Chris Anderson (Wired): some print is dead

At the Creativity World Forum I asked Chris Anderson about the future of print media. His answer that some print is dead balances the consumer interest on one hand and the print media characteristics on the other. Newspapers deliver news that is at least 10 hours old, the internet brings it instantaneously. Anderson believes that newspapers will therefore die. Weekly magazines will have a difficult time, monthly magazines have a stronger position. They can exploit the fact that readers are interested in analysis and depth and appreciate the general lay out of magazines. Anderson supported this with his own magazine Wired; stories in Wired are up to 8000 words and the design of graphs and pages add to the depth of the articles. Wired has tried to translate the same reading experience to the web but didn't succeed. Finally books offer a total immersion in the subject and therfore they will continue to exists.

Trace the forest source used for your book

Attention for sustainability is not any longer on top of the agenda of businesses and consumers. During a discussion I had today with Vanessa Biebel (PEFC chapter Belgium) and Evi De Waele (SGS - certification institute) the subject of traceability popped up. The initiatives of FSC and PEFC would be a lot more credible when businesses and consumers could trace the origins of the paper used for brochures, magazines or annual reports. Imagine image conscious companies like Volvo or The Body Shop produce annual reports or brochures that indicate exactly from which forest, in which country it has been produced. What if Apple could indicate from which sources their packaging has been produced? Traceability supports their environmental brand dimension as it signals the importance the company attaches to a sustainable world. Consumers will also get a better perspective on the role the paper industry plays in deforestation. It could counter the idea that the paper industry is the cause of the deforestation in the Amazon.
A quick online scan showed that various initiatives are taken to achieve traceability. The Indisputable Key is an example of an EU-supported initiative that focuses on traceability. Is the industry however motivated? Contrary to the food industry, there is no health issue at stake that moves the industry. I believe it's about the credibility, and at the end of the day the survival of the industry.

How to pimp your CFO.

Friday I presented to a group of marketers and printers invited by Xerox. Xerox promotes an application that transforms existing invoices and statements to effective and efficient marcom tools. Invoices have our full attention -direct marketers would love to achieve that with their mailings- and consumers spent a couple of minutes checking it each time. However the invoice is "owned by the financial department", not by the marketers. Marketers therefore need to convince financial staff to include marketing messages and to tackle IT hurdles, privacy requirements, customer profile definitions, print production assesments, designer requirements and above all work with all these departments in unison. Xerox recently announced a co-operation with the Belgian Post to evaluate mailings including testing these kind of projects.

Thirty years of Dutch digital natives media consumption

Dutch digital natives display an astonishing shift in media consumption based upon time serie data. The data indicate an increase in total time spent with media, but a decrease of print media, radio and music and television. Time spent with internet is almost the same as with television. These data confirm what we probably have guessed to be the situation. And also calls for an industry-wide reaction.

Usability research for newspapers and magazines?

Thursday I was invited by Annita Beysen at the first anniversary of U-sentric. The event included a presentation from well-known designer Justin Knecht from the Centre for Design Innovation . He did an inspiring presentation on usability research. Observing and involving users and becoming yourself a user is a different way of understanding the dynamics of consumer behaviour. Users will do things they will never tell you, therefore observing them provides new insights. Maybe it's time for the print industry to take a closer look at the print consumer experience with the use of usability That might learn us more about how to keep readers on board.

What kind words of Oprah can do...

Recommendations are key to consumer choice. Oprah Winfrey has proven so with her Book club. She has most certainly been driving the choice of what Americans are reading. Now she has also said some nice words about the Amazon Kindle - the e-reader. When Oprah says "I'm telling you, it's absolutely my new favourite thing in the world", watch what's happening. Adage provides an overview of what happened after she gave this praise on October 24.

Fourth quarter, credit crises and more bad news

The circulation figures of the USA newspapers show a decline of almost 5% in 2008 compared to the first six months in 2007. Only USA Today and The Wall Street Journal remained almost unchanged. The decline coincides with news about lay offs of newsroom staff, closing down of newspapers, increased use of e-books announced at the Frankfurter Buchmesse and the deal Google made over the digitisation of libraries worldwide.

