Printing Industry Commentary & Analysis

Why is TransPromo Hot Again?

TransPromo—bicapitalized with a T and P to emphasize the link between transactional and promotional communications—is experiencing a resurgence. Consumer-facing communicators are using TransPromo techniques in their printed and digital communications. This article explores why TransPromo is re-emerging as a talk track.

SAi Launches Augmented Reality App for Signmakers

SAi’s new VirtualSign is an augmented reality (AR) app that lets signmakers show clients how a sign will look in situ before it is printed and installed. We spoke wth SAi’s Gudrun Bonte, Vice President of Product Management, who oversaw the development of the app.

Areas Where Only Print Can Reach (Still)

We have been hearing for a while that 24% of Americans in rural areas still have no access to broadband, making print critical for marketers looking to reach those areas. This isn’t just a small pocket here and there. There are entire communities, even cities, without broadband access, where only traditional channels like print can reach.

Five Critical Issues Brands Face in the Global Packaging & Printing Supply Chain

Idealliance CEO Timothy Baechle identifies the five most critical issues that brands face today in terms of their global packaging and printing supply chain: finding qualified vendors, effective communication, evaluation, validation, and the need to never stop learning. This article looks at those five issues and how mastering them can help build an unbreakable supply chain.

Enabling Sales with the Right Story—Using Targeted Print Samples: Banks

In part 7 of Pat McGrew's ongoing series on selling in today’s print environment, she puts together a print sample kit for a specific vertical market: banks. If you or your sales reps are trying to sell your services to a bank, what kinds of items should you include in your Bank Marketing Sample Kit?

Lectra Acquisition of Retviews Helps Bring Realization of Industry 4.0 Closer for Fashion Brands

Lectra offers solutions that give fashion, automotive, and furniture companies the means to embark on the Industry 4.0 journey. Its recent acquisition of data company Retviews is another arrow in the company’s quiver. We spoke with Maximilien Abadie, Chief Strategy Officer for Lectra, to learn more.

Converted Paper Product Manufacturing Establishments—2016

in 2016, there were 3,638 establishments in NAICS 3222 (Converted Paper Product Manufacturing). More than four out of 10 of these establishments (42%) have 50 or more employees and two-thirds (65%) have 20 or more employees.

Around the Web: Medical Tattooing. Etsy Faces the Music. Guinness’ Road Less Traveled. Another Press Conference Cat-astrophe. Slugs in Medieval Manuscripts. Wienerbnb.

Disney’s “Escape from the Haunted Mansion” papercraft. Tattoos that function as medical diagnostics. Etsy buys musical marketplace. What technology will be obsolete in your lifetime? Is the world’s steepest road really the steepest in the world? What is it with these cat filters? A long, but well-worth-it Twitter thread about slugs in Medieval manuscript illumination. Spend a night in the Wienermobile...if you dare. “Disruption has come for toilet paper.” All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

Are You 100% Digitally Transformed?

Many businesses believe they’ve made the digital transformation, yet market shares of digitally printed pages are only in single digits. This article explores the disconnect between perceptions and reality in our industry’s digital transformation, and also discusses what must be done to help close this gap.

Beware of Dog: Automation and Wide-Format Printing

Automation for wide-format printing can encompass a lot of different processes, from automatic file processing, to robotics, even to database management. Where once wide format was deemed too “artisanal” or “craft-like” to be automated, the times are changing. After all, as competition in the wide-format segment continues to heat up, automation becomes a key element in controlling costs. We’ll take a look at the current state of automation for wide-format printing.

Are You Walking the Customer Retention Walk with Your Customers?

Whether it’s a print business or any other type of business (such as your customers’ businesses), retaining customers is critical. But knowing how important it is and being able to develop and execute an effective strategy are two different things. Here are five tips you can use to guide your customer retention strategy, as well as your customers’.

RFPs Are Not a Good Way to Procure Print Software

Learning is the most important part of software procurement decisions. The vendor needs to learn about you (to assess if you are a good fit for their solution) and you need to learn about the vendor. An RFP doesn’t facilitate any learning.

Production Inkjet: Welcome to the Revolution—Time to Take Stock

Production inkjet solutions are proliferating at an ever-increasing rate. The quality of many of the solutions has finally reached that of offset, and the productivity has surpassed that of toner. There are also a lot more options and opportunities. Perhaps it is time to step back and take stock of where we are and where things could be going?

