One thing I noticed at this years Graph Expo was the lack of “heavy iron” on the show floor. Heidelberg who always is front and center only had one press in their booth, albeit it was the company’s monster Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 105. manroland didn’t have a press in the company’s booth, though if I remember correctly, they haven’t had a full working press at Graph Expo in the last few years. Komori, Mitsubishi, xpedx/Ryobi all had presses in their booth.

Cary Sherburne’s Shifting Sands article at WhatTheyThink by Cary Sherburne provides more food for thought on the equipment shift at the show:

For a few more off-the-cuff stats, of the six front-row booths, which arguably are the prime real estate, four are digital companies (Canon, EFI, Kodak and Océ) and they consumed 74% of the front-row space. That being said, Heidelberg still had the largest booth, at 20,700 square feet. But HP, a couple rows back, was close at 17,600 square feet. Those were the two largest booths on the floor. A quick, non-scientific analysis reveals, in fact, that conventional offset press manufacturers took about 63,500 square feet of space, while digital press manufacturers occupied 77,200 square feet (55%) of space. It would be interesting to go back historically to find out when the tipping point actually occurred, where digital press manufacturers first took more space than offset press manufacturers. Perhaps 2008 was the year.

The lack of offset presses might be simple economics: it costs a lot to bring a press to Chicago. However it also costs a lot to put a digital press on the floor (HP didn’t have their new web press at the show).

I’m used to looking at the case studies from digital press and personalization software suppliers for the marketing effectiveness of 1:1 printing, but as “green” continues to gather steam as a hot marketing angle, I’m starting to rethink how I position this information.

This morning, I repositioned a case study from AutoNation and DME that many in this industry may already be familiar with.

In this study, DME overhauled its 1:1 printing workflow to enable AutoNation to eliminate its need to inventory and warehouse pre-printed offset shells that were subsequently personalized using black-and-white overprinting. Using XMPie’s PersonalEffect software, DME changed its workflow so that each campaign is single project, even though each campaign involves multiple brands and dealers. The business rules for composing the individualized offers are programmed independent of the design. All elements become data-driven variable objects instead of static fields. Thus, instead of using pre-printed stock, AutoNation’s campaigns are now printed, as needed, using plain, unprinted paper. The results were impressive. Responses to its direct mail pieces went up 35%. Revenues were up 65%.

But in this environment — so hot for green — these may not end up being the most compelling results. Consider the “green” impact of this switch. AutoNation no longer must warehouse pre-printed stock for different dealerships and brands.

Consequently, it also saves …

• the carbon footprint and resources used to pre-print each set of shells
• the carbon footprint and cost of warehousing those shells
• the fuel costs of transporting them.

Click here for the permanent archive containing the full article.

Early digital presses suffered from low print quality output and many were not engineered for high volume output. One of the biggest marketing hurdles for digital printing has been image quality and getting over the perceived myths that still exist from the early days.

In the last week there have been a few articles that provide some insight into quality issues with digital print.

A recent article by Pete Basiliere at OutputLinks examines the build quality of a digital press:

There on the wall was a poster from GRAPH EXPO 1988 with a close-up view of a Miehle-Roland 36 oil bath gear train, with the heavy oil dripping through the gears and over their sides. The message is obvious: high quality offset printing at high speeds requires a rugged and robust design. Twenty years later Miehle-Roland is gone and the last thing you will find in a digital press is an oil bath gear train.

Yet from a capital investment perspective, the design and construction of a digital press is arguably more important in the long run than print quality. As a buyer, you will select the device that provides the level of quality you and your clients demand. You will also reasonably expect that the quality in the near term will be consistent with the press manufacturer’s claims. But for the long term a well-built digital press is required to provide consistent print quality throughout its life.

The last two articles in the Printing Industry Center at RIT Article Series at WhatTheyThink.com look at image quality issues. Last weeks Permanence of Toner on Paper looks at permanence issues, quality, and archivability of digitally printed material. This weeks article Digital and Offset Print Quality Issues.

As we get close to Graph Expo. What quality issues will you be asking the vendors?

Is digital printing a production technology? Or a marketing strategy? “Digital Printing: Transforming Business and Marketing Models,” part of Heidi Tolliver-Nigro’s Marketer’s Primer Series, argues for the latter. It presents digital production not as technology in the domain of print buyers and production managers but as the foundation of a comprehensive strategy for changing the way marketers look at document management and marketing.

This report is broken down into five sections.

