Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that the new AOL Time Warner annual report is “all paper. . .with no hard cover or pictures of any kind.” I went to their web site and, sure enough, there it was: 63 pages of two-color text. Period.

Flash back one year. In April 2000, the WSJ reported on Time Warner’s annual report and how glitzy it was, with 7 different cover versions! I was so impressed with the coverage and how it championed versioned printing, that I did a column about it.

What a difference a year makes.

This current news article about the slimmed-down version of a major annual report made me wonder. . .

1 - Did the printer who would’ve handled the full-color annual have any warning?
2 - Are glitzy annual reports becoming endangered species?
3 - Was it, in the end, only about the bottom line after all? (Read on.)

The bare-bones annual might have been a “no brainer” for AOL Time Warner: as it was, it cost them $4 million to send to over 3.5 million shareholders, reported the WSJ. A high-end, glossy annual would have added $6 million to that figure, according to the article. And it wasn’t the printing but the mailing costs that were the major consideration.

That the economy has turned sour is not news. Printing budgets may be among the first to get trimmed by corporations. This, too, shall pass. In the meanwhile, it calls for creative solutions by commercial printers. If I sold printing to public companies, I’d be keeping an eye on them. I’d pay attention to business news about them (and their competitors). I’d watch their stock, to see if the value changed much. I’d bookmark their web sites and visit the “News” section regularly. And I’d talk with my customers. Keeping in touch with them is always important, but in this economy, itís mandatory.

As they say, forewarned is forearmed. Printers who can keep “in the loop” with their customers have a better chance of learning about corporate news that might affect printing budgets.