Hi, this is Frank Romano for WhatTheyThink.com.  I'm here in Boston, Massachusetts at the Direct Marketing Association Conference and Exhibition.  Once again we have a tradeshow that at one time was one of the major events for the printing industry.  Most of the exhibitors were providing direct mail services.  Today I’d have to say that they represent probably a third or even less of all the square footage that is here.  You have the large printers like RR Donnelly, Quad Graphics, Vertis.  You have Japs Olsen [ph], which has been an innovator in direct mail, FCL and a few other smaller companies that provide printing services as well as some specialty companies that do door hangers, lenticular printing and specialty printing of various kinds.  I’d have to say the major group of exhibitors are the people who are providing social media services, email blasts, tying in with Twitter and with Facebook.  We see a few of the vendors of direct mail—I’m sorry, of digital printing equipment, so you have a company such as XMPie, which is part of Xerox, Kodak, Ricoh, Hewlett Packard here to support their customers in variable data printing and to sort of have a higher end view of the marketplace and provide that kind of visibility.

As I go through the show I've met a lot of people that I've met at Margie Dana's Print Buying Conference, which is rather interesting the overlap between print buying and of course variable data printing and direct marketing.  There are also people here who provide other kinds of services.  Telemarketers are here.  Companies that provide specialty services of various kinds are here.  It’s a rather interesting array of companies and it indicates a change in the direct marketing marketplace if you will because if you go back in time it was primarily printing companies providing services because direct marketing meant direct mail.  Of course direct mail today is a piece of the entire promotion package.  You now have to tie that in with all the social media services that are out there and email services and electronic communication services that are out there.  

So the Direct Marketing Association has changed.  They’re exhibition reflects that and but I’d have to say that the bulk of the people who are here are still the kinds of people who buy direct mail.  They tend to be mostly people involved in print buying, although they see that in many cases they have to expand into other areas of marketing such as social media.  So it’s rather interesting to see all of those changes and to see the kind of people who are here.  It’s been rather interesting and if you ever get a chance you might want to attend a Direct Marketing Association conference of some sort.  I think the next one is in October in Las Vegas of 2012.

In any case, this is Frank Romano for WhatTheyThink.com.