Enabling Sales with the Right Story: How To Demonstrate Your Company’s Capabilities

In part 6 of Pat McGrew's ongoing series on selling in today’s print environment, she identifies some specific print samples to use to demonstrate your company’s capabilities.

SensorKnits: A New Approach to Wearable Tech

As part of our coverage of textiles and apparel, we look for interesting developments, both in the more conventional textiles and apparel market as it transitions to a more digital approach, as well as developments in technical textiles. In this article, we present the work being done at the MIT Media Lab to use knitting to embed conductive fibers in fabric in order to add functionality.

May Printing Shipments Up from April

Printing shipments for May 2019 were up from April—and even came in above May 2018 shipments, albeit only very slightly.

Around the Web: Newspaperless Starbucks. Printless Textbooks. Madless Al Jaffee. Memeless TikTok. Painless Airplane Seats? Monkless Chanting. Methless Gators.

Starbucks stops selling newspapers. Pearson switches to etextbooks. All about the semicolon. Coder Margaret Hamilton saved the Apollo 11 mission. The inventor of the computer password is ******. What is TikTok? IBM patents a smartwatch that unfolds into a tablet. Whatever happened to all those Bob Ross paintings? F. Scott Fitzgerald and “cocktail” as a verb. Heavy metal knitting. Twinkies for Breakfast. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

Why Gamification Matters to Print Service Providers

There are lessons that PSPs can learn in watching how the general public interacts with video games—a roughly $140 billion dollar industry that exists simply because people like to have fun. By bringing elements of game design into their companies and products, PSPs can create better, stronger training practices for their employees while also developing more engaging versions of their products. All of this can be accomplished through a process called gamification.

Getting the Most Out of Your P&L Statement

Do you use your monthly profit and loss (P&L) statement to its fullest? Although few do more with it than quickly glance at—and perhaps lament—the bottom line, the P&L can offer valuable information about how your business is performing. In this latest installment of his Pricing series, Robert Lindgren explains how.

Is Heavier Weight Paper Worth It? This Study Says Yes

Last week, I posted a list of links to neuroscience studies showing the power of print over digital in many areas, including content retention, recall, and willingness to buy. One of those resources contains a reference to a 2015 study that is often overlooked. The study looks not just at print vs. digital, but the weight of the paper, as well. If you are not familiar with this study, you should be.

The Event the Print Industry Needs

A learning event vs. a selling event—that is the event the print industry needs. An event where you go to solve your challenges through active collaboration, open-minded because nobody is trying to sell you anything.

The Evolution of APTech and the Future of the PRINT Show

Cary Sherburne talks with Thayer Long, the current president of the Association for PRINT Technologies (APTech), about the evolution of APTech, the upcoming PRINT 19 show, and a look ahead to the new Brand Print Americas 2020, the result of a strategic alliance with the Tarsus Group, owner and organizer of Labelexpo and Brand Print Global Series, which will replace PRINT 2020.

Dare to Be Different!

The impression is dead—long live the impression! Long live printing that is integrated alongside other communication channels. This is the way forward and to get it right, you need to make two changes: throw away the old baggage you’ve carried for so long and embrace a change of mentality. You must swap the old habits of traditional printing for digital ones!

Enabling Sales with the Right Story: Evaluating Your Print Samples

In part 5 of Pat McGrew's ongoing series on selling in today’s print environment, she talks about how to evaluate the print samples your sales team uses to sell your company’s capabilities.

Addressing Color Management Challenges in a Hybrid Analog/Digital Textiles & Apparel Industry

In the textiles and apparel industry, color management has historically been a given. Now with the introduction of digital textile printing into the mix, new color management challenges have arisen. In this article, Senior Editor Cary Sherburne takes a look at the current state of color management in the textiles and apparel industry, and where it goes from here.

PR Agency Employees—2010–2016

In 2016, there were 58,489 employees in establishments in NAICS 54182 (Public Relations Agencies). Employment in this category has grown +17% from 2010 to 2016.

Around the Web: Knitted Sensors. Disabled Books. The City that Invented the Publishing Industry. Brands and Amazon Search. Most Valuable Brands. Underwater Internet. Another Photo Cake Incident.

