Smart and bright future of print!
Consumerism, an increase in global populations, the effects of the internet and e-commerce – all of
these developments are impacting our world, changing forecasts for the future and
having a huge impact on the evolution and survival of print. Consumers are reaching
out to purchase the latest products in consumables, pharmaceuticals and decoration.
The drive for goods with desirability, branding and quality is impacting the industrial,
packaging and print industries. The upsurge interest in 3D printing, printed electronics,
RFID, coding and mobile applications is taking the concept of communication into a new
space. Here Gareth Ward offers his view on the future of print. According to Gareth, we
need to embrace the trends and all the developments related to our world.
We also need to face the challenges and use our creativity.
The future of print is here today – we
can touch and grasp it with both
hands… at drupa 2016!
Smarter print to market
The successful printer of the future will
deliver customers a full service offering that
extends well beyond printing and finishing.
The exact mix of digital communications,
value-added print, data manipulation and
logistics will depend on the customer base
and how the printer positions himself, or
perhaps how he forms partnerships with
others with expertise in these areas. But
what is going to make print a successful
communication medium in the next decade
is already clear: print has to be relevant.
This was not necessary when print was the
prime channel for advertising, information,
communication with government and
so on. Much of this mundane printing
has transferred to digital and will never
come back, but print is not shrinking. It
is evolving into something smarter, more
versatile and above all more relevant to
those who receive it.
If a printer is not part of this development,
the only option is to sell print services as
cheaply as possible and this is no way to
build for the future nor to create enduring
partnerships with customers. Unfortunately
there are many printers that lead with price
and face the same inevitable fate as the
wooly mammoth: extinction.
IT drives print relevance
Tomorrow’s printers must become as
comfortable with IT as they are with offset
litho. That can stretch from operating a
website to harvest jobs, to creating automated
workflows that minimise touch points where
errors can be identified, using management
systems - MIS to record and present up
to the minute details of how a company
is performing through to data handling to
create personalised communications for
customers to talk to their customers in
the most relevant way. If that means using
social media alongside print, the new print
house has to deliver.
The problem here is that printers continue
to prefer to invest in a new printing press
rather than in IT. It is as if the press is
tangible and understandable. If it runs at
18,000 sph (and machines at drupa 2016
are likely to hit 20,000 sph) this is 20-30
percent faster than their current machine, so
must make sense. But few give due thought
to how jobs are to be processed either
before reaching the press, or once printed.
Across the globe, print runs are falling and
time allotted is shrinking. A faster press
magnifies the problem of handling more
jobs in less time without introducing errors.
In addition, very few consider training
for their staff to be an investment rather
than an imposition.
The first drupa ‘Global Insights Report’
published in October 2014 highlighted this:
“Only 23 percent of the drupa expert panel
report an increase in IT spend in the last
five years, and virtually all decision makers
stated a lack of IT specialists. This is a
major challenge for printers,” says Sabine
Geldermann, director of drupa 2016.
IT knowledge is key for automation at the
process level. Those supplying software
to the industry take it as read that JDF
compliance is essential. Workflows have
to become more sophisticated. Producing
an eight page section on standard paper is
simple, but tomorrow’s customers will want
something far more than this. They will
want their printed products to stand out, to
have the impact to cut through the
thousands of marketing messages that
are received each day.
drupa president and CEO of KBA Claus
Bolza-Schünemann predicts, “In some years
from now there will be fewer printing
companies but they will be larger and more
industrial with a broad service range. In
the commercial sector printers will turn
into marketing service providers for print
and online services.”
“The connection between print, online
and mobile activities will grow stronger,”
he says.
The transition is in its infancy. A well
known commentator on advertising and
the internet pointed out last year that
consumers spend vast amounts of time with
their smartphones, but these only take a
small proportion of the overall marketing
spend, whereas the fast shrinking newspaper
sector receives a disproportionate amount
of advertising spend. One must shrink its
share while the other grows – unless the
newspaper becomes more relevant to its
reader. This means hyper local sections,
printed digitally with targeted advertising.
Revalidating print in a
digital world
The same can be noticed in magazines
where the mass circulation titles that
used to be printed by gravure are losing
circulation while magazines that focus on the
special interests of readers remain healthier.
There will be fluctuations across national
boundaries and as fashions change, but the
magazines that focus on this sort of readers
will not be displaced by digital delivery of
content because reading a magazine is so
much more than the information presented.
A decade ago it was predicted that with the
growth of the internet, video on demand
and the ability to interact with websites,
fashion magazines might disappear because
websites can show clothes being worn,
have links to prices and instant ordering.
But fashion magazines are stronger than
ever because possession of Vogue makes
a statement about the women carrying it.
Online fashion websites like ASOS and
Pret-a-porter have launched printed
magazines because of this phenomenon.
The doomsayers who predicted the same
fate for catalogues have also been thwarted
by human nature. We like to browse a
catalogue or holiday brochure. They spark
our imagination in a way that digital fails
to do. And retailers that either exist only
online or else which dropped their print
catalogues are returning to print to remind
customers to visit their websites to complete
a purchase. If online shopping is going to
grow, (though it remains only a relatively
small share of consumer spending even in
the industrialised countries) more and more
print is going to be needed.
But it is not going to be the same sort of
print as of old. Why send someone who
always takes a vacation in Mexico details
of holidays in Canada, for example? Instead
the holiday company, with the help of the
printer, can tailor a brochure that features
the best hotels and resorts in Mexico. It
will be a smaller publication with a shorter
production run, but production standards
can be higher in terms of print, paper and
personalisation.
