Tag Archives: print

Print is for Losers!*

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Trending: A new concept to many – most social media sites – including LinkedIn and Facebook and others use a variant of trending to define thought leadership. No matter how short or long your personal or business “upward tending curve” is being on top of the pile is a powerful position to hold and when used correctly a powerful tool for your business.

Print has not been included within the trending universe for sometime and I doubt that it will ever make its way back to the any of the top trending lists in the future. Not because print is dead, for it is not, not because print is an old fashion technology again it is not. Print will not get back in vogue until the “identity” of print is changed and updated.

Print according to the latest Flash Report from Ron Davis of the Printing Industries of America is defined or combined into three segments based on the intended function of the printed piece, a very smart division of the industry.

Those three segments are: Inform or Communicate (essentially newspaper, magazines, book financial, business for and greeting cards), Product Logistics (includes package printing, converters/labels and wrappers) and Market, Promote and/or Sell (political needs, marketing/promotional including general commercial printing, quick printing, direct mail and signs/signage). Combined these three segments and they will provide the projected shipments of print in 2021.

Expected Print by Function 2021
Inform or Communicate 46.23%
Product Logistics 14.79%
Market, Promote, Sell 38.98%

Why is this important? Well if you ask a myriad of “trade” people, I think you will find that most cannot provide an accurate definition of print. This definition becomes more difficult to determine if you move to the creative, marketing and advertising segments. From my experience those who lump or silo print into “print media – advertising” don’t seem to care if that definition is correct or not.

Can you fully use a media if you cannot define that media? I think not!

Print or print plus as Ron Davis states is undergoing massive change, but not all of that change is bad!

Do you know which of those three (print) segments are considered growth segments?
Do you know what the response rate is for a communications or marketing project, which include print vs. those that do not include print? Do you know which channels of print plus offer dialogue, engagement and that “special touch” to convert the prospect to a customer?

Most likely you do not or if you do that information has been provided to you via a print centric source. Not that print centric sources are incorrect, most are highly professional and dedicated to the media of print and to its growth.

These print centric groups provide a great foundation of information, but I am not sure if we as print providers can or any marketer accept industry centric information without examining the bias of that information and looking to independent channels to verify the results. Second source or source verification works outside of journalism

Digital Media is Well Defined
Ask what social media is, or even digital media and across the board you will get a fairly well defined answer, again this is based on my unofficial survey, if I am wrong let me know.

Trending and how it relates to print or print plus is only one of the problems I see directly impacting print; the second is the lack of coordinated industry “buzz”. Sure there are some great print industry groups out there, like the PIA, NPES, IDEAlliance, RIT The Print Council (no longer active) and many industry vendor or suppliers providing some great “specific and self serving” (rightfully so) support of print.

What is needed is a neutral database driven clearing-house that presents print not as a provider of a service, but as an integrator of the marketing process, which is based, not on theory but on raw hard facts. Facts that prove the ROI of print, facts, offering a detailed review and defining the benefits of print and accept the fact the industry is changing and has a plan to adapt to this change and offer defined benefits to counter the change and to, play happy with the other forms of media.

I suggest that a JD Power’s type model be organized, reaching out to ALL MEDIA, inclusive of all media representation and yes include all aspects digital media, data driven marketing as well. This neutral group will then provide the benchmark study that will start the process of identifying print as a valued, valid and needed part of the chain of communications.

Possibly for the first time in the history of print, print can have a single mantra, a brand that is based on fact, a brand that will benefit the industry and a brand that will start the incorporation of print into the new world on integrated and inter-digital media.

Print is more then just an integrator, it has proven to be a device that can establish dialogue, maintain the discussion and provide a path of measured engagement that will benefit all that use print.

When you link the three critical tenets that I feel are the motivators to consider for the future of print as Integration, Dialogue and Engagement you have within print a formidable weapon, regardless of your equipment mix, despite your sales organization you are no longer selling a commodity your are selling a result, a proven and repeatable result!

In the next installment of this blog I will outline the three critical steps to end the shunning of print, clearly identify what print is and how print can provide a path to profit advocacy, a path that print can once more support.

* Not really but it did get your attention.

Doing Print Forensics Brings New Business

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If you are a printer, creative, print provider, marketer, end user or an agency, you MUST read this blog!

http://www.piworld.com/blog/doing-print-forensics-integrated-marketing-campaigns-brings-new-business-thaddeus-b-kubis?e=thad%40nakinc.com#utm_source=today-on-piworld&utm_medium=enewsletter_headline_story7&utm_campaign=2012-09-18

Sell Space or Sell Engagement!