The MIT Media Lab develops knitted sensors. Microsoft discontinues its ebooks—and erases everyone’s libraries. Venice and the dawn of book publishing. Most of product searches on Amazon are brand-free. Sea-level rise may adversely affect the Internet. An AR application to identify street artists. Working for the [Robot] Man. Use AI to keep your prey-toting pet out of the house. Levitating turntables. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

Handling Objections: It’s About Preparation and Identification

Sales objections can be daunting for even the most seasoned salespeople, creating a feeling of disapproval or opposition. Objections can come in many forms. This article explores how all salespeople, regardless of experience or tenure, can properly prepare for them.

Making More Productive People Decisions

You know how it is: You’re looking to fill a position in your company. You find a prospect who has a great resume and interviews like a pro. They know the job and have the requisite experience, so you hire them, only to find their actual job performance lacking. What happened? Chances are, you only evaluated basic technical qualifications rather than behavioral traits that could determine if that employee was a good for for your company. In this article, Wayne Lynn explains why you should look beyond the resume.

Email Is a Terrible Way to Communicate (Internally)

Internal communication deserves better tools than email. Real collaboration happens best when more, not fewer, people are involved. Taking internal communication out of email reduces the cognitive overhead of deciding whom to communicate with.

Neuroscience and Print: Compiled List of Links

Print and digital communications both have their strengths, but when it comes to comprehension and recall, studies consistently show that information communicated in print is more deeply embedded, recalled with more detail, and creates a more powerful emotional engagement than digital. Here is a compiled list of links on studies on the neuroscience of print, or how our brains respond to print vs. digital communications, listed in chronological order of publication.

Landa: And They’re Off…

Benny Landa first introduced the concept of “Nanography” at drupa 2012. There was a reaffirmation of the introduction at drupa 2016, and since then, lots of quiet. It turns out the quiet was self-imposed, and in the interim Landa has been very busy building an organization and shipping presses.

Let There Be More Light: LED Signage Hits the Big—and Small—Time

Advances in LED technology—and of course lower costs—have enabled LED signage to move indoors, and are even replacing LCD-based dynamic digital signage (DDS) for many applications.

Digital Technologies, Innovation and Sustainability Top the Conversation List at ITMA 2019

Digital technologies, innovation and sustainability were key elements that drew a great deal of attention at the recent ITMA 2019 show in Barcelona. In this second ITMA article, Senior Editor Cary Sherburne highlights some of the advances she noticed during the show. This just scratches the surface of ITMA announcements but provides a feel for the speed with which the industry is adopting digital technologies that affect the entire supply chain.

Print Publishing in Turmoil—June 2019 M&A Activity

Justice Department Blocks Quad, Condé Nast Sheds W, Colortree Closes and more…

Xerox Baltoro Inkjet Platform Overview

Xerox has announced the availability of the Baltoro High Fusion Inkjet Press. Xerox has positioned the Baltoro as a “platform” in the model of the Trivor, iGen and DocuTech series of devices.

Printing Industry Profits: What Goes Up...

Industry profits data came out earlier this month, and overall profits slipped a little. Annualized profits for Q1 2019 were $3.58 billion, down slightly from $3.66 billion in Q4 of last year. Again, it’s the large printers that are dragging down overall industry profitability.

Around the Web: Yet More Meeker! Madvertising. Roasting Design. Trouble On the Map. Public Domain: The Musical. Danger: Slugs! The ENIAC Programmers Project. Portugal’s Plastic Rocks. Fishbots!

Mary Meeker Slide Roulette. Brands harness online outrage. How can an Albany antiquarian bookstore outlast its owner? Core77 roasts bad industrial design. Fake businesses on Google Maps. Celebrating the original six ENIAC programmers—women all. Country Time is on your side. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

The Bürkle and EFI Partnership: A LIGNA 2019 Interview

During LIGNA 2019, Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends caught up with José Luis Ramón Moreno of EFI and Olaf Rohrbeck of Bürkle/LIGNA to learn more about the recently announced partnership between EFI and Robert Bürkle GmbH. This article provides a transcription of the interview.

Avery Dennison Launches New Car Wrap Visualizer

To help vehicle wrap installers better help customers with color change vehicle wraps, Avery Dennison has launched an online Car Wrap Visualizer that shows how a particular vinyl film color looks on a representative sample of vehicle types. We spoke with Avery Dennison’s Abby Monnot, who helped develop the tool.

Survey: Multichannel Marketing from a Small Business Perspective

How are small businesses implementing multichannel marketing? What role does direct mail play in those strategies? Taradel decided to find out. This article takes a look at some key findings and takeaways.

