thrall also sees marketing as a unifying function. It sits between R&D, sales, leadership and customers. Her internal stakeholders are her first audience. If they do not understand and repeat the message, the external market will not either.

For Nazdar’s OEM business, that message has been distilled into a clear position: Nazdar is a flexible, nimble, in-house chemistry partner with unmatched R&D capability. The goal is to be top of mind for OEM partners seeking innovative technological collaboration.

This simplicity matters. Thrall notes that Nazdar’s wider company strategy has also been condensed into two sentences and visibly branded across the company’s headquarters. The point is not decoration. It is alignment. A strategy that cannot be remembered cannot be used.

Looking ahead, Thrall believes short-form video will become even more important in industrial print. Video is now everywhere - not just on YouTube, but across social platforms, websites, events and even physical environments. For technical industries, it offers a way to make complex processes visible and digestible.

AI will play a role too, especially in animation and realistic visualisation. It can help bridge gaps where filming is difficult, confidential or visually uninteresting. But the technology is not yet seamless, particularly when consistency and brand style matter.

The bigger opportunity is not AI itself, but what it enables: faster, more accessible storytelling that helps technical companies communicate with greater clarity.

For Nazdar, the positioning is clear. It is a global business with more than a century of history, but it wants to retain the flexibility and responsiveness that larger companies often lose. It has legacy products, analogue expertise, digital capability and new R&D-led solutions. The challenge is to tell that story in a way that feels modern, relevant and human.

In industrial print, chemistry may still win the application. But communication increasingly wins the conversation.

And in a market where buyers are researching, validating and judging long before the first meeting, that conversation matters more than ever.