Section 1: What digital printing is, along with its benefits and drawbacks from a marketing perspective. Examines traditional “sticking points,” including binding and finishing and the availability of substrates. How these characteristics drive key marketing applications.

Section 2: A closer look at each of these applications. Each discussion includes a series of short case studies in each of eight marketing classifications that provide key insights into how these applications are used in the real world.

Section 3: New ways of evaluating cost critical to digital printing success, including cost per piece, cost per lead, and ROI. Hypotheticals are used to drive the points home.

Section 4: Five “critical success factors” that enable marketers to take maximum advantage of digital printing technology. Includes key insights into helping marketers choose the right service provider.

Section 5: Final conclusions and additional resources as a next step.

The goal of the report is for marketers to be left with the understanding that the importance of digital printing has nothing to do with the technology—its costs, its output capabilities, or the applications it can produce, although many of them are discussed. It’s about transforming how they think about marketing.

The important thing is not digital printing technology itself, but the way it can be combined with other technologies (particularly databases, email, wireless, and the Internet) to create broader solutions that make a real difference in how business market their products, as well as how they communicate with customers on a short-term and long-term basis and present their brands.

The information is presented both from the perspective of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), as well as large corporate marketers.

Single-user versions of the report can be purchased from the What They Think store, as well as from the Digital Printing Reports website. Licensed versions for internal and external distribution can be purchased from Research and Markets and Market Research, as well as from the Digital Printing Reports website.

“Digital Printing: Transforming Business and Marketing Models” is part of Heidi Tolliver-Nigro’s Marketer’s Primer Series, which also includes “1:1 (Personalized) Printing: Boosting Profits Through Relevance” and “Web-to-Print: Transforming Document Management and Marketing Models.” All three primers are designed both as authoritative primers for marketers and as internal training tools for printers.

According to an article I recently read by InfoTrends, 63% of customers prefer promotional pieces over purely transactional documents. For this reason, “incorporating promotional messaging in transaction documents can both boost the appeal of a transactional document and generate a higher read rate for the marketing message.”

When I read this, I had to stop and think about that again. Putting a promotional message on a transactional document can “generate a higher read rate for the marketing message.” On the surface, this makes sense. Use something people like more (promotional messages) to boost readership of something people like less (transactional documents).

But as usual, I had to re-think it in a contrarian way. You are hitching the more desirable (the marketing message) to the less desirable (the transactional document). In some ways, you could argue that, by doing so, it’s like putting flat tires on a sports car. Of course, you could argue the other way, too, and that’s what is being done here. Bills have nearly a 100% open rate. You can’t say that about most direct mail, even highly personalized direct mail. By attaching the marketing message to the transactional document, you are increasing the chance of eyeball exposure.

I guess what struck me was its over-simplicity. As analysts and consultants, we are prone to blithe and pithy statements that make great pull quotes. But we need to be careful not to over-simplify.

I mean, another way to put this is that, if you’re talking about transpromo credit card statements, for example, and if credit card statements irritate people (which they do), you’re hoping that your marketing message catches the coattails of something that people fundamentally don’t like and that irritates them. Those marketing messages better be cheap to add!

It’s just another way to look at it. I’ll be available for tomato throwing later

OutputLinks published an article today by Pete Basiliere, Research Director at Gartner on separating the hype from the real. Basiliere points to a Gartner idea called the Hype Cycle that “characterize the typical progression of an emerging technology, from initial over-enthusiasm through a period of disillusionment to an eventual acceptance of the technology’s relevance and role in a market.”

In What’s Hype, What’s Real? Basiliere shares highlights from Gartner’s 2008 Print Markets and Management Hype Cycle. These include:

• Organizations that isolate the production printing function from overall customer communications find themselves losing ground to more agile competitors.
• Trans-promo and CRM printing is steadily progressing from a dream of print technology providers and pundits into a viable, revenue-generating strategy.
• There is a need to continue to monitor Office printing to keep cost down.

Industry consultant John Giles has released a new book that outlines 12 best practices that successful printers use to make money with digital services.

According to Giles, a quick printing industry consultant, most printers use only a fraction of their digital technology’s potential. “The printing industry is rapidly changing and the technology alone won’t ensure a printing company’s success,” said Giles. “Successful printers have integrated technology into the culture of their entire organization and use it to sell more profitable types of printing services. They offer the customer a higher value and no longer have to sell printing based on price.”

The book costs $49 plus $6 for shipping. It is available at http://www.johngiles.com/book.iml.