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A few years back a Professor running a class in which I was enrolled said the single biggest mistake he saw in media sales was that the a typical media sales “person” sold space not the benefits of that space. Yet in a more detailed discussion he could or would not expand on what he saw as the benefits, that Intellectual Capital, I learned later was what he used to generate consulting assignments, his special sauce!

When I started to buy media I realized that this professor was correct and I was being sold space. It was annoying at least to have to educate the sales person to support my needs. I felt and still feel that selling the benefits is the way to go, problem is the benefits change based on many variables, variables that can include publication, product, market and demographics.

Today I think the benefits sold or offered begin with the process of engagement. Yes, the demographics are critical, but an incorrect use of data is like using no data at all. Every piece of ad space has some value, but what will enhance the value is a defined engagement process based on a series of defined, measured and easy to use process.

I offer the TIESS concept, a self-invented process that not only sells the benefits of the space and of the brand but defines the specific stages that are need to fully take advantage and provide an offering that expands the direct and indirect benefits into a sales process that is worthy of the publication.

Your client agency or the advertiser themselves, want more then just readership information, which I think you will agree they deserve more, the question is what to do with the information that your publication has (Intellectual Capital) and how to turn that information into a defined plan. Think about developing the process of engagement in a “How To Assemble This _______” fashion. Your publication is the material, you have the parts that will connect the materials, and parts include data, readership, CTR, demographics, sales cycle and other relevant information.

What you need is the 5 easy steps assembly plan and diagram* to put this all together.

That is where a program like TIESS comes in, Touch, Interact, Engagement, Sales and Support. What ever your process may be, you will need to define, teach not train your clients that there is a process, a process that when integrated with your publication, adds value and direct benefits to the media buy! When assembled correctly your publication, the core material needed for the correct assembly will in the end be converted into a very valued source of not only media space, but the process of filling shopping carts and cross-selling the market while offering that all important need of support after the sales process has been completed.

A change in the marketplace or as they say an environment change is driving this need, the low click thru rates, the need to define relevant content, define editorial need, scale the need, understand and evaluate the readers need and yes, yes, provide valued and worthwhile information to your client, the agency or advertiser.

Need to hear more about TIESS, request a simple flow chart of the process touch me at thad.kubis@tifmc.org and I promise I will interact, engage and if the engagement is done correctly I will attempt to sell you on my consulting services.

Support is a given, reach out and touch me and you will see support first hand.

*email me your contact information with the term FLOWCHART in your subject line and I will send you sample flow chart of the TIESS process.

Thad

thad.kubis@tifmc.org

The Cruel Crossroads

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I sit at an unusual junction of media convergence. This cruel crossroads as I call it includes creative, marketing, print and education. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not an expert in all of theses channels but I do have as mentioned a unique and unusual view of the traffic that heads up and down the highways of our related industry and collide at the cruel crossroads. As I see it, there is the need is for collaboration across these and many other channels or verticals to achieve profit and business success for all.

Recently the piworld.com blog “Print Confession” offered the discussion that a print salesperson should have taught a young designer 5 “things” BTW, things are defined by experienced based knowledge. Well I see this as a problem, we no longer live in a business world were one helps the other, we live is a business world were the need to collaborate across identified and covert channels is the future.

Sure a print salesperson should have told a young designer those 5 “things” mentioned in the blog, (a well written and developed blog I may add) but the young designer should have told the print sales person 5 more “things”. And the marketer should have been hearing those 10 things and sharing their 5 “things” as should have been the educator provided their 5 “things” when they have been included in this expanding discussion.

The cruel crossroads is a roadblock of sorts. The crossroads is a trap, trapping knowledge by bypassing the exchange point that a crossroad offers by using a series of short cuts. I’m not saying the article “Print Confession” is wrong I’m saying its right but did not go far enough. I have said this many times before, print is NOT the only link in the chain of communications it is one of many links that can be duplicated within the chain depending on the program and the marketing need. Print as other related media is as they say “We Are Not Alone”.

Why stop at talking print, why not talk digital media, why not talk social media, why not talk media convergence, interaction, integration, and why not COLLABORATE across these needed to be allied fields. Allied against the enemy, defined as confusion, weak profits and non-performing marketing efforts. The four fields I mentioned are not the only ones that need to be open and offered interactive discussions and exchanges, no there are many more.

