The traditional role for the magazine publisher in the graphic arts market has been to publish news and articles about the industry, provide a medium for advertisers to get their messages across to readers, and in some cases provide seminars and tutorials, and for some publishers to run prestigious printing award events. What we are now seeing that some of these publishers are successfully extending their role to providing this information via the web as well as by printed means, and in certain cases this can be on a daily basis. What we have seen in the past year, as recession as impacted heavily on the industry, is that some publishers have heavily retrenched in what they do as their revenues from advertising dropped substantially.

One publisher I have known for a very long time is Aktuell Grafisk Information AB (AGI) based out of Sweden but covering the whole Scandinavian market. AGI has always been a very progressive publisher and I was intrigued to see on a recent visit to Oslo to speak at one of their conferences that they have two more very interesting approaches to help their customers. In this their customers are their subscribers, the printers, and the industry suppliers. The first of these was to provide a new form of exhibition in which they take the exhibition to the printer rather than the printer going to the exhibition. AGI have extended the concept of the supplier’s road show where normally a single supplier takes their equipment to various locations and invited their customers and prospects to visit the show.

The new AGI form of road show is where AGI provide the logistics and promotion and the suppliers bring along the equipment. Recently the AGI road show travelled all around Sweden in two large trucks in which all the suppliers equipment was carried. The logistics company providing the two trucks for the whole period of the event entered into the spirit at its own cost with printed truck banners describing the event. The road show would go to the different cities and towns around Sweden, and in all cases apart from Stockholm the exhibition would be set up at the premises of a local binding company where there was usually plenty of space. The binding companies were delighted to participate in this as it would mean hosting a large number of local printers who they hoped would consider using their services in the future. The set up for the event would take one day and the following day the event would take place. On average around 100 people from the local printers and service companies would attend the event. Following the event all the equipment would be packed into the trucks again and moved into the next location. It was only in Stockholm where a larger number of printers would attend that a dedicated event facility was used instead of a local bindery.