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.

HP, InfoPrint Solutions Company, Kodak´s Graphic Communications Group, and Oce N.V have created an alliance to support inkjet recyclability research. The alliance formed as Digital Print De-inking Alliance (DPDA) will jointly sponsor research on the recyclability of inkjet-printed paper.

With the recent announcements of high-volume production inkjet presses at drupa, many within the industry have expressed concerns over the recyclability of applications printed on these new systems.

According to the announcement release by the DPDA, “Many paper recyclers are successfully using digitally printed papers in their process today, but there is a need for industry standards worldwide, as well as a need for test methods to compare recycling efficiency between different print technologies and recycling processes. The DPDA was founded to sponsor focused, objective research to identify printer, paper, or chemical additive solutions (or a combination thereof), ensuring de-inking/recycling approaches that are cost-effective and practical and that enhance industry sustainability practices. The DPDA is committed to actively engaging all relevant parties: paper manufacturers, paper recyclers, de-inking chemical and equipment manufacturers, and researchers, worldwide.”

The Print Industries Market Information and Research Organization (PRIMIR) has released their 2006 study that examined growth trends and forecasts for ink jet technology through 2011:

The PRIMIR study provides a thorough analysis and review of the status of inkjet technology, covering thermal, Piezo and continuous inkjet and their usage and adoption in display signage, graphic arts, packaging, manufacturing / deposition and decorative/textile markets.

With the recent drupa being dubbed, among other things, ‘the inkjet drupa,’ it would seem that inkjet has finally come into the mainstream in the printing industry. I.T. Strategies noted in the study that while the biggest market for inkjet technology is clearly display signage, over the course of the study timeframe (2006-2011), inkjet systems will be developed with the intent of challenging both electrophotography and analog print technologies. In the graphic arts market, production inkjet is at a very early stage with one-third of the production print volume being transaction oriented.

The study was exclusively available to PRIMIR members in 2007, but is now available to all parties for purchase through the WhatTheyThink Store.

A new book by Frank Romano provides a comprehensive introduction to anyone to understand inkjet technology and its application. The books eight chapters cover:

• The History of Inkjet Printing
• The Component Era
• The Wide-Format Era
• Inkjet Printing Technology
• Industrial Printing
• Packaging Printing
• Transaction and Transpromo Printing
• Drivers and Trends

“Inkjet is not hype,” Romano says. “It deserves to be taken seriously, and those who are serious about their future in printing and graphic arts should pay attention.”

Inkjet! History, Technology, Markets, and Applications is available through PIA/GATF Press and can be ordered online at www.gain.net, or by phone (toll-free 866-855-4283)

drupa 2008 has been called the “Inkjet Drupa” with many vendors demonstrating new Inkjet presses. The popularity for Inkjet-based printing systems comes from its substrate flexibility and speed that can’t currently be matched by toner-based counterparts. But at what cost do these new systems come? In the drupa halls and on industry Websites there has been a lot of discussion of the recyclability of papers that have been printed with inkjet.

On the Print CEO Blog Axel Fischer of the International Association of the Deinking Industry (INGEDE) states:

It is “a lot easier to recycle paper” - yes, if it has been printed with offset or gravure or dry toner. But not if it has been printed with current inkjet. This is the discrepancy at this year’s drupa: Green and inkjet are the main topics, but they do not match. Waterbased does not necessarily mean environmentally friendly. Because many waterbased inks cannot be recycled.

This is especially true for inkjet inks, no matter whether they are dyes or toners. They are not only unrecyclable for new graphic paper - even in small amounts, inkjet printed papers can spoil a load of recovered paper dedicated to be recycled for new newsprint or office papers. The current inkjet inks dissolve in the process water and dye it like a red sock (or here black sock) in the white wash. There it is the underwear that turns pink, here the fibers that turn so dark that the paper screened out of this broth will not meet any brightness specification any more.

Noel Ward of WhatTheyThink.com, responding to comments regarding to comments on inkjet recyclability states:

I keep hearing about the poor recyclability of IJ and no one except paper companies really want to talk about it. I’m in the process of digging into this to find out more of the dirty details, and I have also had the experience that when mentioning recycling to IJ engine vendors they redirect the topic. What I know so far is that IJ papers can be recycled, but not to produce most of us would call good quality printing papers. That may be okay for now, but not when thousands of miles of continuous feed IJ paper is being streamed off these new presses.

After the drupa dust settles, we will hopefully hear more about the recyclability of inkjet printed paper from the vendors that are bringing this technology to market.