Corporations like to brand big, prominent things: stadiums, sporting events, theatres, and even public transportation (à la the AT&T SEPTA station in Philadelphia). But so far, no corporation has succeeded in putting its stamp on a month of the year.
In the graphic arts space, however, Canon will come as close as it’s possible to come to branding the month of September with the three large-scale promotional events it will hold during this busy 30-day period. The activity marks the emergence of Canon, once a relatively low-key player among print technology vendors, as one of the industry’s most energetic marketers of digital production solutions.
Everything that Canon makes for consumer and professional markets will be showcased at Canon Expo 2015 New York (Sept. 10-11). A parallel event in New York, thINK 2015 (Sept. 8-10) is a high-level conference on production inkjet for customers of Canon Solutions America, the company’s division for printing, document management, and business services. Then there’s Graph Expo 2015 (Sept. 13-16) in Chicago, where Canon will have a major presence with an exhibit spanning a broad range of its technologies for toner and inkjet production.
An invitation-only event, thINK 2015 offers users of Canon production print equipment a series of workshops on technologies and business opportunities in what the company says is a $3.5 billion inkjet market. It has the support of more than 20 co-sponsoring companies that will exhibit in a partner pavilion during networking sessions.
Journalists and analysts got a foretaste of what Canon Expo 2015 and Graph Expo 2015 will hold in a webinar on August 26. Some product announcements are under news embargo until Sept. 8 and Sept. 14, but the general scope of Canon’s plans was made clear.
To be presented in 100,000 square feet of space at New York’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, Canon Expo 2015 will attempt to detail all of the ways in which Canon customers interact with the brand. It will include a professional printing zone displaying “inspired” printing in a gallery-like setting. There also will be zones for enterprise services and film production, with all exhibits keyed to New York City visual themes. The long list of seminars features a presentation by Guy Gecht, CEO of EFI, on “The Imaging of Things.”
Canon is promising to present “bold solutions” in booth 1213 at Graph Expo: an array of products demonstrating its leadership in continuous and cut-sheet print production. Having made a large number of recent product introductions, Canon now can offer monochrome and color solutions in toner and inkjet for volumes ranging from light production to millions of copies per month. Current and soon to be launched systems will be shown in an exhibit that also will cover Canon technologies for wide-format output, workflow integration, automation, color management, and cloud storage.
All of it indicates how much higher Canon’s market profile is today than it was in the days when the company was just beginning to expand from office and enterprise platforms into the broader realm of production printing. Since then, a steady pace of product development, the successful acquisition and integration of Océ, and a well-executed outreach to the industry have propelled Canon to the front rank of the parade of solution providers.
WhatTheyThink will be present at the three events that will mark the September of Canon. Watch all areas of our portal for further reports, as Canon seems ready to make news under every heading we cover.