So to begin this exchange I will introduce very shortly a website (perhaps a town hall meeting type webinar series) that will allow this knowledge transfer to begin. I will start the process now by sharing four items of interest to all four verticals.

1) Print sales people: Consider the designer an enabler, a point on the map where your profitable journey can begin.
2) Creatives: look to traditional and new emerging technologies as a means and method to gain new business and expand your horizons.
3) Marketers: Look to both the print and creative not as partners but collaborators to the process that will make the end result measurable and profitable!
4) Educators: you must realize that YOU start the process and that the starting line as is the finish line is always moving forward.

Send me your collaborations and they too will be added to my knowledge transfer site. Send them to thad.kubis@tifmc.org.

The Death of the Internet

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Will the disaster of the FACEBOOK IPO be the final nail in the coffin of the Internet?

No I don’t think so. However, I do think that the Internet and all that is lumped together under the Internet and the term “e”, are going to be redefined. That’s good for media convergence. Why you ask? The “e” stuff was gaining overwhelming momentum in the plan to move to new media without in many cases a valued reason to move to new media. Other then “Well I need to be there and everyone else is there”. The NEW Internet will become in the next few years a strong part of any media and marketing convergence plan, an integrated and converged part may I add. It will be a strong part, but not the only part. The days of print is dead and there will be NO other media but “e” media are over. It is an integrated and converging device sensitive world, and time will not only prove the argument but the proof has started to be developed.

A question that must be asked, can print and its related media be considered a device?
I have stated before that the answer is yes, device, screen, tool, all integrated in one media.

Need proof just click on any or all of links below:

http://www.inma.org/modules/article/index.cfm?action=articleView&articleId=50064

http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/03/11/direct-mail-alive-and-kicking/

http://printinthemix.com/fastfacts/show/546

http://printinthemix.com/fastfacts/show/560

http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/12/nicholas-carr-2012-will-bring-the-appification-of-media/

At the Internet week events held in New York City, I spoke to a few people who also are starting to wonder is the Internet, web 2.0 and the like are more then a bubble. To be a bubble you need to have a surface to contain the air inside the bubble and the air or gases that make up the bubble. I am not sure which is missing; the outer skin or the interior “gas” but I do have my own opinion.

A friend and creative associate also at the event and he was somewhat stunned to hear the “Captains of the Internet” starting to doubt the gold”e”n of “e” commerce. On the other hand, he was most impressed by the presentation by Jim Taylor, Vice Chairman, Harrison Group. Jim’s presentation “Devices, Consumption and the Digital Landscape 2012” was for many a dynamic view of the future’s future. See for your self, look to http://www.slideshare.net/digiday/harrison-group. I have been telling many people in the industry that the stuff is about to hit the fan and the fan will provide a new pie chart of what we will use in the world of media, media convergence and marketing. This report is the beginning of the new stuff.

No, the Internet will never be dead, nor will print, ads, magazines, newspapers and other offline technology. The Internet as did print and the offline media arena will need to change, change is good and that kind of change is good for media convergence. Device centric or not, what is happening, media convergence can now be viewed as a valid new media.

Remember media convergence is composed of the cloud/computing, communications, content and the consumer/customer, as I have been saying for a while now, without the customer the other three “C’s” are getting an “F”. If what many of the studies I have been reading are correct then the consumer is looking EVERYWHERE not INTERNETWHERE to link, touch engage, contact and yes, buy. Everywhere is a small word with a very large meaning, particularly in media. Media that they the customer/consumer are defining and shaping to meet there own demands.

Media needs to provide a measured ROI, and if digital media cannot or the user wishes to have an ad free digital environment, think where the ads, messages and other communications will need to placed.

Guess where; email me at thad.kubis@tifmc.org.

Print and Media Convergence – A Commonality

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There are five (5) common attributes that print and media convergence share, I consider these five to be the basic elements of coexisting in the world of print/media convergence. I believe that most printers will find the five attributes familiar if not downright recognizable and will agree that print and the world of media convergence have a common future.

1. Communication
2. Cloud Computing
3. Content
4. Customer
5. Commerce

Communication
Print is largely a communications based business. What printer’s produce or manufacturer communicates multiple messages across multiple media to a near endless list of targeted markets and verticals. The key to Media Convergence is the ability to communicate multiple messages across multiple media, targeting multiple contacts.

