Lexington, Kentucky, USA - October 16, 2001 - WhatTheyThink.com, a leading on-line community and research firm, surveyed print buyers about their awareness and favorability of major equipment suppliers and manufacturers serving the graphic arts industry. This survey took place with 197 print buying professionals located throughout the United States. *The findings below will have different implications for each supplier. Some industry manufacturers and suppliers offer consumer products like cameras, fax machines, desktop scanners and even cars (Mitsubishi). So findings for some of these companies should be examined as an overall glance as opposed to awareness of the manufacturer’s “graphic arts efforts.” Also note that a low brand awareness may be positive for some suppliers because their primary customer is the print vendor, not the print buying professional. Conversely, some manufacturers may seek awareness of their products from buyers even though they only sell to printers. This would indicate printers are speaking about the manufacturer’s brand to buyers as a net benefit of using their firm. The goal of the survey was to determine brand awareness and favorability on a national scale. It included 23 suppliers in this survey: AB Dick, AGFA, Canon, CreoScitex, Dupont, Epson, Fuji Film, General Binding Corp, Heidelberg, Hewlett Packard, Ikon, Kodak Polychrome Graphics, Komori, MAN Roland, Mitsubishi, Oce, Pitney Bowes, Polaroid, Presstek, RISO, Scitex, Xeikon and Xerox. This survey reached print buyers all over the United States. 44% of these buyers spend over $100,000 annually on print services and 56% described their spending as under $100,000. The question asked: Select your perception of the below major equipment suppliers/manufacturers to the industry. Favorable Neutral Unfavorable Never heard of the company Three companies tied for the top spot with 99% selecting an answer other than “Never heard of the company.” Those companies were Canon, Hewlett Packard and Xerox. Following with a 98% rating was Epson, Fuji Film, Pitney Bowes and Polaroid. The company with the lowest brand awareness by US print buyers was Xeikon with 22%, MAN Roland followed with 24% and CreoScitex and Presstek both with 28% ratings. On the favorable ratings, Xerox was on top by a fairly sizable margin. 76% of print buyers with knowledge of the company rated Xerox as favorable. Canon was second with 69% - then Heidelberg with 67%, Hewlett Packard with 62% and Fuji Film with a 59% favorable rating. Charts and graphs are available at www.WhatTheyThink.com