The news gathering and news dissemination is at stake. Customers still read the news, but more do so online, and (almost all) for free. Advertising revenues for the printed newspaper decline as fast as the Dow Jones, so how to pay the news makers. A new business model is required, soon.

Traditional and new media winners in Brussels

Today I went to the award ceremony of the Enterprise of the Year of Ernst & Young. The winner of this award and of the Flemish award for the most talented company proved to be two antipoles: CartaMundi was the winner of the serious Enterprise of the Year award and Netlog was chosen the most talented company. CartaMundi is a world leader in the production of all kinds of playing cards, cards used in Las Vegas or Pokemon cards collected by kids. Netlog is the Belgian-based European leader in social networking. Both represent social networking: the traditional and the new way. Social networking for the digital immigrants and for digital natives.

Use less paper - by Xerox

Yesterday Xerox Belgium organised an event titled Paperless Attitude. Almost 400 people representing end users, printers, creative people and service providers attended the session. Xerox presented various ways how their machines can help to manage paper use and paper flows. Pierre Collette, head of communications, told his audience that 80% of all printed documents have a life time of less than 24 hours! Being more conscious about the use of paper should therefore certainly be on everybody's agenda. But a lot more needs to be done to achieve this paperless attitude.

Future of print media perspective

Last week I presented a Future Perspective on Print Media to a group of Dutch advertising and graphic professionals, all of them clients of Spijker and Scaldia. As always happens with this presentation there was a lot of interaction and discussion. On one point we all agreed: innovation is key for print media to maintain its current position. The Esquire cover was seen as an innovation and a way for magazines to attract readers. When magazines do so these impressive machines can continue producing fine paper.

Newspaper sales in perspective

Erwin Busselot from Kodak forwarded me a slide that puts the news (see post of September 7) about declining sales of newspapers in more perspective. This slide - although from 2007 - shows the difference in evolution between the continents.


Ww Np Sales

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Magazines offense

This week marks the Magazine Week in the UK featuring a "buy one, get one half price" promotion, a poll on Britain's favourite cover and various promotional activities in retail stores. The theme of the PPA is "Indulge your passion.. try another magazine today". For the advertisers and media agency there are plenty of facts that support the strong position of magazines: consumers spend ₤ 2 billion on magazines each year, more of the internet generation read consumer magazines than any other age group, average reading time of a magazine is 50 min. and a magazine is picked up 5.4 times before it is finished with. I'm wondering whether the consumer and b2b sides of this campaign are compelling and unique enough to be convincing.
In the US the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) also launched a B2B campaign titled "Under the influence of magazines". This campaign consists of magazine ads, online ads and a website and is directed at the marketers and advertising agency industry. Key message is the sales impact magazines have. A separate website covers the research that supports this claim. The US magazine market also shows a decline in the number of ads placed. Over the first half of 2008 the decline was 7.4%. The initiative comes just a couple of days prior the the annual magazine conference titled Unleash the Power.
Claiming results to sell media space is also the message of online advertising and was the message of TV advertising. Despite the convincing facts it remains uncertain whether magazines will become HOT again among planners and advertisers thanks to this $ 1 million campaign.

Mythbusters

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Audi again winner of Euro Effie and Sappi Award

This week I went to the Euro Effie awards in Brussels. At a ceremony that was not as well organised as other years, Audi was again awarded with the Sappi Print Media Efficiency Award. The company introduced the highly successful R8 model with an integrated campaign consisting of approximately 45% print media. Audi used magazines, newspapers, outdoor posters, direct mail and POS material in conjunction with a dedicated website and television. The campaign made the R8 the most desirable sportscar in Europe and almost closed the gap in new car registrations with the longstanding No.1 sportscar Porsche. With these results the campaign also won a Bronze Euro Effie. Grey EMEA was for the fourth time in a row awarded Agency of the Year. This year thanks to Effies for P&G, GlaxoSmithKline and Coca Cola. Carolyne Carter and her men were exhilarated.

