Hi, this is Frank Romano for WhatTheyThink.com.  Welcome back to another episode.  The other day, I was walking through a hotel lobby and I found a pile of these.  This was a promotion for some kind of a Thanksgiving Eve event with some rock stars at some restaurant called Rattle Snake in the Boston area.  This was called, The Battle of the Sexes and it’s an award thing for hairdo’s, I guess they do people’s hair at the event and they get judged on it.  

This was a concert for some rock stars, none of whom I have ever heard of. 

And this was another promotion for a rock star of some sort.  Now, these come under the category of flyer.  A single sheet of paper, printed one or two sides, unfolded.  And the definition does not get into size, so it could be 8 ½ x 11 or smaller or 8 ½ x 11 or larger.  If you get beyond 11 x 17, I think you are into the realm of poster.  But below that, it’s called a flyer.  And normally, these are given out on street corners or stacked up and given out at various events where people congregate; at concerts and hotel lobbies and bars, restaurants and other venues.  

Railroad stations are a good example as well.  And so, the objective is to get your attention.  Just like direct mail has a quarter of a second to get your attention before you decide to throw it away, you have a quarter of a second to make a decision on whether you’re interested in this event.  If you’re interested, you’re probably gonna fold this up and put it in your pocket as a reminder for what you want to do.  If you’re not interested, you’re gonna throw it away.  Hopefully you’ll discard it properly and not just leave it on the streets so we have to spend money to clean it up.  

People say to me that all categories of print are going to go down, and so this one will go down as well.  I don’t agree with that.  I content that there’s no replacement for this kind of promotion.  Are you going to walk into the lobby and your cell phone or your PBA is going to buzz and remind you about one of these things?  I don’t think that’s going to happen.  Are we going to send you an email?  Well, we don’t have your email address.  How are we going to get this kind of information to you?  There’s no easy way.  So, you give this out at events, again, where people go, that would be interested in what you’re doing.  I mean, that’s usually the way you promote.  You try to define your audience.  So if they go to a rock concert, you give them a promotion for a different rock concert if you can.  Or you put it into the lobby or the opening to the building where people enter so that they can pick these things up as they go in.  

The whole objective is to get them to look at it.  Now, to get them to look at it, notice, full color, coded, I haven’t seen lamination yet, but probably that’s the next thing.  But the UV coating is extremely popular in this world – on heavier stock so it has some substance to it.  Now I’m not interested in any of these events, but I’m very interested in the printing.  And I say we’re going to see more of this as a way of promoting to certain kinds of constituencies.  And you’re not going to replace this with electronic media.  And so this, I believe, is going to be a growth area. And by the way, just in exactly the sweet spot for digital printing.