DIGITAL digest
Kodak Fills Its Plate in China
XIAMEN, CHINA—More than 300 people, including Eastman Kodak executives, customers, distributors, industry leaders and government representatives, recently gathered to celebrate the grand opening of Kodak’s newest printing plate manufacturing facility, located here. The plant, a $50 million investment, will produce both digital and conventional printing plates.
Along with the new manufacturing facility, Kodak is creating a dedicated China Technical Applications Group (TAG) to provide technical support to customers in the Asia Pacific region.
Branding Rises at VDP Conference
PHOENIX—“Everyone is still learning,” is how one panelist summarized the state of the market at the recent PIA/GATF Variable Data and Personalization Conference. The event’s theme was “Leveraging Variable Data for Success,” but a number of the sessions focused on the bigger picture of how providers should brand and market their businesses rather than the technology.
One example was the keynote address given by Steve Cone, noted author and executive vice president of strategic marketing services at the Epsilon marketing firm in New York. According to Cone, it’s a company’s ENA, not DNA, that matters. Successful marketing requires three things: creating Excitement, News and a compelling call to Action, he said. Marketing campaigns must tell people why they should respond and communicate that message with intimacy, attitude and personality.
The marketer is a proponent of employing a personality—real or fiction, human or otherwise—in marketing pieces. “Ninety percent of magazines have people on the cover because they get attention, but only 1 percent of brochures have people on the front,” Cone noted.
He is also a big believer in using drive-time radio advertising, which has the added benefit of being a cost-effective tool for campaigns with a small budget. “Sound is 100 times more powerful than sight for getting attention,” Cone explained, adding that he doesn’t believe there’s any problem with a printer using radio because people won’t make a connection to it being a negative comment about the value of print.
His other recommendation for making the most of small budgets is to do short bursts with heavy frequency. Regardless of size, a common error made in marketing efforts is the tendency to penalize loyal customers, Cone noted. He suggested that a natural application of variable data would be to create a campaign recognizing a customer for consecutive years of business.
The marketer also pointed out that the number one reason to advertise is to get employees excited and make them feel good about the company.
In the branding session that kicked off day two, Micha Riss, creative director of the Flying Machine advertising agency in New York, asserted that every touch point with a customer is part of a company’s brand, and they all should be interlaced. Speaking for himself, Riss noted he is bothered by having beautiful printed pieces delivered in ugly shipping boxes from printers. “We want to get our pieces out (of the boxes) as quickly as possible and hide the boxes.”
More than a dozen other sessions addressed marketing, database, cross-media and variable data how-to topics. Attendees were also given an opportunity for one-on-one learning by spending time at the more than 20 vendor display tables.
The best way to sell new clients on the value in variable data marketing is to start with a loyalty campaign to their existing customers, advised M.J. Anderson, vice president of creative services at Trekk Cross-Media in Rockford, IL, in a session on “Building a Creative Partnership.” He said that returns from a prospecting piece are unlikely to justify use of the technique, especially as a first-time effort.
Anderson further recommended that printers propose doing a test with variable data prospects and kick in some press time or other services as an inducement. “Also, look for other measurable goals that can show value, not just a lift in response rate,” he advised.
The industry as a whole has tended to make a fundamental error in its approach to training salespeople to sell digital services, asserted David Tashji, a partner with the Winters Group sales consultancy in Westford, MA, during a session dedicated to the topic. “People learn by doing,” he observed.
Yet, most training development efforts have focused on paper-based resources and classroom activities, Tashji noted. He said printers should follow the explain»perform»debrief model, with an emphasis on perform and debrief.
“Rainmakers are made, not born. They see the customer as a friend and seek to understand the customer’s business better than their own,” the consultant added.
In his session on understanding customer needs, Brad Lena, PIA/GATF senior technical consultant, said that way of thinking applies to the business as a whole. “Is it your customer or customer’s customer that is most important to your business?” he asked “How you answer that question defines what kind of company you are. Print marketers focus on the customer’s customer.”
Print marketers consult on the design, objective and content of the piece. If customers express a concern about sharing sensitive databases, he suggested asking just to see the field headers, not any actual data, as a way to learn what information clients are capturing. The consultant also advised against just dumping data into a piece for the sake of making it variable.