Pricing Software Tools That Enable Print Programs

Your print sales team has to evolve to understand and be able to sell the value of the software that enables print demand from business processes. Every printer should have a direct revenue line for their software.

EskoWorld: Packaging Connected

Esko held its 28th EskoWorld in Nashville with an audience of over 550 attendees. Since its inception, this has been a go-to event for those in packaging production and signage, although the audience is now growing with about 25% of which were brand owners. This plays nicely into the theme “Packaging Connected.”

World Gathers in Barcelona for ITMA 2019

ITMA 2019 Textile and Garment Technology Exhibition, the world’s largest trade fair for the textiles industry, is taking place in Barcelona from June 20 to 26. For our printing industry readers, this is like the drupa of textiles. Here are some of the highlights from the show, with a focus on how companies are addressing the growing need for an ecosystem approach to digital textile printing.

Advertising Agency Employees—2010–2016

In 2016, there were 194,792 employees in establishments in NAICS 54181 (Advertising Agencies). Employment in this category has grown +31% from 2010 to 2016.

Around the Web: More Meeker! Press Conference Cat-astrophe. 3D Fashion. A Tale of a Tail. Marking Computer History. Redesigned Mailboxes. Celebrating Tristram Shandy. Bakery Printing Error. Li-Fi.

Mary Meeker Slide Roulette. 3D Fashion Editor. An app-controlled animatronic tail. A N.H. highway historical marker commemorates the creation of BASIC. Note to press briefers: turn off the kitten filter. The USPS combats postal box fishing. A look at Laurence Sterne’s classic “Tristram Shandy.” Who wouldn’t want a Marie Curie birthday cake? Internet-transmitting lights. Crocheted body parts. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

The Commodity Conversation: Who Are We Kidding?

The buying criteria within the printing industry are no different than any other—they come down to quality, service, and price. This article provides a brief overview of these three key buying criteria and explores how print service providers can shift away from a commodity conversation while still respecting customers’ inherent preferences.

ImageMark Adds Promotional Products to Product Offerings

Long an industry trendsetter, North Carolina-based ImageMark recently announced the addition of promotional products to its portfolio of offerings in order to increase its value to customers as a one-stop shop for everything marketing. Senior Editor Cary Sherburne spoke with CEO Walter Payne to find out what drove this decision.

Study: Direct Mail Shoppers Are More Engaged, Spend More

Research from Pebble Post/Murphy Research finds that direct mail shoppers are highly engaged and spend, research, and evangelize more than non-direct mail shoppers. What’s behind this behavior? A look at the data from Pebble Post, as well as others.

Hidden Labor Costs of Bad Data

The level of trust you have in the data in your Print MIS impacts all aspects of your business. When printers get their Print MIS to be “trustworthy,” they can move a whole lot faster, with less labor costs, and be more responsive to the never-ending request for more data from all stakeholders in your business.

Enabling Sales with the Right Story: Are Using the Right Print Samples?

In part 4 of Pat McGrew's series on selling in today’s print environment, she talks about how to make sure the print samples your sales team uses reflect the products you specifically want to sell.

Do Customers Know What “Wide Format” Printing Is?

What’s in a name? Does the term “wide format” mean anything to today’s print buyers? Avoiding industry jargon in sales and marketing efforts—and especially in one’s online presence—can help attract potential customers who may not be hip to our jive.

SmithersPira Hosts Digital Print Week 2019 in Orlando

Once again, market research firm SmithersPira hosted Digital Print Week, with two conferences back to back: Digital Print for Packaging U.S. and Digital Textile Printing U.S. WhatTheyThink Senior Editor Cary Sherburne attended both sessions. The WhatTheyThink team also captured some great video content during the conferences, which will be run on the site over the next few weeks.

April Printing Shipments—A New Season?

Printing shipments for April were up from March, happily disrupting what has become the usual seasonal pattern. Even better, April 2019 shipments came in above April 2018 shipments.

Around the Web: Two Words: Mary Meeker! Kirie Eleison. Passenger Drones. Shame-Based Ecology. Kids on Film. LED Earbuds. Ice Ice Hawking.

