Mobile Technologies: Bringing New Life to Print

In the constantly-evolving world of hand-held electronics, it is difficult to identify a long-term trend with any certainty. New versions are released every six months, it seems, and anything older than 2010 is considered antiquated.

Ink-on-paper, as the church choir well knows, has been as steady and consistent as the Swallows at Capistrano. Sure, the manner in which ink gets attached to substrate may have taken on various iterations in the last 100 years alone. But, at its core, ink-on-paper is the primary vehicle.

So what happens when the happy feet of electronics collides with the stay-at-home consistency of printing? Printing becomes more dynamic and interactive, and mobile electronics become a greater e-commerce tool. The pairing is anything but smooth, and it is bound to become completely unrecognizable in the next five years. But, the concept that printing and electronics can be catalysts for each other's growth to perpetuate the ultimate goal—delivering messages that are efficient and effective at turning clicks into cash—underscores the belief there is room at the communications table for both channels.

A number of technologies have rumbled across the printing spectrum during the past five years, some of which are fairly common, while others have largely untapped potential. Their history is being written now, and while some of these technologies might not have staying power, they're certain to be replaced in short order.

Keeping an open mind, recognizing profit potential and identifying a point of entry was all the fodder that Quad/Graphics needed to embark on its mobile technologies platform, Interactive Print Solutions (IPS). Actually, it was a direct result of QIC (Quad Idea Catapult)—the company's innovation process management framework—vetting the technologies and creating IPS as a vehicle toward delivering mobile technologies to customers.

It helps that Quad/Graphics CEO Joel Quadracci not only gave the endeavor his full blessing, but acts as an evangelist for the mobile technologies.

"Consumer media preferences are changing rapidly and our customers are trying to keep pace, but it isn't always easy," Quadracci says. "Every day our customers are bombarded with offers to use the latest and greatest app dreamed up by a couple of guys tinkering in a garage. Sure, these apps may look cool, but our customers don't necessarily know what to do with them. They are asking, 'How do I tie this in with my core print vehicle(s) in a way that supports my marketing plan and drives measurable business results?' That's where we come in."

Fortunately, the digital driver took the printed piece along for the ride.

"Our customers were looking at how to take two very meaningful channels—print and electronic—and bring those together. Take discovery and action potential from one and really drive that into the other," explains Matt Kammerait, product manager of Interactive Print Solutions (IPS). "As part of the process, we put together an idea brief of what the opportunity is and what the market looks like around those technologies. At one of our early (status meetings), Joel really saw how that market opportunity could help move print forward. So, he fast-tracked the formation of a more formal team."

By delivering all of the technologies in a cohesive framework within a concentrated division, IPS enables Quad/Graphics to escape any logistical challenges. The four technologies have several elements in common: They are mobile and they seek to expand the reader/customer experience by spurring the users into actions that are measurable and reportable using real-time analytics. It doesn't hurt that they are trendy, even fun applications that take the ink-on-paper experience and add an element of animation. The four components in IPS' toolbelt:

QR Codes: The veteran of the group, the 2D barcode has the data stored in the code itself, making it an open standard. Its best selling points are that it's inexpensive and easy to deploy in a broad variety of contexts. Direct mail has become the home away from home for the QR code, but it also garners plenty of looks in location-based settings (such as retail POP) with heavy foot traffic points.

"Because it's so easy to set up, it's easy to use on a campaign where you have a very low cost per piece that you need to maintain," Kammerait notes.

Another option, vQR (variable Quick Response codes) can be printed by advanced inkjet and digital printing technologies. The variable version allows marketers and publishers to create unique QR codes that personalize destination content, from first-name greetings to prepopulating data fields for one-click purchasing, forms, registration and more.

Image Recognition (IR): Targeted content and mobile shopping is taken to the next level courtesy of IR. By downloading IPS' Actable app (free for Apple iOS and Android platforms), users are able to access content from the image with their phone. Actable automatically opens the user's camera and, by hovering the device over the image and scanning the actual images, users can enjoy the bonus content. IPS' clients have the perk of not requiring a high contrast area with specific data encoding, as is the case with a QR code.

"This opens up the opportunity to do things like retroactively enable images that have already been produced and doesn't require modifications to the print process," Kammerait points out. "We're seeing a lot of neat opportunities.

"On the publication/catalog side, there's a lot of sensitivity toward using real estate to represent the brand faithfully. QR falls really short there as it takes up a portion of the page with high contrast black and white, which takes away from what would otherwise be happening on that page. By being able to scan images already on the page, this gives them the entire page to use."

