DIGITAL digest

Prosper Platform Makes Headway

LAFLIN, PA—Last month, arvato USA/Offset Paperback Manufacturers (OPM), part of the Arvato Print division of Bertelsmann AG, held an open house for select industry journalists in conjunction with Kodak. The crowd gathered to learn more about the Kodak Prosper 1000 (monochrome) and Prosper 5000XL (color) inkjet web book production systems, and to see live demonstrations at the company's printing plant.

OPM has been running its Prosper 1000 since July, consistently producing books for sale in bookstores without a single reject. It now has the Prosper 5000XL set to produce offset-quality, color books for the next book season.

Mitch Weiss, vice president of sales at arvato, explained that the most important advantage of the Prosper Press platform is that it can deliver four-color printing in short runs. One machine has reportedly replaced three competitive digital presses. So far at OPM, the Prosper has produced about 400,000 books with an uptime of 75 percent, providing the capacity to produce between 4,800 to 6,000 books per shift. Target run lengths range from 500 to 3,000 books.

While OPM's work is currently about 94 percent offset, Weiss envisions short-run jobs being produced digitally and the technology providing further opportunities for customized publications. He also foresees the Prosper platform enabling the company to enter into additional markets such as healthcare materials, education enrollment and journals.

Both the Prosper 1000 and 5000XL presses at OPM are used in conjunction with a Muller Martini SigmaLine in-line finishing system. The roll-fed inkjet webs offer a maximum 24.5˝ print width and run at up to 650 fpm, producing up to 120 million A4 impressions per duty cycle.

—Julie Greenbaum

Change Is Par for the Course

ORLANDO—Capitalizing on the unique setting afforded by the finale of the Kodak Challenge men's professional golf contest, Kodak recently brought a group of customers, marketing executives and members of the media together for the 2010 Marketing Leadership Roundtable. The effectiveness of e-mail marketing and communications vs. the benefits of direct mail was a topic of extended discussion.

Cindy Hauff, marketing services, H.O.T. Printing & Graphics in Toledo, OH, shared how a chamber of commerce client that went all e-mail with its communications to members complained that after a while it stopped getting responses. She added that, "It's a slow eduction process to get marketers to understand the ROI and possibilities with targeted direct mail."

Kirsten Sabia, senior director of marketing services for The PGA Tour, offered the insight that using e-mail is seen as not having a cost, but "it can cost you a customer."

Picking up on that point, Tom Wade, PGA's executive vice president and chief marketing officer, noted that while it can be easier to go the e-mail route because of the cost, there's the question of does it work? Also, what statement the piece is making about the sender's brand needs to be considered, he said. There are campaigns such as the effort to get golf into the Olympics that "we wouldn't consider doing via e-mail."

There are lessons learned from e-mail marketing about the need to make the content relevant that should be applied to print, suggested Efrain Tapia, vice president of operations at General Marketing Solutions in Minneapolis. "We think in terms of a million campaigns for a million recipients, not one campaign to a million recipients."

In response to a question about how to develop innovative solutions for print users, Bob Hackett, executive vice president, related Lehigh Direct's success in establishing a Creative Council. The self-directed group currently consists of seven people who meet for no more than one hour every two weeks.

Al Kennickell, president of The Kennickell Group in Savannah, GA, echoed an observation made by Hackett that getting into data services requires a significantly smaller investment than adding "heavy iron" or previous printing business transformations.

Developing expertise in data analytics and moving toward being a creative agency are where Kennickell sees business opportunities. "Data analytics changes the way people market," he said. Offering the service now gets The Kennickell Group a seat at the table it couldn't get in the past, but "we need to upgrade on the creative side—in terms of graphic design and copywriting—to match our expertise in analytics."

—Mark Smith