Esquire uses e-ink for spectacular anniversary issue

To commemorate Esquire's 75 anniversary the magazine has published a limited edition October issue using so-called electronic ink on the cover. This allows moving words and flashing images on the cover. The technology behind this remarkable cover is a thin sheet with electronics, fueled by a battery, that bends with the cover. Esquire mentions in an article in the magazine that it took them more than a year of serious development and innovations in the production of the magazine. In the meantime it invites hackers to work with the electronics. Ford's advertisement at the inside cover also uses the e-ink to make the car reflecting the street lights. As the magazine is produced at limited quantities the collectors value is big, eBay prices range from $14,99 to $99,99 for a single copy. (I've ordered mine with a good friend in New York).

Sustainable print

A dedicated report on the most important issues related to sustainability of the paper industry was published this week by the Print City Alliance. The report, "Sustainability, Energy & Environment", covers subjects such as the printed ecosystem, greenhouse gases, energy efficiency and the Kyoto norms. Print City is a strategic Alliance that shares worldwide expertise in the graphics arts industry. The report can be obtained for free via Print City shop.

"TV advertising cheaper than at any point in 20 years"

This is a quote from Screen Digest, a media analysts company covering global media developments. Their perspective of television advertising expenditures is negative: although TV audiences are still growing, revenues are falling because demand is flat. ITV in the UK and TF1 in France are projecting a 3% drop in revenues for this year, and also Spanish broadcasters Telecinco and Antena3 show a sharp decline. Screen Digest is expecting this month to show the strong effects of the recession.
With all the research available on the lack of attention to television advertising, it is still striking to notice that marketers continue to invest in a medium that has lost its original impact.

Confirming the bad news about newspapers

I saw a graph in Wired confirming what so many analysts have already been suggesting: the collapse of newspaper advertising revenues in the USA. The Newspaper Association of America presented figures that indicate a loss of $3 billion (- 14%) of ad expenditures during the first six months of 2008. Total revenues for 2008 are expected to be below $ 40 billion, which is the lowest level in 12 years. Also online expenditures were down: - 2,3% in the second quarter, but showed an increase of 2.3% over the first six months.
(Chart: Alan Mutter)

CMO's promote IOD's (?)

New words and acronyms are regularly added to our marketing jargon: individualised offer delivery (IOD) is one of the latest. This term is used to refer to Transpromo; the integration of promotional offers on statements and bills. In the USA, Transpromo is getting a lot of attention from various parties. However it requires a serious investigation of organisational structures, IT structures, costs of accounting and marketing workflows. Because of the impact of Transpromo the US-based Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council has launched an initiative to identify best practices called Precision Promotion: Timely, Targeted and Trackable.
I'm currently involved in a project on Transpromo and experience that this initiative is exactly what is required. This is the first time I read about a marketing organisation investigating and promoting the use a specific marketing communication tool. A truly great initiative.
Introducing Transpromo will not happen on a managers level, it will need full support from the top of that organisation. CMO Council represents global operating companies like AT&T, Google, CSC, Boston Consulting Group and others with a total membership of 3.500 in 52 countries. The Precision Promotion initiative from CMO Council is sponsored by a major supplier - Infoprint Solutions Ricoh | IBM - and plans to present at the CMO Summit in December a report on the results of a 25-point marketing audit.

Selling Magazines

I invited Thomas Stickelmaier from Time Magazine to present the recent Magazine Experience survey to Sappi Europe. Although the presentation provides many convincing arguments to continue using magazines in the media mix, the presentation felt short of assuring the audience of the future of magazines. The presentation did not provide an unbiased view of magazines nor did it provide further details on -for example- the role of magazines for younger readers. I believe that promoting the use of print media will only be successful when an objective view is provided, including shortcomings of print media. Below you can view the European and the US survey.

Time Magazine Experiences

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Time Magazine Experiences Usa 2007

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Red Dot Award

I went through the results of these design awards, and found some beautifully designed ads. Like this one for Oryza rice, using an intriguing landscape to communicate rice recipes. The Suddeutsche Zeitung, uses the analogy of tree rings to refer to the year-in-review issue.

The humble role of advertising?

