Printers are famously bad at selling their wares. The accuracy of this statement will undoubtedly be contested by some industry stalwarts but even they would struggle to argue that the mystique that once surrounded the ‘dark arts’ has evaporated. This, coupled with the perception among many lesser informed souls that commercial printing is no longer a craft – it’s merely a push button operation that anyone can master – has surely helped to accelerate the commoditisation of print.

But despite being such bad salesmen this doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of enterprising printers out there who are finding new routes to market and generating healthy revenue streams as a result.

A growing example of this is printers who are embracing the power of the internet offering web-to-print services for clients. Creating an internet storefront, complete with templates for posters, point of sale material and online job submission, etc, has for many businesses replaced the sales team (after all, online storefronts are much cheaper to employ than wide-boy sales guys and they don’t demand regular bonuses and a shiny new company car based on performance).

I know of a number of printers who take the majority of their orders over this type of online storefront and many of these believe that in the future 100% of their orders will be placed over the web. These self same printers now invest more time and energy into areas like search engine optimisation and increasing amounts of money into marketing tools such as GoogleAdWords (classified ads in the local paper or business directory are a thing of the past). (more…)

In theory at least producing a variable data wide-format piece of print is as easy as producing a standard size direct mail piece. However, in practice there are few examples of wide-format printers using variable data to best effect. The technology exists – there are numerous variable data software packages targeted at wide-format printing – but the sticking point to date has been coming up with clever applications that take advantage of this option.

The best and most often cited example of the marriage between variable data and wide-format is Sony’s campaign for the DVD launch of Spider-Man 3 on the online retail site Play.com. The movie company wanted to drum up pre-sales of the DVD so it came up with the innovative plan of offering a personalised Spider-Man poster for all pre-orders. The idea clearly struck a chord with consumers as the company racked up more than 6,000 DVD poster packages a full month and a half prior to the DVD’s release. The ROI on this particular campaign was impressive but it ran four years ago and there seems to have been little innovation in the meantime – until now that is.

Crash ‘personalised posters’ into a search engine and you’ll be faced with an avalanche of different personalised options. There are numerous online card companies out there offering items such as spoof personalised movie posters – ‘Superdad’ and ‘Taxi Father’ posters, spoofing Superman and Taxi Driver respectively – through to personalised bar signs or New York street address posters.   (more…)

When Iron Man 2 hit cinema screens this summer it was backed by a multi-million pound marketing campaign to ensure the sequel matched the impressive box office takings of the comic book heroes first outing.

Most of the marketing was standard movie advertising fodder – billboard and bus shelter posters, TV slots, etc. Nothing ground breaking or particularly innovative about that. Where the film broke the mould was in its use of augmented reality, or AR to those in the know, delivered through printed QR codes. In the US the film linked up with mobile phone provider LG to give consumers a limited edition Iron Man comic book.

Recipients of the book held the QR code enabled front cover to a webcam and watched as an AR Iron Man helmet and body armour was created around their body. If they held the back cover of the book to a webcam it kick started a video game – players used the comic book as a joystick to dodge buildings and complete different stages of the game. The campaign was one of the most cutting edge uses of AR technology to date. (more…)

It’s one of the world’s fastest growing printing industries with a current market value of circa $12bn and a projected potential value of $20bn. While it may currently rank as the 12th biggest printing market globally it’s projected to leapfrog to 8th if the current growth curve continues.

As the figures show India is rapidly becoming a nation of printers and the adoption of printing technologies has married nicely with the nation’s famed entrepreneurial spirit to bring some interesting business concepts to the market.

The latest enterprising endeavour to catch the eye is a new ‘carvertising’ initiative. Christened ‘CASHurDRIVE’ (www.cashurdrive.com) this on-vehicle advertising venture links vehicle owners who are happy to display commercial campaigns on their vehicles with corporates who want to conduct eye-catching outdoor advertising campaigns above and beyond the typical bus shelter or billboard fodder.

Vehicle owners who sign up to CASHurDRIVE receive cash or petrol vouchers for displaying campaigns on their vehicles for three, six, nine or 12 month periods. At the end of the campaign the wrap is simply peeled off. (more…)

Launching an innovation into a market that has had the same choices for many years is bound to cause a stir.  In fact, the better the idea, the greater the reaction it will cause.

The launch of FESPA Americas challenges the traditional choices available to exhibitors and the wider regional print marketplace.

The good news is that, according to the FESPA Economy Survey 3 (a survey conducted by participants  at FESPA 2010 event in Munich), over 50% of the market thinks that the economy has recovered.  So we can now talk about growth again, and wide format digital printing offers the best potential for growth in the entire graphic arts marketplace.

Where there is growth, there is a need to connect.  And the best place to connect is at an event that unlocks new business.  FESPA Americas is all about ‘new’!  New event, new visitors and new opportunities for business.  And it isn’t just FESPA that thinks that an event in Orlando for the Americas region can create worthwhile opportunities.

