2013 Hot Print Markets: Food for Thought, Profit

The year 2013 need not represent an unlucky number for our medium. The no-real-growth and rising-inflation (or stagflation) economy will shake out many printers of the past and provide very substantial opportunities for forward-looking companies crossing over to omni-channel media. Yes, printing has been condensed into a mere channel, and a narrow one useful in but a few hot applications and combinations. Here, for the heroes, are the "who," "wheres" and "whats" for a clearly happy New Year in the cloud of new media.

At No. 1, packaged foods ($1.15T, +4 percent; with $17.8B to print, +11 percent) is the most appetizing place for print. The expensive, rented by the half-inch, shelf space in supermarkets and other retail outlets hungers for smart printing in-pack, on-pack, near-pack, in-aisle, on-cart, end-aisle, on-shelf, dangling down and topped with near-field QR codes, Augmented Reality and nano-propertied inks and substrates that wink, blink, bubble, scratch and talk. These motivate product purchases and, also in the cart, containers, lids, sleeves, bags, wrappers and labels that are two-thirds of this sector's print demand.

Highest-performing segments will be healthier snack foods; prepared, ready-to-eat entrées; and small-portion, baked goods/desserts. Kraft's recent spin-off, Mondelez, promises to "unleash a global snacking powerhouse " and Campbell's Go soups in soft pouches are among several hundred totally new brand and packaging launches— most drawn from global cuisines.

If food print doesn't fill the pressroom, check out No. 6-ranked beverages ($499B, +6 percent; with $10.9B to print, +2 percent) and No. 15-ranked food services ($827B, +3 percent; with $5.9B to print, +5 percent).

Refreshing new packaging shaken and stirred with stand-out point-of-sale will pop in '13. Honest Kids is one of eight new lines of exotically enhanced, wrapped and labeled juice drinks/teas/waters hitting the shelves and sitting atop mass-merchandise displays. Sponsorship and event print are soaring, or diving as with Red Bull's recent extreme-skydiving spectacle. The energy drink giant is introducing three new brands along with a mobile, social interactive, AR racing game where the printed can directs the action.

Need a stronger drink? Wines, beers and spirits will mix well with posters, signage, decals, souvenir programs, collectible cards, outdoor/transit and imprinted "wearables." Tie-ins with limited-edition, crafted offerings will come with personalized labels and salutations from their winemakers and brew-masters thanks to VDP.

Out-of-home dining and drinking will come with a "side" of cross-media entertainment and wonder. A video, movie trailer or game at McDonald's will upload off a tray-liner, napkin, wall poster, tent card or hinged container; a sound and light show may be activated thermo-graphically when a beverage cup is filled; emanation-ink on a bar coaster alerts the customer for another round. Together with premiums, signage, back-lits, scratch-offs, containers, labels and other standard fare, there's no better print combo than with foods and beverages.

In the waiting room for the print doctor are No. 2- and No. 8-ranked medical/pharma ($471B, +5 percent; with $14.6B to print, +8 percent) and health providers ($3.25T, +5 percent; with $9.5B to print, +5 percent). Selling sickness and dysfunction are the only prescriptions for increased revenues for otherwise ailing pharmaceutical companies with few new drugs in development.

Print ROP, bind-ins and FSIs will increase by more than 15 percent along with more than 3,000 pieces of supporting direct mail to every physician. This "ask your doctor about" pull-through form of advertising will be banned eventually as it drives up the cost of health care, so get onto it while it lasts.

Hospitals and 3P providers will continue to change names and merge as with the Blue Cross franchise apparently not satisfied with crosses, shields and geographic limitations. Re-branding means wellness for print with large doses of out-of-home, transpromo VDP and enrollment FSIs with QRC/TXT links to mobile content. The in-plants that control more than one-fifth of health-related print may be surgically removed by our industry and replaced with facility management.

Related and relatively anemic is #16-ranked personal care ($390B, +2 percent; with $5.9B to print, +4 percent). Nearly one-half of sector print ad expenditures will be for personal hygiene, bypassing fragrances and cosmetics—not pretty for packaging, FSI scent-strip and POS print. Chain drug inserts will remain at previous year levels, but animal care print is jumping. Pet pharmacies, grooming and medical service providers are pawing print, especially with VDP direct mail and retail event large-format screen and digital.

Suprisingly, publishing ($78B, +0 percent; with $11.6B to print, +6 percent) will grow to No. 3 in print as many more book titles are introduced via very-short-run digital printing and finishing. Periodicals "launch-to-fold" ratios are rising because of advertiser excitement over in-line personalization and variable lifestyle-segmented content and offers from collected metrics. The "ultimate magazine," ME, predicted by Mad five decades ago, is now technically available.

Also remarkable is that tablets and other non-print delivery of literature are creating demand for hard copies from new readers, on-demand of course. Newspapers, unable nor willing to cross media, will continue in diminishment of circulation and page count, thus folding FSI demand.

At No. 4 and No. 18, respectively, will be banking/insurance ($3.99T, +7 percent; with $11.6B to print, +4 percent) and investment/brokerage ($1.20T, +5 percent; with $5.6B to print, -3 percent). Commercial banking, losing money in retail, may withdraw up to one-fourth of all branches, but will deposit announcements in ROP, insert and direct mail print. Online and mobile banking will be forced onto consumers with intensive pre-closing POS, out-of-home and rewards print.

The next-gen of smart charge/credit cards will debut with transit and direct mail print. Look for the return of store cards and other affinity products that will boost plastic card, security and transpromo direct mail print.

Insurance and investment banking will intensely market both risk and wealth management using production digital VDP for one-to-one direct mail, bound instructional documents and viewbook presentations. Conventional static newsletters, offering circulars, and other narrow web and sheetfed work will remain flat as these sectors install in-plant production digital capabilities.