The printer must be ready to deliver this
to his customers. It means investment in
technology that can cope with shorter
print runs. It means the ability to print on
uncoated papers which are popular because
of their tactile qualities, and this can be
addressed through the new UV technologies
that are spreading through the industry. It
means being able to enhance the printed
product using varnish, foils, raised print
effects, die cutting and other processes that
enhance the value of the printed product
and make it more exciting and engaging
to the consumer.
This can involve the inclusion of printed
electronic circuitry to turn a printed page
in a book or magazine into a loudspeaker
to tell a story, the dashboard of a car
which comes alive when various buttons
and switches are activated, a printed label
which can light up when a sensor detects
movement.
Embedded codes within the printed page are
scannable by smartphones to unlock digital
information for the consumer, perhaps an
offer to be redeemed in a certain store or
restaurant, while providing the company
making the offer with information about
who has scanned the code, where and when.
The printed poster or advertisement acquires
a measurable value because it proved to
be relevant to that consumer at that time.
Marketing innovation
The sorts of high quality prints and finishing
effects that sell the premium bottles of
spirits are finding their way to other types
of packaging, especially as the movement
for artisan produced goods gathers pace.
While overall volumes are small, the
value of the printed pack is that much
more important. And the printer can have
far more influence on the quality than the
company working for global brands with
extensive product marketing teams forcing
printers to toe the line.
However, even these global companies must
become more flexible in order to match
society’s craving for innovation and novelty.
It means that printed packaging becomes a
major marketing tool, consider the impact
that ‘Share a Coke’ has had, for example.
The printer must be able to help cut the
time to market for new products, either
through automated workflows or perhaps
by also taking on prototype creation using
3D printing technology.
There is room too for using the new
inkjet technologies by printing directly to
the bottle or package itself, what is called
‘direct to shape’ printing. The printing
system becomes part of the bottling or
packing line and rather than printing and
delivering labels, the print company’s task
becomes managing this new technology and
establishing a new workflow.
It is going to require a whole new approach
to marketing what a printer is and can do,
and this is very much unknown territory for
many print service providers. The exceptions
are online printers that have grown rapidly
in recent years, sweeping away swathes of
small print businesses as they have done so.
But even these rarely lead on price; they
are selling convenience and ease of access
and that is down to constant marketing
and sponsorship to raise brand awareness.
Increasing the value
Printers should focus on benefits such as
personal service, same day printing, wide
choice of substrates, design, fulfilment and
so on. Even this requires marketing skills
that need to be developed.
The answer will be different depending
on the printing company, says Claus
Bolza-Schünemann, “Every printing house
knows its customers and its strengths best.
Therefore, it is of little help to simply
copy the recipe for success of others. If
every company offered the same this would
automatically lead to over abundance in the
market with the familiar consequences.”
“Large trade fairs, such as drupa, offer
good chances to find out more about new
technologies and future-focused business
models and the appropriate path for a
company,” says Claus Bolza-Schünemann.
Alon Bar-Shany, vice president and general
manager of HP Indigo, agrees, “There is
pressure to commoditise, options for lower
quality and lower pricing, but that would
spell disaster for the industry. The opportunity
is for less pages but higher value ones.”
“Printers need first to acknowledge change
and then embrace it. The industry needs
to evangelise the inherent beauty and
effectiveness of print in today’s digital
world,” adds Alon.
Printing will remain at the heart of it,
but printers must become like project
managers, shepherding the different aspects
of the communication chain to achieve the
result that the customers want, reaching a
measurable return on investment. The focus
on reducing overheads in the end-to-end
supply chain has already transformed how
books are printed and distributed; digital
printing is starting to eat into packaging
for the same reason. It is not the cost of
producing an individual carton or label that
is important, it is the overall cost of wasted
materials and time in the supply chain that
is important. Printers need to expand their
thinking beyond the creation of the box.
For those companies that can do this, that
become engaged with their customers and
work together to find solutions that embrace
print at some level, the future is bright.
“Print can still create emotions and print
lasts, preserving moments and memories,”
says Alon.
Print is no longer the dumb sheet of paper
that is recycled in moments. The smart
printers are discovering this. Value now is a
‘function’ not of scarcity but of ‘relevance’.
EFI pre-announces new technology for drupa 2016
EFI, the worldwide leader in UV
and LED inkjet grayscale industrial
printers, is adding even more excitement to
superwide-format inkjet imaging by adding
50 shades of grayscale to its printers.
Under a new licensing agreement, EFI will
have the exclusive rights to 50 shades of
grayscale in inkjet technology. The company
expects to debut its first product at the drupa
2016 in Germany, giving printing companies
repressed by current limitations in printing
capabilities, the control they desire.
While grayscale has become an increasingly
important feature in digital inkjet performance,
no other industry technology provider is
expected to use more than 49 shades of
it. By hitting the 50 benchmark in its new
products, EFI can ensure that frustrated printing
professionals don’t get tied up by inefficiency
and waste. With this new technology, EFI
printers endowed with 50 shades of grayscale
will be able to print on an extended range
of substrates
– rough or
smooth, rigid
or flexible.
The new product line will also include a suite
of workflow solutions – the perfect offering
for superwide-format printing professionals
who have been curious about submission of
print jobs. Printing companies will be able to
address their production pain points, leveraging
the only printing workflow developed with an
intimate understanding of demand fulfillment.
“With this new launch, it doesn’t matter
if you are experienced or a first-timer; the
technologies EFI is developing will work
out the kinks so printing companies can
establish a position of dominance in the
markets they serve,” according to print
industry consultant Thomas Foolery. “This
new product line is a clear indicator that
EFI is determined to help its customers whip
their businesses into shape,” he concludes.
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