First NPES Industry Summit Explores Optimistic View of Print’s Prospects

Sustained economic growth and smart adoption of technologies to create new value-added services have helped put the U.S. printing industry in its strongest position in many years, speakers concurred at the first NPES Industry Summit, held recently in Chicago.

The Summit brought together for the first time the long-standing economic forecasting conference PRINT OUTLOOK®, plus the NPES Spring Board of Directors Meeting and a meeting of PRIMIR, the Print Industries Marketing Information and Research Organization.

“These three gatherings gained an impact and value from being held together that greatly exceeded their separate importance, even though each event already enjoyed a high reputation for serving the industry well,” said NPES President Ralph Nappi.

Opening the PRINT OUTLOOK conference, the 26th in the series, NPES Vice President William K. “Kip” Smythe commented on the print industry’s bright prospects for the near future.

“I don’t think I have been this optimistic in at least 15 years,” Smythe said. “The last time we met, we had seen from 2004 that it looked like the industry was starting to come back. Now, it is clear we have had sustained growth.”

Ronnie Davis, chief economist at PIA/GATF, agreed, noting that U.S. printers’ sales reached $171 billion in 2006, a gain of 3.3 percent over the previous year and a major rebound from a low point of about $156 billion in 2002.

Davis said PIA/GATF forecasts increases of about 1.5 percent in 2007 and 2.5 percent in 2008. Significant growth is coming from new digital and “ancillary” services printers are adding to their portfolios, Davis said, adding, “This is still an opportunity industry.”

Keynote speaker Dr. Joseph Webb noted that “all media are experimental today because the relationships between them have changed so dramatically.” He said the challenge for printers was not only to be “modern” today but to “figure out how to be modern 18 months from now. It’s not your competitors you have to worry about, it’s your clients. You have to find a way to stay ahead of them.” Providing an overall context for the industry presentations, NPES Consulting Economist Michael Evans predicted there will be a significant slowdown in the national economy in 2007, but no recession. He said the media coverage of the recent reverses in mortgage lending was over-stated and these developments did not represent a major threat to the total economy.

Joseph Truncale, president of NAPL, reported that “sales grew at their fastest rate in eight years in 2006 and will continue to grow, although at a noticeably slower pace, in 2007. Volume has finally regained pre-recession levels, and we’ve even regained some pricing power and profitability.

He also described how successful printers are adapting their businesses to structural change in the industry, along with some of the barriers that still remain, including the need to develop “a whole skill set for the sales force” in many companies.

Among other presentations at the 26th edition of PRINT OUTLOOK were:

• Bruce Biegel, managing director of The Winterberry Group, commented that large volumes of ad spending are migrating away from traditional “above the line” media like TV and magazines and toward “below the line” activities like online promotions, events, podcasting and “place-based media” such as digital signage.

• A first-time panel of “demand specifiers” portrayed a major element of the print buying process that was largely unfamiliar to many printers and vendors -- organizations like multi-association manager Smith Bucklin, which buys print services on behalf of more than 200 client groups.

• M. J. Anderson, VP/Creative Services at Trekk Cross-Media, talked about the “New P’s of Marketing,” requiring communications that are personal, purposeful, and passionate.

• Vince Mallardi, president of the Printing Brokerage/Buyers Association International, described industry segments in which print was doing well, as well as some in which the industry was losing ground.

• Peter Johnson, VP of research and market intelligence for the Direct Marketing Association, stressed the importance successful marketers attach to data, and predicted that direct marketing would grow by 5.2 percent in 2007.

• Charles Pesko, president of InfoTrends, urged a shift from evaluating the total cost of ownership of technology to looking at the total value of ownership and described a wide range of things printers are doing to add value to their customers’ communications.

A highlight of the PRIMIR meeting was the preliminary presentation of the findings of the group’s latest study, “The World Wide Market for Print,” which forecast the national and regional markets likely to show the strongest growth in the near future. The study is expected to be completed and the final report distributed to PRIMIR members this spring.