Cloud Computing
Once called computing, the term cloud now defines the media of exchange via a computer network of information. Print needs the cloud to “communicate” with its customer base and Media Convergence uses the Cloud, as it’s main avenue of exchange, yes to communicate with its customer base as well.

Content
A recent study indicates that personalization of direct mail is on the rise, with an increase from 28% in 2009 to 34% in 2010, a 21% increase, in one year! Clearly the link between personalized print based marketing and personalized print based content is on the very near horizon. Look to media convergence and you will see that content, specific to the customers need is critical to the future of this new media.

Customer
Both print and media commerce have as their panel of judges the customer. I would say that at this stage print has moved from a score of 1 out of 5 to a score of 3.5 out of 5. Print simply works, and works well with other media. Media convergence is another media, yes all other media is media convergence and media convergence is all other media, point made.

Commerce
I am a strong proponent of “prnt commerce”, the SMS friendly name I offer as an option to the simple term print. Print makes people, corporations, agencies, marketers, and printer’s money; why deny that proven fact. Print can be looked upon as a proven moneymaker when compared to most new media. Media Convergence offers the same outcome. Commerce will occur over multiple media with a simple formula, create once, distribute everywhere, develop a strong data model and track, track and track the results.

Agree?

Disagree?

I would like to hear your thoughts, thad.kubis@tifmc.org

Media Convergence: Gaining traction.

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There are four stages of Innovation: Invention/Concept, Early Adoption, Standardization and Mass Acceptance.
Media Convergence currently sits between concept and early adoption. Recently I have presented the concept of Media Convergence to a variety of organizations all with broad national exposure. These organizations included the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) in New York City and Washington D.C., and at the XTech2012 show in Chicago, an offering of IDEAlliance.

Later this week, on April 4th, I will be presenting the concept of Media Convergence via a Dscoop seminar, this presentation will link print, prnt commerce and media convergence into a tool that most printers will finding not only informative, but one that can positively impact their bottom line.

If you would like to attend the free webinar please register at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/421546424.

For a long time I have felt that one of the serious problems printers face when trying to grow their business has been the lack of what I call cross industry information. There is no doubt that printers are receiving quality information from many sources within the industry about workflow, products and production, but related information, information that brings printing into the chain of communication as an enabler is often brief, quickly mentioned and poorly defined.

Print, as is Media Convergence is not and has never been a stand-alone industry, it is part; an important part of the team of communications, printers and equipment manufacturers MUST never forget that fact.

I fully understand the limits of information transfer since the main goal for this industry is to sell new technology, services and yes, equipment. However, it’s possible that exchanging some vertically related news items to keep the industry informed will help achieve the main stated goals of the industry. Related vertical information, applicable now or applicable later is the key to this industries future success. We MUST not allow our industry to be blind sided again. Media Convergence and other new emerging technologies need to be discussed and understood, not ignored.

Media Convergence, in the very near future will impact OUR industry, perhaps not by selling more equipment, but by impacting the process which will generate a printer providers profit and then just maybe sell some equipment, products or expanded services.

I hope you will enjoy the webinar and I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

drupa, is it still relevant?

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drupa, the very big elephant in the trade show room, is only two months away. As such, I need to ask a question—one that is particularly important in this time of economic depression. With printers struggling and the print industry in great disorder, is drupa still relevant?

I would argue that drupa as it is today has run its course and that a more interactive, technology-based effort needs to be developed.

Trade show events are still viable, but they need to be of a controlled size and in a controlled environment. drupa can continue to co-exist with the industry, but the industry needs to be given options to see, view, test, touch, and feel the equipment on display. Forget the fun of a trade show; I have been to drupa held in Dusseldorf, Germany, four times, and each time has been a blast. However, does that justify the event itself?

Most industries have seen trade show attendance and exhibitors decline by double digits. Some have experienced slight increases, but at the end of the day, again, I have to ask, is drupa relevant?

Only a small segment of the American print industry will attend drupa. Most Americans, instead, choose to attend Graph Expo, in Chicago in the fall, which, by the way, should no longer be an annual event. Once every four years works for me, and I’m sure it would work for the exhibitors too.

The print industry needs to rethink every aspect of its existence—from the equipment it sells, the products it offers, the level and type of services provided, and yes, the way it is perceived in the new world of one-to-one and integrated communications. I have noted in this blog before that print needs new ambassadors along with a futurist who is linked to other industries—industries that use print and turn a profit from prnt commerce. drupa seems like an island in time that, well, is stuck in the past.

