Sappi launches fourth booklet in serie Life with Print

Sappi Europe introduced in Beijing "Corporate Communications in the media mix" at the annual worldwide Conference of the Reputation Institute. The booklet highlights developments that are on companies' agendas these days. As companies are under increasing scrutiny of consumers, stakeholders and the like, corporate behaviour and managing reputation becomes of major importance. The booklet deals with the various tools companies have to convey their corporate image, with the technique of storytelling, the use of spindoctors and the importance of design. It also shows prize-winning cases and interviews with leading people like Wally Olins. The booklet can be obtained via Sappi. My agency Frysk has produced the entire serie of booklets, that are distributed worldwide and received with great interests from marketers and advertising specialists.

Digital printing and printed electronics at DRUPA

When visiting DRUPA I was struck by the importance of digital printing. Huge booths from HP, Canon, Xerox, Agfa and Kodak underlined the growing potential of digital printing. I recently read a report about printing documents. In four years time 81% of all documents will still be printed, of which 15% in colour. Nineteen percent of all printed documents will be replaced by electronic versions in 2012. And consumers will have an additional 31% of electronic documents.

Sappi showed an interesting new application of paper: via the use of a printed code visitors could download on their mobile phone a song from the Belgian singer Natalia. This UpCode has to be captured with the camera of a mobile phone to allow the download. My agency Frysk created this application that can help advertisers to increase their print medium return on investment. The London Guide, Yellow Pages, Visa and real estate companies are current users of this system. Print City showed many other applications of enriched paper that might grow the potential use of paper as a medium.

Philip Parker, author of 86.000 books

I read a stunning article about Philip Parker, a French marketing professor at INSEAD, who assembles complete books on the Internet. The 2007-2012 outlook for tufted hardbacked non-washable accent and area rugs that measure 6-feet by 9-feet or smaller in India, is one of the titles on his website. His has written a computer program that automatically generates books from rights-free copy on the Internet. After some cutting and pasting he is able to prepare a "book" on a great variety of subjects. The books, available on Amazon.com, are sold at prices ranging from $ 20 - $ 795. This technique reminds me of what I've read in Andrew Keen, The cult of the amateur. He writes about the idea suggested by Kevin Kelly to have all books digitalised and interconnected to obtain a liquid version of a book. Surfers can than annotate, cut and paste parts of this liquid book. Great news for students, but what is the value of an expert?

Advertising and media represent 52,9 % of agency revenues

Advertising Age reports that in 2007 the advertising and media agencies in the US reported a 8,6 percent increase in revenues. Of all activities digital services showed the biggest increase: 26,8 percent compared to 2006. Digital services are changing the agency revenue streams quite dramatically: today its revenue represent almost as much as direct marketing and more than public relations, healthcare or promotional revenues. Advertising spending on digital media explains the growth of media agencies. Group M (WPP), the world largest media group, increased its worldwide digital revenues with 53%.