In a recent campaign, a series of A1 panels arrived with visibly bent corners.
The message was right, print quality was good, timing was on track, but the impact in store was immediately reduced by one very concrete issue: packaging.

The Concrete Case: When Plastic Film Becomes the Enemy

The A1 panels were wrapped in a protective plastic film:

• rolled too tightly around the bundle
• probably too thick and too rigid
• applied without any “play” and without dedicated corner protection

Under the tension of the film, the panels slightly warped during storage and transport, eventually creating a clear crease on several corners.
What appeared in pharmacies and drugstores was a set of panels that were difficult to lay completely flat, with marked or “broken” corners, and an overall impression of damaged material from the very first unboxing.

Beyond the visual aspect, the consequences were multiple:

• reduced perceived value of the material for in‑store teams
• a point‑of‑sale execution that looked less premium than what was intended in the brief
• urgent trade‑offs to make: what to keep, what to replace, what to remove from the campaign plan

All of this due to a detail that could have been anticipated: how the panels were protected and wrapped.

What This Case Teaches Us

This kind of situation is a reminder of a simple truth: a good POSM doesn’t stop at the approved PDF.
Campaign quality also depends on the “invisible” stages: packaging, palletisation, transport, and unboxing in pharmacy.

Key takeaways:

• Over‑protective packaging can become damaging if it compresses the material instead of protecting it.
• The risk is higher for large formats and sensitive substrates (thin board, corrugated, lightweight panels).
• Without clear instructions, each printer or logistics partner applies their own standards, which may not be suited to the POSM in question.

The challenge is therefore not only what you produce, but how you prepare it for the field.

How to Prevent A1 Panels from Arriving Bent

For A1 panels (and, more broadly, any large‑format material), a few best practices can drastically reduce this type of issue.

1. Protect the corners before wrapping

Corners are the most fragile part.

• Use rigid cardboard or plastic corner protectors, slightly larger than the panel.
• Fix these corners in place before wrapping, so they absorb tension and shocks.
• Avoid relying solely on the film to “provide protection”.

2. Reduce plastic film tension

• Choose a thinner or more flexible film, or reduce the wrapping machine’s tension settings.
• The goal is to keep the panels together, not to press them so hard that they deform.
• Simple rule of thumb: if the bundle curves or warps when laid flat, the film is too tight.

3. Adapt packaging to the panel material

• The more flexible the substrate, the more sensitive it is to compression.
• Adjust film thickness, number of panels per bundle, and type of reinforcement to the material used.
• For the most sensitive substrates, add a rigid sheet (solid board or thin panel) on top and bottom of the stack.

4. Limit stack height and weight

• Stacks that are too high increase pressure on the bottom panels, especially during transport.
• It is better to have several medium‑height stacks, well strapped, than one heavy column crushing the content.

5. Test packaging before validating the full run

• Run a test on a small batch: pack, handle, simulate transport (loading, unloading, moving).
• Check the condition of the panels after the test before launching full‑scale production.
• Adjust film tension, bundle size, or corner protection system if needed.

To Integrate into Your Next POSM Briefs

To avoid this type of situation in future campaigns, it helps to treat packaging as its own line item in briefs, on the same level as creative or logistics.

Elements to specify systematically:

• Type of substrate and level of fragility (thin board, Forex, Dibond, etc.).
• Required visual quality on arrival (sharp corners, perfectly flat panels).
• Type of protection expected (corner protectors, interleaving, rigid top/bottom sheet).
• Limits for stack height and weight.
• Explicit request for a packaging test on a small batch before the full production.

Ideally, this is validated jointly by marketing, production, and logistics, to make sure the material leaves the warehouse in the same condition the brand expects to see it arrive in pharmacy.