“Variable data needs to be relevant,” Lena said. “It’s not about improving an existing marketing program; it’s a different approach to marketing.”
Xerox Printer Makes Colorful ‘Statement’
ROCHESTER, NY—Xerox Corp. has ramped up its presence in the burgeoning transpromotional printing market by announcing its first full-color, continuous-feed printing system.
Capable of printing at 226 feet per minute (fpm) or 493 images per minute (ipm) two-up, simplex on 81⁄2x11˝ paper, and 986 ipm when in the duplex configuration, the Xerox 490/980 will reportedly be the fastest device of its kind.
It prints at 600 dpi resolution and is said to maintain its rated speed when printing in color or black-and-white, regardless of the number of colors used or the weight of the paper. The system is anticipated to have a price of approximately $1.8 million per engine ($3.6 million for duplex configurations).
According to Xerox, the new printer will allow service bureaus and data centers to more easily and affordably produce full-color transactional statements and invoices with promotional marketing messages, such as discount offers and advertisements. In addition, print providers will be able to produce direct mail pieces that contain personalized coupons, loyalty campaigns that incorporate membership cards, and newsletters and newspapers with customized content by region.
The Xerox 490/980 employs dry toner, xerographic imaging and flash-fusing technology—a process that does not use heat or pressure or make contact with the paper, allowing the device to print on a much wider array of substrates.
Non-contact flash-fusing fuses the image using high-intensity xenon lamps instead of the conventional method that uses heat and pressure to adhere an image to the paper. Flash fusing only heats the toner; there is no direct heat or pressure contact with the substrate.
Quincy Allen, president, Xerox Production Systems Group, contends that the toner-based system possesses other advantages over ink-jet devices, including higher image quality (600x600 dpi), no special papers required, and simplicity of operation and maintenance.
Currently running in test mode at a customer site in Belgium, the premier showing of the Xerox 490/980 will be at the Drupa 2008 exhibition in Düsseldorf, Germany, with sales in North America set for later next year.
Plans are reportedly to install 200 engines per year.
Océ Celebrates Past, Looks To Future
VENLO, NETHERLANDS—Océ N.V. recently celebrated 130 years in business and announced the creation of a Document Services Valley in its Dutch hometown. CEO Rokus van Iperen outlined the company’s history in a speech marking the anniversary.
The company was started in 1877 by Lodewijk van der Grinten, who was a pharmacist, not a printer. He developed an edible coloring that gave pale winter butter and margarine the attractive yellow color of summer butter.
Its roots in printing trace back to Lodewijk’s grandson, Louis van der Grinten, who invented a new ammonia-free diazo process for copying technical drawings that became very popular, according to van Iperen. He added that the company’s acquisition of Siemens Nixdorf Printing in 1996 was also a significant development.
Looking to the future, van Iperen said the new Document Services Valley will focus on the research and development of document related services. “Here we will work together with prestigious partners such as IBM, the RaboBank, the University of Maastricht and the German Fraunhofer Institute. Starting in 2008, the Valley will employ approximately 50 document specialists, and we expect that number to grow rapidly.”
digital bytes
ROCHESTER, NY—Xerox Corp. has launched an updated Website (www.xerox.com/freeflow) showcasing its line of workflow offerings for digital printing operations. Highlights include: a comparison of print operations before and after the implementation of an effective digital workflow solution, case studies and examples of revenue-generating digital printing applications.
MORTSEL, BELGIUM—Agfa Graphics has formed a partnership with Technique Group to offer an integrated workflow solution that combines Agfa’s Delano project management and the ApogeeX prepress applications with Technique’s modular management information system (MIS). The combination, which implements CIP4-compliant JDF and JMF, will be available this year.
BURLINGTON, MA—HubCast has closed a round of funding, totaling $8.1 million, intended to support expansion of its global printing capabilities. The company connects service providers into a certified global network of digital and offset print operations.
ESCONDIDO, CA—Sign-A-Rama, located here, has purchased an Anapurna XL2 wide-format ink-jet printer from Agfa Graphics to further develop several niche markets, including real estate signage and POP.
WINSTON-SALEM, NC—Alliance, a division of Rock-Tenn, has installed a Dotrix Modular wide-format ink-jet printer at its manufacturing facility here to support its production of in-store marketing solutions.