Data nerds rejoice: Mary Meeker’s 2019 Internet Trends Report is out. The Japanese art of kirie. Robotaxies to take flight. Barnes & Noble sold to a hedge fund. Fujifilm resumes making black-and-white film. Light up your brain, ostensibly. “The queen of eating shellfish online.” A Stephen Hawking-esque voice synthesizer performs “Ice Ice Baby.” All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

Pricing the New Stuff

New technologies, new equipment, and new applications can play havoc with traditional pricing. In the third installment of his series on pricing, Robert Lindgren looks at how to price new capabilities such as digital printing and VDP, wide-format printing on unique substrates, and more.

Tracking Shifts in the Customer Communications Market

As part of its coverage of the customer communications market, Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends conducts annual research of enterprises and consumers. This article provides a brief overview of recent survey findings and also highlights the data points that will be uncovered in upcoming research.

Putting Numbers to Direct Mail’s Ability to Drive Purchases

In concert with Pebble Post, Murphy Research released a study that puts data to what we intuitively know but can’t always document: that direct mail drives purchase consideration and plays a central role in the path to purchase. These are good numbers to have!

Idealliance PPC: Global Collaboration—Where Standards are Born

Idealliance’s Ron Ellis and Tim Baechle provide an update on the Print Properties and Colorimetric Council (PPC), a global think tank in which the top color scientists, consultants, OEMs, brands, service providers, creatives, educators, and global innovators that develops standards, specifications, datasets, profiles, targets, research, and the globally leading practices in order to propel the industry forward.

EXCLUSIVE: Adobe, Datacolor, and CSI Team to Enhance Adobe Textile Designer

Adobe, Datacolor, and Color Solutions International (CSI), have teamed up to continue the enhancement of Adobe Textile Designer for Photoshop by making it easier for designers to seamlessly capture inspiration colors, sending them directly into Photoshop. Adobe’s Mike Scrutton explains the details.

Ricoh Interact 2019—A Very Engaging Experience

David Zwang reports from Interact 2019, Ricoh’s annual customer event comprising nearly 60 sessions which covered a wide range of topics, both high-level and highly detailed. It also provided an opportunity to meet some of the new Ricoh leadership team.

Self-Improvement Is Business Improvement

What does it take to be successful as the leader of a business? It’s not enough just to be qualified to do the job. Are you behaviorally suited? Do you have the strong key traits that distinguish high-performing CEOs from everyone else? Determining how you stack up against the “best and the brightest” can identify areas in which improving yourself can help improve your business. Wayne Lynn of Lynn Consulting explains how.

FESPA 2019: Key Takeaways

FESPA 2019 in Munich was, by all accounts, its most successful show yet. The WhatTheyThink team walked all six halls, attended lots of press events, and did video interviews with a number of exhibitors that will be running over the next few weeks. Here are our key takeaways from the show.

Sports Illustrated Print Edition Heads to Hospice—May 2019 M&A Activity

Meredith sells off Sports Illustrated branding rights, Welch Packaging stays focused, and more…

See the Industry Under One Roof

As it brings the printing industry together, PRINTING United will reveal adjacent opportunities.

Around the Web: Fashion Footprints. Dental Data. Born-Again Bookstores. Delicious Design. Correlation Caution. Dash Disturbance. Forgery Fallout. Rocket Reading.

Quantifying fashion’s environmental footprint. Transforming the bookstore into a “cultural department store.” A profile of revolutionary designer Cipe Peneles. Buy your own Follows and Likes. Caution: Correlation vs. Causation. Using hyphens in academic paper titles adversely affects citations stats. Nuclear tests can help spot art forgeries. An AR-enabled book about the history of rocket launches. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services Employees—2010–2016

In 2016, there were 472,163 employees in establishments in NAICS 5418 (Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services). Employment in this category has grown +15% from 2010 to 2016.

Learnings from the Road: May Trade Events in Perspective

May 2019 saw a variety of important trade events on a global scale, including the National Postal Forum, the Fiserv Forum, Xeikon Café, and FESPA. This article provides a brief synopsis of the major trade events that occurred during the past month.

In-Plant "Frontrunners" Race to IPMA's Annual Conference

More than 200 in-plant “Frontrunners” raced to Louisville, Ky., this week for the In-Plant Printing & Mailing Association’s (IPMA) Annual Conference, four days of sessions, networking events, and technology exhibits.

Choose to Measure Time Spent in Your Print Business

Everyday, most of us choose the most important thing to work on. The employees in the carpeted area of your print business are making these decisions everyday. Do you know what they are prioritizing? Do you know how they are spending their time? You should measure time just like you measure revenues, profits, and costs.