Augmented Reality (AR): Though Quad has offered all four technologies for several years, IPS didn't launch as an entity until January 2012. The unofficial star of the lineup for the first year might just have been AR, which takes IR and adds the bonus of 3D interactive content. A 360-degree view transforms a flat catalog into a virtual pop-up book—one that moves, no less—which enhances the user's shopping experience.

"It's being able to layer on or bring that digital content from the cloud down to the page itself and take the digital from being locked in a box and bring it to the immediate point of action that the person's having with the printed piece itself," Kammerait says. "We've seen tremendous opportunities across the verticals."

IPS recently did a large campaign for the Smithsonian that centered on its Ingenuity Award that Kammerait believes really showcased 3D content and the possibilities that Augmented Reality holds. In another eye-catching campaign, IPS worked with Maxim magazine to create a cover featuring noted model Bar Refaeli. When scanned, the magazine's cover lines fall away and Refaeli breaks into a little catwalk-esque posing on the cover. Seconds later, the cover "magically" reappears.

One publication that completely bought into the interactive technologies program was Milwaukee Magazine. Its October 2012 issue included IPS experiences on every editorial and advertising page, from a photo gallery to audio and video, along with data, an interactive element and a giveaway promotion.

Near-Field Communication (NFC): A subset of RFID and a broader range of microchip-based technology. IPS uses a chip and antennae to fashion it into a label. There are other applications: With a fixed tab, for example, devices with NFC-enabled hardware can pass the tag, conduct purchases and take users to digital content without the need for the app infrastructure. Here, Kammerait notes, it is ideal for one-time campaigns that allow the customer and the end user to enjoy a seamless, low-friction experience.

While the hardware deployment was once one of the stumbling blocks, developments in the past 10 months alone have bolstered NFC's viability as a number of handsets, including the highly popular Samsung Galaxy S3 (which recently surpassed the 100 million units plateau), are NFC enabled. That has helped offset Apple's decision not to offer NFC availability on its fifth iteration of the iPhone.

The key facilitator for triggering each of these experiences, from Quad/Graphics Interactive Print Solutions group's point of view, is Actable. This universal discovery app, developed by IPS, enables an Apple iPhone, iPad or Android device to scan Actable-enabled images to trigger these bonus experiences, taking the humble printed piece to new and exciting places—and not putting ink on paper out of business, as most digital technologies were assumed to be doing by the mainstream media.

"We learn something new with every single campaign that we put through Actable," Kammerait says. "We learned a lot in 2012 related to ways to optimize content for different devices. A big challenge for any mobile developer, especially on the Android side, is fragmentation.

"With so many different types of devices, coming up with clever and more sophisticated ways to serve content effectively is one of the challenges. We want to be able to serve sophisticated experiences for the newest class of devices, while not leaving folks who are on older versions in the dust."

Perhaps the true bedrock of IPS' offering lies in the analytics it supplies to customers, according to Kammerait. "Because the analytics are so crucial, every IPS campaign that goes live includes a real-time dashboard of the campaign activity so the client can continue to improve and optimize, even while the campaign is still running," he explains.

"Since the destination content for IPS campaigns is cloud- and/or Web-based, it can be changed on-the-fly as the client sees how consumers or readers are reacting. We can even automate this A/B testing to run multiple versions of the destination content and automatically serve the one that is converting most to show more often."

IPS provides concept and strategy services to its clients, whose experience with the mobile technologies varies. Sometimes Kammerait and the IPS team get in on the ground floor of a project; other times, IPS is brought in much later in the game. And, with more technologies coming down the road, the customer base is destined to have various levels of need when it comes to content, software and project management.

"Overall, the reaction has been enormously positive," he says. "Our clients are surprised and delighted by what is possible. For a lot of folks, QR codes is the only one of the four that they're familiar with, so adding this expansion set to their tool belt has been very positive for them."

There is a buzz of excitement around IPS. Quadracci recently named Mike Gustin to the role of director for Quad's IPS initiatives. Gustin says all indications are that the industry can expect a bevy of new interactive tools to impact the role of the printer and the digital device in heightening the experience for end users.

"Over the next year we expect to see dramatic growth in the use of interactive technologies and experiences in print," Gustin predicts. "IPS will spread across all print categories and will redefine how publishers and marketers deliver content and promote products across channels.

"In the short-term, we're seeing the launch of new mobile device classes. Hardware is coming back with a vengeance. We're seeing Augmented Reality glasses or other wearable computable elements, like the Pebble watch…areas where we're seeing things that we generally don't view as computers, becoming much smarter than they are today. It's a great opportunity for the printing world and the digital world to come together. Ultimately, that is what IPS is all about." PI