I sat in a presentation some weeks ago about the effectiveness of newspapers. InBev, BrandScience and Nielsen presented their findings on the ROI of newspaper advertising. All of them used econometric models to demonstrate the value of newspapers (otherwise they would not have been invited to do their presentation). The presentation pointed out some stimulating data. BrandScience used a database of 200 cases including newspaper campaigns, the average Revenue Return on Investment ranked as follows: inserts topped the list followed by newspapers, magazines, radio, online, direct mail, outdoor, television sponsorship and television.
A case study on the support for the Jupiler Blue brand showed also the superior ROI of the combination of newspaper and outdoor advertising. The result mentioned a poor 8,8 % - 9,8% contribution of advertising to total sales of the brand.
In driving back to the office I thought about two things: one, where does the creativity of the ads gets into the equation? What is the role of the Cannes Advertising Festival and all other creativity awards, when everything can be modelled without taking into account creativity. In a world of product parity, creativity and design can call for premium prices and consumer interest. And two, when advertising contributes less than 10% to total sales, is that because we do not spent enough time, money and energy on creativity and design? The jury of the Effie Awards will be able to judge whether we have used the right mix of econometric modelling and creativity. If not we probably should be more humble about our role as communication specialists.

Print media show slight decline in readership affluent.

EMS, the European-wide media study revealed last week the results of its latest survey. EMS researches the affluent and influential people in Europe and is a valuable balance to many single-media, single-country studies. The study confirms what so many individual surveys have indicated: print media are steady or slightly in decline. On average pan-regional titles were read by 25,3% of the EMS sample, which is a decline of 1.1% compared to last years figures. Individual titles had very little movements, with the free newspapers increasing their average issue readership (AIR).
The EMS survey makes a distinction between the Top 13% and Top 3% (EMS Select) in its sample. The more affluent the higher the readership for print and reach of television. AIR for pan-European (News and Business) print was at respectively 7.2% and 15,3%. Reach of pan-European TV (News and Business channels) was 42,7% for EMS and 53,8% for EMS Select. Next year digital usage will be added to the survey. This will offer an even more complete view of media consumption of this exclusive and influential group of people. Especially in B-to-B and corporate marketing this survey is relevant as C-suits (which are often the target audience in B-to-B) are among the target group of EMS.

Give away your e-book and sell more hard copy books?

Earlier this year I wrote about the correlation between the sales of e-books and hard copy books. The well-know New York Times technology columnist and "Missing Manuel Book" - writer David Pogue wrote in June an article on the this subject. His perspective has to do with copyright and pirated use of e-books and fits the discussion that creative work will sooner or later become freely available via the Internet. Paul Krugman wrote an interesting but much discussed article on this model already used by the Grateful Dead.
In considering free e-books Pogue refers to three possible relations that might exist: giving away e-books for free will boost sales of the print edition, selling e-books is the only legitimate way to buy electronic versions and e-books will kill income of printed books. Pogue refers to two interesting variables: the awareness of the author (less-known authors supposedly benefit more from the free exposure and attract new readers of the printed version), and the genre of the book (do you read science-fiction on a screen?). One of the people who reacted to the story was Kevin Kelly who suggested to have a test with one of Pogue's books. His prediction is that his e-books will not be duplicated as much as imaged and elevate, or at least not depress sales of the print version. Pogue's publishing company started the test this month and I'm curious to see whether the results will confirm what the National Academies Press concluded earlier this year.

Internet = hope and fear for newspapers

Newspapers are probably the biggest losers of the growth of the Internet. Advertisers shift to the cheaper and more accountable Internet advertising possibilities and readers value the speed and the interactivity of Internet news. Zenith Optimedia expects that by 2010 newspapers will take 23,7% of all ad spend (in 2006 this was 28,4%). By contrast, the Internet will represent 13,6% in 2010 (6,8% in 2006). Research among 250 newspapers in the USA shows the paradox newspapers are facing. The Internet offers them a platform to compete with television and radio in bringing video news and generate the related (lower) advertising revenues. On the other hand providing news for the Internet places heavy burdens on the quality of the journalistic work. Andrew Keen has written an excellent book on what he calls the Cult of the amateur. The web does not allow for in-depth, high quality news analysis. Integrating editorial teams for the paper and the web version of the newspaper has been the first step newspapers have taken. But the future of these already downsized teams depends on the capacity to attract advertising money for the web-based newspaper.
The contradiction in this situation is that Google, the exponent of the Internet, demonstrated the value of newspaper advertising in conjunction with Internet advertising. Media are connected: newspaper ads drive consumers to the web. The Google research showed the effectiveness of newspaper advertising but also the effectiveness of the combination: of those who researched a product they saw in the newspaper, 67% did so online.
Advertising budgets will continue to be in transition between the different media untill there is a new equilibrium. However I'm not expecting to happen to newspapers, what MTV believed to happen to radio when they aired at their launch the clip "Video killed the radio star".

