Finding Opportunity in the Recession

Commentary & Analysis

Finding Opportunity in the Recession

By David Dodd
Published: March 5, 2009

Yesterday, Ogilvy North America announced that it is launching a dedicated Recession Marketing Practice that is specifically designed to help clients address the difficult marketing issues created by the current economic downturn. According to the announcement, the new practice will bring together more than 100 of Ogilvy's experts in marketing strategy, analytics, measurement, e-mail, technology, and media. These experts will be using a set of "21 Ogilvy Solutions" that are designed to help clients maximize the value and performance of their marketing budgets.

It's too soon, of course, to know how successful Ogilvy's Recession Marketing Practice will be. But this step by Ogilvy does raise an interesting issue. Many graphic communications companies now consider themselves to be "marketing services providers." I can't help but wonder how many of these MSP's are now working aggressively to create innovative solutions that will help clients maximize the effectiveness of their marketing efforts and "stretch" their marketing dollars.

In both good economic times and bad, business organizations need to find, win, and keep customers, and finding, winning, and keeping customers is the essence of marketing. When marketing budgets are cut (as they often are in a recession), marketing executives look for ways to "do more with less." Marketing services providers who can help clients achieve this elusive goal can separate themselves from the competition and build client relationships that are exceptionally strong. It will be interesting to see how many MSP's can successfully leverage the opportunities that, ironically, the current recession is creating.

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G. David Dodd is available for speaking engagements and consulting projects. To get more information contact us here.

G. David Dodd is a principal of Point Balance, LLC ( www.pointbalance.com ), an executive education and management consulting firm. Point Balance provides cutting-edge management education programs designed for printing and publishing executives. The firm also provides management consulting services involving business strategy development, strategic marketing, cost management (including activity-based costing), business process management, and balanced scorecard performance management systems. Dodd is a co-author of Activity-Based Costing for Printers: An Implementation Guide, the authoritative resource relating to the use of activity-based costing by printing and publishing firms. Dodd also co-authored Making Value Added Services Work, a comprehensive reference tool for printing company managers who are just beginning to consider diversification or who have already added new services and are not receiving the benefits they expected.

David Dodd can be reached at ddodd@pointbalance.com,931-707-5105.

Discussion

By Rod Key on Mar 09, 2009

Great article now is the time to shine. In today’s tight economy there are more opportunities than ever before to develop and sell a solution. The hard part is understand and addressing the client’s needs as that is more than selling print.

2009 will have its challenges but I see it being a fantastic year of opportunities.

Rod

By sanjay chaudhary on Mar 12, 2009

The article is very interesting but talking abbout recession in graphic industry is a misnomer. no matter what an economic index of a country is the requirement of printing can never end even in the developed economy. you need packaging for your household and industrial goods cosumption, you need new books for childrenand adults. You need printed stationery for govt/ private sector consumption and you need all these as per your increasing populace. hence recession in our industry will not have any great impact.
As regards India where the growth rate of economy has slowed down due to global players the printing industry overall has fared quite well.And also the export to us and europe have leapforged.
The crux is the
per capita book consumption which as per Urvashi Butalia an old feminist publishing house has shown a steady and progressive growth. while us has 48.6 books per 100000 cosumption India has onlu 6.4 books per 100000. this data she claims is of the year 2000 which now must have increased a lot.After lot of books winning international litreery acclaim the per capita book consumption has accelerated. This is also supported by the fact we are now the most populous ennglish knowing citizens in the whole world.
Same is true with saarc countries where scope of print industry growth is enormous. The focus has now shifted to india and its neighbourhood as wellas the whole South east Asian region.All tech and heavy metal vendors are making a beeline in this region.
I hope you agree with my viewpoint.

Warm Regards,

By George Alexander on Mar 13, 2009

@sanjay:

It's nice that India's printing industry is thriving. I wish I could agree that “the recession in our industry will not have any great impact.” But believe me when I say that the recession in the printing industry here in the US is very real and its impact is severe. Yes, we still need packaging and books, but not as much as usual right now (and many items that were printed here in the past are printed in Asia now).