Yes, the technology at drupa may be revolutionary, and it may be the future (perhaps), but is the level of display of a drupa really needed? Fourteen days seems a bit excessive to me. OK, it is a world show, and as the brochure from drupa proclaims, One World—one drupa. But this is wrong; we no longer live in one world. We live in many worlds, on one planet. The segmentation of the B2B market has overtaken and overrun any arguments made about one world.

I love print. I support print, and it tears my print-based heart to pieces to see the scope of such an event etched in stone like the long-ago replaced litho stone.

What do you think?

PS: Next week, One drupa—Many locations

The “P” word and the convergence of Print

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In my opinion the printing/graphic arts industry needs two things, 1) A futurist, and 2) a new name. Let’s address the new name first.

In the course of an industries life cycle a new “brand” for that industry sometimes needs to be developed. For example, what once was the Department of War is now called the Department of Defense, within an industry, name changes have a history as well. A most recent switch within The Food Industry is the name change of their front-of-package (FOP) labeling scheme from “Nutrition Keys” to “Facts Up Front.”

The list can go on and on, perhaps the Print industry needs a new brand, a new name, a new face, a name that reflects the commerce based nature of print, and the need to align the segment with the other revitalized and emerging industries. I suggest (and I am certainly not the first one to suggest this concept) that print from this article on be known as Prnt-Commerce. P-commerce has a history and it just sounds too yellow to me.

The term print is aged, a bit old and being challenged from many quarters.

Have you heard of the Gutenberg Parenthesis? No, well you should. Thomas Pettitt explained the way in which he uses the term the Gutenberg Parenthesis: the idea that oral culture was in a way interrupted by Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press and the roughly 500 years of print dominance; a dominance now being challenged in many ways by digital culture and the orality it embraces.
Read on http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/forums/gutenberg_parenthesis.html.
A recent article in the New York Times also states the need for a New English language, so why can’t Print (prnt) lead the way? To me prnt alone does not define the process; no prnt needs to be directly linked to commerce, for that is a key part of the print model, not only to print money but also to allow money to be made, using prnt as the vehicle of choice in this money making process.
Print just sounds old, limiting and in some cases ancient, and I am a very strong supporter of print. The facts are the facts, or as a business associate once said, it is what it is. Print is dead, long live prnt-commerce.

Topic two, a futurist. Many industries have a futurist, these are people who look beyond today and tomorrow to a path yet defined and start to write or at least define some of the rules that are needed to take full advantage of the future as they see it. The industry currently has a few prnt futurists, there have been some great ones in the past as well and there are still some very talented and active prnt-commerce futurist, but I don’t think this is enough. We need a new type of sage, a new type of futurist, not limited just to our industry. I think prnt-commerce needs a futurist that looks far and wide and very much outside the current print industry and the current applications using print.
Our futurist needs to dream on how prnt-commerce will be used in the future by industries and verticals that exist today and those that are still on the drawing board. Our new futurist needs to be linked to as many industries as possible, not just to marketing, creative and production. No, our futurist needs to be “touching” technology, mobile, science, banking, food processing, defense and many more. Not as a partner, but as an equal or at the least an observer, a sage, an oracle of how prnt-commerce can support these industries and verticals as they evolve and how prnt-commerce can evolve with them. We can no longer be seen as the distribution end of any process, we need to be an enabler, start the engagement, keeping the flow of communications active and valid.

As media convergence gains traction, and it is and will continue to gain traction, the commerce or money making end of any future business will drive the end results. Is Facebook worth 100 billion or is the commerce based on Facebook worth 100 Billion, see what I mean?

Prnt-commerce crosses multi channels as well. Magazine and book publishing are clearly prnt-commerce driven, as is direct marketing. With the growing acceptance on integration of the marketing marketplace to include online and offline components, such as e-commerce, m-commerce prnt-commerce fits right in.

Agree with the branding change from Print to prnt-commerce and you must agree to the need for the futurist. Why? Because the future of print as we know it is not a future which the industry controls, prints future is as are most other “traditional” industries linked to those new technologies that need to use older technologies to deliver the new messages, the new media, print is the same.

BTW, I think I would make the perfect prnt-commerce futurist, not only because I’m raising the flag, but because of my deep belief in the convergence of all print media, verticals and partner industries, and my very open mind and broad point of view.

Send me your thoughts; I can be reached at thad.kubis@tifmc.org.