Printing increases involvement in Euro 2008

I've been visiting two major events this month as you can see. Of course the opening match of The Netherlands against Italy was a glorious match. And the city of Bern was orange all over, business men dressed in orange suits, cyclists on orange bikes, young women dressed as orange farm girls and in between Italians. Canon, one of the sponsors of Euro 2008 and also a prominent exhibitor at DRUPA, did research that perfectly bridges Euro 2008 and DRUPA. Canon surveyed 4.500 European football fans to find that printing lists, TV scheduled and tournament statistics helped to follow the tournament closer. Over half (52%) of the supporters spend between 30 minutes and 5 hours searching and printing relevant information.
However nothing will beat the real-life experience as you will agree. Thank you Erik N. and Gianni I.

Consumers take time for magazines

Reading magazines is, for 22% of the respondents surveyed by Time Inc, regarded as "a gift to myself". A third of them take special time to read a magazine (45% of the C-suits do so). This research titled "Magazine Experiences" also shows that 96% of the respondents expect to read at least as many magazines in the next 12 months. The research presents evidence about media multi-tasking consumers: watching TV is hardly a unique activity, 38% of viewers are at the same time online. The effectiveness of TV is already questionable but these figures put also sole attention to television in a different perspective.
I have not yet read the full research, as soon as it is available I'll include the link.

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%.

Steve Ballmer: print to disappear

I was invited by Kris Decoodt last week to Microsoft's Digital Inspiration event in Louvain-la-Neuve. Microsoft wanted to brief brand owners, creative and media agencies and programmers on the latest developments at Microsoft. I sat in a session specifically designed for agencies, but was somewhat disappointed. There was some interesting research about the use of online media and its function. On the basis of worldwide research among 400 respondents Microsoft deducted that 19 percent of all time spent with media is spent online. And almost 40 percent of this is used for communication, 18 percent for information, 16 percent for entertainment, surfing, transaction and creation all score less than 10 percent. The flaw on online media is the shared attention: 71 percent of online activities are conducted while people are doing other things. Internet access is interwoven with working, eating, watching TV, listening to music or chatting to friends as the report mentions.
Some interesting examples on online advertising were shown by David Pugh-Jones. A couple of these examples uses the Q-code or UpCode. This code gives access to more detailed information when captured with a mobile phone. A year ago I wrote about this application in Life with Print, and at the DRUPA it will also be featured.
The number one sensation was of course Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO. The Aula Magna of the University was packed with Microsoft believers, what became quickly clear when Steve B. made some jokes. He presented an interesting overview of which business Microsoft is in (its basically a software company, working for desktop and enterprises, is involved in non-PC devices and online advertising). With a goal of being on every desk and in every home. His most important quote was that content and communication media will come together and that we will consume content in a more social context. Video can be watched on different screens, be it a TV, a computer, and iPod or a game console. Barriers between the media will disappear and content will be exchangeable between these media. In this context Steve B., as he refers to himself, also announced that in 25 years time people will not make a distinction between print and TV. I would be interested in Rupert Murdoch's perspective on this.
(Picture:Bert Claeys)

Only thirty two days to go..

Fiat starts the Dutch - German football match already in the German press with this ad. It will be a hot summer!