In the US, we are losing printing jobs rapidly. The recession we are experiencing at the moment is part of the cause, but it is really just accelerating a long-term trend. During the past 10 years, we have lost a third of our production jobs in the printing industry. The recession is only making it worse.

I'm sure our industry will not disappear completely. But I also know that it will shrink a lot more before it once again stabilizes. A lot of retail advertising is shifting from print to the Web. Direct mail advertising is starting to shift to email marketing. Offset print runs are shifting to shorter runs on digital devices. Short-run color printing is being done in offices on departmental printers. The e-book market is growing rapidly, and if it continues it will soon start to affect the printing of books. These are trends that will continue for many more years before the printing industry reaches a level it can maintain for the long term.

We have a lot of innovative printers, and many of them will find new ways to make money even during the recession, and those that survive will be stronger than ever when the economy recovers. But by then I think many of them will be getting most of their revenue by offering some other service besides printing.

Regards,
-- George

By Dave Wacker on Mar 13, 2009

Ditto to George's post. That is right on target and well summarized.

Regards,
Dave

By Michael J on Mar 13, 2009

@George,

Do you think it's possible that we are not looking at a secular decline, but a reorganization of Print to meet the new needs of a reorganized society?

The way I see it is that various distribute and print networks are starting to come together. There's a great interview by Cary with AlphaGraphics in today's WTT. Alpha sees nothing but opportunity in the next couple of years.

You reported at beyond print that Alpha was the first install of an inkjet box from Screen that produces hundreds of 24 page newspapers an hour.
The box was paid for by some newspaper in the UK, but installed and run at Alpha.

Meanwhile, education, health and governments are going through massive reorganizations. I believe that if you look at the trends it's only going to mean more "distribute and print."

Meanwhile, advertising, in it's reorganization, is looking for ways to talk to micro audiences. 1 to 1 may be best on the web. In my opinion, direct mail is loser.

But once you talk about micro audiences - 30 to 250), it should be a secular upturn for print. In education, health and government if print is not in the mix, a campaign fails.

I may just be drinking my own kool-aid, but I can't figure out what I'm missing.

By George Alexander on Mar 13, 2009

@Michael:

I agree, there's a good opportunity in "cluster customization". In fact, there are many good niches in digital printing that are growing. The problem is, if you add them all together you don't get nearly as many production jobs as the jobs we're shedding in the offset world.

There are some good job opportunities for database people and web people who understand print, though.

-- G

By Michael J on Mar 14, 2009

@George,
I see it a little differently. I did a post this morning that goes into it in a little more detail.

But the punch line is:
First came the Internet. Now we're ready for the PRinternet.

The crux of the matter is in this paragraph,

"PRinternet is a term I'm using to capture one vision of Distribute and Print. It's related to "Ground > Cloud > Print." Consider the value created if the PRinternet existed. It could print and deliver more than 700,000,000 "News-on- Print Product" - versioned for micro communities - with a minimal carbon footprint in a couple of days. (Note that "700,000,000" is a stand in for a gezillion. You'll find the thinking behind the "math" in a previous post.)"

Here's the link, if you want my longer story.
http://toughloveforxerox.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-opportunity-for-print-in-printernet.html

By Anil Bhargava on Mar 16, 2009

I agree with the various comments, every one has his own views and related to local environment. Yes, recession is showing in every sphere, but it is teaching us to cut flab, cut corners, which we were not cutting till the recession knocked our doors.
Every printed article will be required, be it packaging, books, newspapers, etc. The volume is definitely going down in real terms but it is getting exaggerated with our recessionary mind sentiments.
If the production of automobile or electroncis or for that matter any item is down, defintely it effetcs the packaging/printing globally.
No one can remain isolated with this phenomenon.

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