Telecommunications ($1.48T, +7 percent; with $11.5B to print, +5 percent) will be the No. 5 biggest buyer of print with ring-ups for large-format screen and digital. The defining winners in the smart phone and tablet shake-out will emerge this year after a huge cross-media spend. Mobile device sales are slowing and new products unsold will force makers and service providers to re-excite demand. Mobile apps and QR codes are now a "must provide" by smart printers (not an oxymoron), along with mobile site and SMS (short message service) management.

Technologically linked are No. 9 computerware ($757B, +>12 percent; with $9B to print, +0 percent) and No. 20 electronics ($793B, +3 percent; with $4.6B to print, +10 percent). Retail signage and standee displays, primarily directed at the exponentially expanding population of gamers, will be winners for board printers, laminators and die cutters. Reflective and animated inks, special coatings and easy-to-assemble POP may make engineers out of us, but the payout is big. FSIs will continue at last years' volumes to jolt back declining sales of PCs, consoles and 3D TVs.

Raising the roof on promotion, though still in a no-growth basement, is real estate ($1.95T, +2 percent; with $10.4B to print, +4 percent) at No. 7. Residential new and resale housing will not recover, therefore building volumes of open web and sheetfed home-buyer guides. Add digitally personalized, short-run viewbooks for the suffering commercial real estate segment. Malls, high-rises and strips will exchange in many languages.

Stalled at No. 10 is automotive ($1.96T, +4 percent; with $9.0B to print, +

Travel/hospitality ($872B, +5 percent; with $7.9B to print, +3 percent) checks in at No. 11. Loyalty programs with transpromo print reinforcement will return; direct mail over e-mail. Hotels and resorts are upgrading properties and both ROP and bind-in print as the new formula is lower occupancy and higher room rates—perhaps a model learned from the paper industry. Transit, in-room publications, screen signage, outdoor, and large-format POS will level.

At No. 12 is gaming/wagering ($655B, -2 percent; with $7.4B to print, +0 percent). Bets are off as this over-built and under-payout industry craps out. Casinos and on-track/off-track betting will cut personalized print CRM, but ante up outdoor and ROP in pursuit of new and return traffic.

Fashion ($600B, +6 percent; with $7B to print, +11 percent) is size No. 13 in '13. Dressing up windows and walls will be wide-format digital and screen on clear and opaque cling substrates with five to seven metallic and neon color stations. New hybrid presses will bring about a resurgence of catalogs and bind-in inserts wearing spot textures and parade-runway articulation. Prêt-a-porter QRCs, sound paper and TXTs in a P2M sequence will push-message followups and transactional capability.

At No. 14 is entertainment ($888B, +5 percent; with $5.9B to print, +7 percent). Consumers, needing relief from the steady stream of real-world violence, will virtualize via streaming media (+12 percent), but at leveling participation as interactive gaming and other media segments are vilified for portrayals of graphic violence. The inevitable paradign shift will be to non-violent integration of gaming with social media; playing avatar co-existences with "friends" and strangers. "Send a material message" one-off print will ensue as digital-on-demand-and-mail greetings, posters, and use-your-imagination 3D print.

Beware that a new industry will capture this space if we fail to embrace large-scale, one-off output that leads to static follow-on, metric-segmented print. Also, attend a performance and sell live concerts/events print. Posters, outdoor signage, handouts, programs, seat statics and event-themed merchandise "star" our medium in the leading role.

The twin big boxes, No. 17 discount retail ($1.39T, +6 percent; with $5.6B to print, +4 percent) and No. 19 home improvements ($735B, +0 percent; with $5.1B to print, +2 percent) will disappoint web printers in '13. FSIs will be cut back by half, and tests in catalog marketing abandoned. In-store signage with co-op programs will increase, along with couponing and loyalty program VDP.

At No. 21 is security/protection ($220B, +0 percent; with $4.5B to print, +9 percent). The rise of violence in public places means more and better personal identification documentation and possibly a national ID smart card. Property protection and data/document integrity/security will resume direct mail appeals for workplace, household and computer safety.

Leisure activity ($194B, +3 percent; with $4.1B to print, +2 percent) at No. 22 will engage out-of-home, literature distribution and FSI discount couponing to entice hard-working consumers to time-out. Workplace incentives and contests will include discounts and reward print, admission cards and other transactional print.

At No. 23, logistics/freight ($709B, +6 percent; with $3.9B to print, -2 percent) is a declining place for print. Volume at the public and private carriers is flat, and revenue growth will be from fuel surcharges rather than demand. Multi-part shipping forms, envelopes, folding cartons and POS print will remain flat.

Government ($6.46T, +6 percent; with $2B to print, -18 percent) will be No. 24, though it will print four-times more "in-house." Federal, state and local agencies are reducing procurement from the private sector and acquiring production digital devices that they can't operate. Facilities management (FM) is a winning option over bidding and losing.

Lastly at No. 25 is religion/charity ($183B, +1 percent; with $1.9B to print, +2 percent). Taxing the rich will exact a toll on giving that will divert more resources from need and to fund-raising. VDP of appeals, along with address labels, stamps, seals and other personalized premiums, will proliferate.

Inclusively, the 25 largest buyers should constitute more than 95 percent of total print purchases. You can't afford not to concentrate sales efforts in the best of these sectors, in essence becoming an expert provider to verticals rather than a horizontal generalist. Happy hot marketing! PI

About the Author
Now in its 34th year, Vincent Mallardi's "Hot Markets" is the longest continuous forecast of the printing industry, by sector, region and product. The complete report, and database access for custom and regional analysis, is available to subscribers by texting vincem to 90210, or via e-mail at vince@pbba.org.