Forty percent less budget, same effect

Kobalt presented research that indicates that brand owners can do with 40 percent less media budget while still obtaining the same result. With the analysis of data of thousand + campaigns the media agency concludes that cutting away the waste and advertise in a more selective way will result in a decrease of the TV budget of 5-20 percent. The online and radio budget can decrease with 10-20 percent and outdoor even up till 40 percent. Print is already very selective, cost can only be reduced by 5-10 percent. Managing Director Beijer of Kobalt adds that for FMCG's 76 percent of the total effect is derived from only 23 percent of the media target group. Time to make bold changes, but the marketing and advertising world is slow. And of course this piece of research calls for other research to confirm such dramatic changes.
Maybe another figure will make marketers and advertisers change their mind. Also in The Netherlands the number of "No Brochures" mailbox stickers has increased dramatically. Last year 14.6 percent of all Dutchmen did have such a sticker, an increase of almost 10 percent. On average every family receives 34 brochures and folders per week. Consumers are probably reacting on the overload of brochures, folders, flyers and door-to-door newspapers.
Both pieces of research call for a more personalised approach. This will probably be more expensive per contact, but also more effective because more relevant. Today's media options offer plenty of possibilities to become more personal in advertising.

Books take flight

This month much has been written about books. Most recently Amsterdam was announced the World Book Capital by UNESCO. The city thrives on a long history of freedom of expression since the start of the first book printer in 1506. Because of this freedom of expression and the fact that guilds were in that time open to foreigners Amsterdam became the center of books. Today for every 4.000 residents of the city there is one bookshop. The Amsterdam World Book Capital theme is therefore Open Book, using icons as Spinoza, Anne Frank and Annie M.G. Schmidt.
The city also hosts a beautiful exposition of 3.500 posters on how books have been promoted during the years. Worthwhile a visit.
A unique partnership between publishing houses, libraries and booksellers stimulates readership in The Netherlands. One of the activities is the Book Week. Since 1932 this event is organised, resulting in handing out a total of 25 mio free books. Last month during the Book Week 960.000 free books were handed out.
Despite the surge of the internet, books are selling well. In Flanders sales in 2007 increased with 8 percent, resulting in a total sales of 11 mio books. On average every family bought 4 books in 2007. (In the Netherlands this figure is 6,4 books). In the UK sales of books increased with 9 percent. The biggest increase was among the new titles published in 2007, 36 percent more titles came to market, more than ever before. And as Nielsen states Print-on-Demand is driving this growth, proving the Long Tail.

New campaign The Guardian

A beautifully designed campaign with a quality message for this leading UK newspaper by Wieden & Kennedy.

Wake-up call paper industry

Papyrus organised this week in Brussels an evening program on the future of print. Creative minds, printers and brand owners gathered to listen to presentations from a Hendrik Kaa Andersen (Arjowiggins), Erik Kessels (KesselsKramer), Richard Owers (Pureprint Group), Pierre Bernard (Atelier de Creation Graphique) and Oliver Salge (Greenpeace). The overriding theme of the evening was the growing importance of sustainable business. An increasing number of brand owners include paper specifications for their print work. Printers start to produce in compliance with the ISO 14001 norm. And paper manufacturers produce paper that is FSC and PEFC certified. The need for sustainable forestry was clearly demonstrated by Oliver Salge. Although he prefers of course no use at all of paper. Inviting him to a paper conference was daring, but during the drink after the presentations it became clear that the participants much appreciated his presentation. It remains of course difficult for brand owners and printers to define proper action to limit the carbon footprint. Papyrus made a carbon offset for the paper presented in the handout. But that is no structural solution either.

Agfa introduces "paper" at DRUPA

Today Agfa held its pre-DRUPA press conference. It announced a new high-end wide-format digital printer, Anapurna XLS, besides many other hardware and software introductions. Probably the most surprising news is the announcement of a synthetic paper: Synaps. This is a polyester-based, synthetic paper for use in offset printing presses. It has a superior printability and an exceptionally fast drying time. The hyped book " Cradle to Cradle" (C2C) is also printed on this type of paper. It will be interesting to see whether this development will impact the market. The stock market in the meantime reacted positively to the product news which is good for the troubled company.

