Variable data for draws and promotions - including one for Carlsberg during the UEFA Euro football tournament - is expanding marketing options for Singapore Press Holdings.

The island state's largest publisher is pioneering inkjet imprinting on its newspaper presses in the region with a range of unique data including text, graphics, QR and barcodes.

Using Kodak's Prosper S-Series printheads, a promotion in The New Paper for brewer Carlsberg invited readers to enter contests and select teams during this year's European football championship, with winners collecting tickets to the semifinals.

Another promotion in Chinese-language ZaobaoNow - Know the world at a glimpse - included a unique lucky draw password in advertisements through the week.

SPH executive vice president and marketing chief manager Cai Guoling says the variable data promotions delivered better interaction for brand owners and an enjoyable new experience for readers: "Leveraging the new technology, brand owners can deliver different promotion information to readers at the same day," he says. "It helps to improve the effectiveness of communication and interaction of 1:1, resulting in a successful promotion".

Printing production manager K Seharan says before installation of the imprinting systems, unique content had been inserted into newspapers manually. "The inkjet heads have not only helped us to streamline operations by being more productive, but also opened up a new set of possibilities altogether. The new solution doesn't sacrifice newspaper printing processes or speed.

"More than 1,000,000 copies are printed efficiently daily to meet the rigorous demand of newspaper deadlines."