JR Kraft runs a highly innovative business called buildasign.com in Austin, Texas.  He’s excited about FESPA running an event in the USA: “FESPA provides the Americas sign and graphic community with a new and fresh event.  I personally feel tired with the current choices I have and believe that a new event designed to do different things for different people is absolutely what we need.” (more…)

Let me sum up Fespa 2010, the recently concluded Federation of Europe Screen Printing Association’s bi-annual show by saying this…if you do not ever go to another show save your money and experience FESPA just once during your screen printing lifetime. They do a lot of smaller shows and every three years they do a huge show. The next smaller show is in Hamburg in May of 2011. It is a digital show but they will be having FespaFabric which will feature all types of garment decorating.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to be asked by Mark Vasilantone to work for 5 days at FESPA with the staff of Vastex International. And, it was five very busy days as customers filled the booth looking at equipment from start to finish.  I heard similar comments from other exhibitors about the traffic and also witnessed boothfuls of people gathering information on the latest trends.   This is truly an international show and it’s a pleasure to be able to talk to people from all over the world and get their perspective on the state of what is truly a global industry.

Attendees were treated to a first class educational program as Fresener’s Fabric (familiar name?) coordinated the efforts for the FESPA organizers.  The seminar I delivered on Discharge Printing was packed with the audience asking a myriad of questions both during and after the seminar.  For over 30 years Scott Fresener’s name as been associated with “education” thus putting hundreds and hundreds of printers into business and his organization of Fresener’s Fabric  proves why any organization is crazy for not utilizing his talents. (more…)

If you are reading this blog post you already know some of this but it bears scrutiny and maybe you can show it to your boss to help prove that you are not just wasting your time.

As James Matthews-Paul wrote earlier this week there are now more than 500 million active users of FaceBook and more than 75 million active users of Twitter. Social media is hot for B2B communications because companies around the world are looking for new ways to access customers and prospects in the most direct and relevant ways.

In the post-FESPA survey I wrote about previously we asked stakeholders in the wide format market a few questions about their use of social media, the answers to which I thought would be of interest The Wide Network. The first finding is that it is early, but not terribly early, in terms of the adoption or use of social media in the wide format world. There were four groups that responded to this survey, printers, equipment and supplies manufacturers, dealers, and “other” which includes members of the press, educators, and other industry consultants. Printers were among the least likely to indicate that they are presently using social media, but still, nearly 40% of those respondents reported that they are participating.

Personally I follow a lot of different printers, magazines, pundits, and companies in my ongoing efforts to stay current in the wide format market and I have see how many wide format printing companies typically use social media, here are some examples that could be relatively easy to implement. (more…)

FESPA 2010 was a reassuring moment of motivation for an industry which has undergone a wide range of subjective and objective questioning since the financial markets were plunged into cold water. Processes, suitability for purpose, variety of applications, the environmental challenge and the lack of young people in the industry are all subjects that need addressing, and FESPA’s mixture of debates, presentations, summits and seminars seemed purposed to do just that.

What FESPA does well, though, is to manage its size properly. The nature of a trade exhibition is that you never end up seeing all the people you wished to, nor all the new products, or indeed attending the horizon-expanding symposia on offer. If you stay for the duration there is easily enough to entertain you throughout, while single-day visitors will have time to reach all the companies they need to see, as well as dip into less familiar territories. The layout of the Munich Messe helped no end with its sensible structure and good facilities, as did easy access to both the airport and the city centre.

2010 was my first edition of the show without any particular agenda. Usually, as an industry editor, there is a long list of stakeholders to see and tick off and, inevitably, a couple of them are always left out. This time, though, my duties were split between gathering resources for my own freelance activities and Line 12’s PR clients, all of whom reported an exciting show with plenty of lead generation. (more…)

Following the awesome positivity that was literally brimming at FESPA in Munich, the temptation is to relax, celebrate and rejoice in the fact that optimism abounds and the bad times may have passed. We can all look forward to better times, the storm has calmed and we can now return to our old ways of doing things. Can’t we?

I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad news or pour water on your fire, because I feel more positive, optimistic and recharged after the greatest ever show I have worked on.

But for goodness sake ‘make hay whilst the sun shines!’ By this I mean we must seize the moment and make the most of a more positive outlook that is prevailing in our marketplace.

If you exhibited at FESPA 2010,  you must relentlessly follow up every positive conversation you had – if you visited FESPA 2010 and we inspired but you are now back into your normal routine, take those follow up calls from exhibitors who are likely to have something valuable for your business, or if you are a member of the printing media, shout about how awesome this market is! Perhaps some of the trends, insights and innovations that are coming into play for our market will reveal new opportunities for you! (more…)