Need for accountability in marketing

At the recent ON DEMAND conference the US Direct Marketing Association (DMA), mentioned five key themes that will emerge in the next years. Some of these themes have been around, other will certainly gain interest.
1. It's a multi-channel world, no real news though, we all know that the age of commercials -broadcast on one TV station and reach 80% of the audience- are over.
2. It's a data-driven world, also no real news, but possibilities keep on increasing.
3. It's a personalised world that requires relevance and timing, these are interesting concepts that gain interest. For example personalised URL's (pURL) allow advertisers to become personal with their offer online as a response to a hard copy mailing.
4. It's a world of accountability, this is becoming center-stage as marketing ROI needs to be delivered. Plenty of companies are delivering solutions that integrate the creative, delivery, production, procurement, asset management and evaluation part of online and off-line media mailings and brochures. And these will help to boost the integration of online and off-line media.
5. It's good to be green, with the combination of digital print and multi-channel communication. I'm not yet convinced that the digital printing process is greener compared to traditional printing. However waste management for example is becoming an issue for high volume printing and digital printing might therefore be a solution.

Kodak defines "business of marketing"

"Marketing is the neural system of the company, and the critical business function", says Kevin Joyce, the new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Kodak Graphic Communication Group. He puts marketing at the center of the company and underlines its role of creating value. He sees a clear task for Kodak and the entire industry to move upstream and to help customers to understand the role of print and to advice on how best to leverage print. The focus on the business of marketing will help Kodak to change the perception of producing a commodity. An interview with Joyce reads like an interview with a marketer from a FMCG company.
Next to the output devices as the Speedmasters, Kodak will put more emphasis on workflow tools that provide productivity and revenues. Key in this strategy is the capability of Kodak to get respect and gain credibility for its position as a service provider.
This is not an easy tasks as plenty of other players fulfill this role today. Initiatives as Print Sells and Sappi's Life with Print also promote the use of print media by the advertising industry and are changing the way the industry talks with its main clients.

Indicators of "Green" Drupa

Océ announced the launch of the "Green Reprographer of the Year" Award. Winners will be announced just two weeks prior to the start of DRUPA. The US branch of Océ Wide Format Printing Systems invites print-for-pay reprographers to enter this competition that rewards the use of products and services that reduce the impact on the environment and employee programs supporting environmental conservation.

Postal news

Postal services are well covered in the news. However not always in a positive way. The Washington Post wrote about a threat in the USA: do-not mail lists that are pending approval in 18 states. As the figures demonstrate, standard mail (advertising flyers, catalogues, fundraising letters, etc) is soaring: from 101 billion items in 2005 to 104 billion in 2007. (The impact of email and electronic billing is clear from the decline in first class mail: in 2004 98 billion items to 96 in 2007). The increase in standard mail has caused the consumer reaction to create do-not mail lists. The US Post fears the impact of this decision and forecast already an operational deficit of $ 1 billion.
Recently Royal Mail announced that between 1997 and 2007 the total number of mail items did increase from 25 billion to 30,66 billion. Growth is explained by the volume of invoices and statements, for example of mobile companies.
The Dutch Postal Services (TNT) were also in the news as they announced closing down the remaining 250 post offices. Postal services are provided via a total of 2500 retail points, and dedicated post offices do not longer fit into the retail strategy of TNT. Traditional post offices will probably get alternative destinations, like churches have over the last years also become libraries, ad agencies and apartments.

Google to take lead in media integration

Google announced it will introduce a broad new strategy that will help advertising agencies to plan, buy and manage all types of media. At the AAAA Media Conference, Google's advertising and commerce president Tim Armstrong announced that Google will enable media planners to manage mixes of off-line ad online media. This so-called "Dashboard" will automate a difficult task for today's planners and buyers.
It is striking to notice that a company that started to influence the entire media scene only a few years ago, is now taking the high ground in this most-discussed subject. The discussion is not only about comparable measurement of online advertising but also about the dominant role of media agencies vs. creative agencies. And Google obviously want to play a role in this latter discussion as well.

Creativity the new driver of the economy?

Countries start to understand the importance of the creative industry. Richard Florida's book on the Creative Class did motivate the Flemish government to launch Flanders DC. This initiative inspires companies to integrate creativity in their business.
The Dutch Association of Designers (BNO) is supported by the Ministry of Economic Affairs in its activities to promote Dutch design abroad. Visits and presentations are done in various countries to present the specifics of Dutch design.
The British government launched a program to support the creative industry, that accounts for 7,3% of the GDP and employs over 2 million. As the sector has grown twice as fast as the rate of the economy the government is eager to capitalise on the sector. The creative industry should become mainstream of economic and policy thinking and should start with providing children creative education. Many other activities should lead to the position of Britain becoming the creative hub for the world.

