In the past two weeks have we have seen a good deal of announcements about staff reductions from companies big and small. The announcement from the NFL about a 10% staff reduction was interesting in that it specifically noted a reduction in printing:
So far, NFL fans haven't noticed the cutbacks, which also include reduction in travel by some league staff and such secondary costs as printing and minor events.
As Dr. Joe noted in his 2009 and 2010 Economic Webinar, we should expect to see media shift (to cheaper methods) intensify because of recession.
Discussion
By Rick Littrell on Dec 11, 2008
With print now being considered "secondary" cost and not strategic, this attitude does not bode well for print utilization. Our industry needs to clearly define where "Print IS Best Used". This shift in attitude will continue (and some will say it will accelerate) and we need to decide where print can thrive and where print should accept the other media are the best answer for accessing information.
There is a new generation in the market that doesn't consider print vital. Will be difficult to change their attitudes, if not impossible.
By Michael Josefowicz on Dec 11, 2008
It might turn out that the Print in advertising lives in CRM. In education, health and government it's something else.
Re: changing attitudes. My experience teaching this new crop of kids is "Don't tell me what it will do. Show me what it has done."
By Michael Josefowicz on Dec 11, 2008
Just a nod to Cary Sherbourne's recent article at WTT. At the end of the story she says.."
Kudos to Best Western, InfoPrint Solutions and the CMO Council, as well as software partner GMC Software Technologies, for a terrific pilot program, and for making the results public. This highly structured and carefully measured program offers proof positive that TransPromo works. These types of public pilots will go a long way toward encouraging others to adopt this important business strategy."
the link:http://members.whattheythink.com/specialreports/081209sherburne.cfm
The thing that was cool about the CMO/Infoprint experiment is that it really was an experiment.Control group, large sample, replicable metrics, things that could be learned about how to apply the earned learnings to everyone.
The sooner folks stop seeing that kind of stuff as "proprietary knowledge", the sooner we'll be able to "show them what we've done" instead of "telling them what we're gonna do."
It makes sense that the required openness might well come from the marketers, as opposed to printers.
But it could be really helpful if all the vendors adopted this kind of approach.
By Brian Regan on Dec 11, 2008
We need a dedicated Twitter Print evangelist.
Here's a recent post on GC Net. Twitter has many many people spreading the word, we just need someone willing to help clarify our industry.
http://graphcommnet.ning.com/profiles/blogs/we-need-an-industry-dedicated