Wanted: online identity thieves

It becomes increasingly important to protect your corporate brand online. McAfee (a security software company) calculated that there are 1,9 million registered variations on 2771 most popular domain names. These variations are based upon small typing errors (typo's). Google for example had a number of variations of its brand name online: googkle.com, ghoogle.com and gooigle.com This technique called typosquatting makes fraudulent use of the well known company and can create a false and wrong image of the company. Typosquatting sites piggyback on the popularity of the heavily trafficked website and refer to porn sites, include gambling links or worse infect computers with viruses. What can happen to your brand is illustrated when you type www.microsoft.cm You will enter an election site of Barack Obama! A questionable technique of a Presidents candidate. The Republic of Cameroon -with 10.000 people online- and with the suffix cm understands that it can earn money from people mistyping. It now sells it cm suffix to companies and organisations outside of Cameroon that want to benefit from typo's.
Protecting the online brand and controlling the content of the online brand continues to be a challenge to brand owners.

Information stress reduction tools

I was reading about life hacking (programmers productivity tricks) the other day and that made me think of the way we select, process and memorise information. It seems to me that the abundance of information on the Internet suggests the illusion that we can know and learn everything. However because of the enormous amount of information that is scattered over the Internet we will never be able to maximalise our know-how. What is lacking are these life hacks that help us to select and collect the most relevant information. Search engines help us to identify the articles, images or video on the net, but we still have to rank them in terms of importance, credibility and accuracy. Most of us do not have the time for that.
Therefore consumers and businesses rely on editors to select the information. The continuous increase of the number of magazine titles demonstrates that consumers value editors that can put together information relevant for specific segments. And it is the credibility of the magazine or newspaper brand that is the reason to believe the information.
Online consumers and businesses develop other tools: lists, social networks and referrals are the new tools to select and optimise their information need. I believe that the need for editors will continue to exist and that they can help reducing the information stress related to the information overload.

Second life for books

Quite some librarians have been dreaming of a World Library System. Organising all books in all libraries so that they would become accessible for everybody. This dream may come it bit closer to reality with the Google Books project. Google has agreements with several libraries in the USA, Japan and Europe to scan entire collections. Google will make all of these books searchable by word and will make it possible to link words or events with Google Maps.

The Bodleian Library of Oxford University for example contains 11 million books and each year the collection grows with 3 to 4 kilometer of book racks. Opening-up these huge collections via electronic versions, will learn us a lot more about the our history. Come the questions of copyright, and the commercial ownership of what is today in the public domain. Most of the libraries objective is to reach a broad as possible readership, but will that objective prevail on these questions?
One point divides then though; scanning is a time-consuming and therefore expensive task. Of older books every page need to be turned by hand before a picture can be taken. (The Dutch use an even more laborious system: they have Philippine ladies retype entire books as that is more reliable than current OCR technology). Sheetfeeding a scanner will be a lot cheaper (€10) than scanning by hand (€ 150) but would need books to be cut apart and thus destroyed. Book lovers will hate the idea as they appreciate much more than the content of the book. The paper used, the type of binding, the spine, the feel and the smell of the book is part of the reading experience. Will libraries allow this to happen, even when they to have to sacrifice a second copy of a book? Will learning the world win out cultural heritage? To be continued online and in your book store.

Selling books and PDF's with a profit

The US-based National Academies Press won the prestigious ISMS Prize at Wharton University. The publisher developed a model that took advantage of the growing number of orders for electronic books. Research showed that 65%-70% of visitors of the website came to view only one page. Visitors were split into online shoppers and buyers of a printed book opposed to who were browsing books that had a PDF version available. They determined that selling the electronic version of a book at 75% of the print price would generate the highest profit. With the book price at the same level and a bundle of print + electronic at an 18% mark-up, total sales rose by 10% (and web sales by 14,4%). In the meantime the electronic books sell at 85% of the print price demonstrating the success of the model.