Looking to Combine Print with Social? Check Out These Data

This article looks at the data from Merkle’s “Digital Marketing Report” (Q1 2019). Specifically, it looks at growth (or lack thereof) in ad spending and impressions for the top social media channels.

Smithers Pira Research Identifies Major Growth Technologies for Spunlace Nonwovens to 2024

Spunlace nonwovens have a compelling commercial future in expanding end-uses—including adult and infant wipes, home care, and industrial applications—according to the latest research from Smithers Pira.

Enabling Sales with the Right Story: How to use Print Samples in the Sales Process

In part 3 of Pat McGrew series on selling in today’s print environment, she talks about how to use print samples in the sales process.

FESPA Special Features: The Stars of the Show

FESPA Munich was an amazing show. If you didn’t attend this year, you should definitely consider attending next year in March in Madrid. There is something for everyone, regardless of which segment of the industry in which you play. Of particular note are the special features FESPA has organized to add to its educational value. Senior Editor Cary Sherburne reviews them here.

The Changing Face of Print Business Opportunities

In our annual Print Business Outlook Survey, we found that the top opportunities for print businesses included some newer, proactive items, with some of the old chestnuts falling off the tree. As we saw with recent Business Challenges, could this reflect a “changing of the guard” of print business management?

Around the Web: Books...In a Library?! Hidden Secrets of the NYPL. The World’s First Poster Museum. Optical Illusion. A Digital Dress? What the ? A Puckish Idea. Three Little Words.

The clamor to keep print books in academic libraries. 10 reasons to get a New York Public Library card. NYC opens first poster museum. Fry your brain with this new optical illusion. $9500 for a dress that doesn’t actually exist. Meredith sells Sports Illustrated...but not the magazine. The mysterious origin of the dollar sign. Let us proclaim the mystery of tape. Hockey pucks for the blind. For sale: one Wienermobile. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

Memjet for Packaging: DuraLink Entries Are Ramping Up

Memjet’s second-generation technology, DuraLink, achieved its first commercial placements from a few OEMs, and is now expanding into industrial applications. This article provides an overview of DuraLink technology, explores how it compares to VersaPass, and considers how Memjet’s offering may compare to more established industrial jetting technologies.

Enabling Sales with the Right Story: Creating Compelling Stories with Print Samples

In part 2 of Pat McGrew's series on selling in today’s print environment, she talks about how print samples are at their most effective when there are compelling stories associated with them.

Study: “Nudge” Customers into Going Green

Printers have become accustomed to incentivizing customers to use environmentally friendly consumables by minimizing the cost difference from non-green versions. But a new research study shows that this approach may be counter-productive. Would charging more for a “green marketing package” actually increase your customers’ green purchasing intent? This study suggests that the answer is yes.

How Timing Impacts Strategic Print Software Decisions

Being strategic about print software is nearly impossible when you are in a crisis. Too many print software decisions are made under duress. When you have the discipline to plan before the crisis, you are being strategic.

Edelmann Demonstrates Its S10 as Landa Moves Towards Commercialization

Keypoint Intelligence – Infotrends’ Ralf Schlozer reports from last week’s open house at Germany’s Edelmann Group, where the company was demonstrating its Landa S10 for folding carton production. Landa aims to step up its press installations through the rest of 2019.

Rebirth of Flexo: Part 2...Can This Type of Effort Translate to Other Analog Printing Technologies?

In Part 2 of “Rebirth of Flexo,” David Zwang looks at an example of a flexo solution and its components that provides a significant deterrent to the onslaught of production inkjet in packaging production.

Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services Establishments—2016

in 2016, there were 37,875 establishments in NAICS 5418 (Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services). Two-thirds of these establishments (65%) have under four employees, 79% have under 10 employees, and 88% have under 20 employees. The largest agencies (100 or more employees) only account for 2% of all establishments.

Around the Web: Recycling Garments. “Knitting is Coding.” Stubborn Signage. Fanatics and Fast Fashion. Graphic Design for President! QR Codes to Aid Memory. Big Monet.

Sex weasels of classical portraiture. Times Square billboard under fire. Fanatics becomes the Amazon of sports apparel. The West Wing Weekly podcast looks at campaign design and typography. Using QR codes to assist dementia patients. Is there money in art? The tragedy of AirPods. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

Five Steps to Creating a Process Control Culture

Timothy Baechle of Idealliance identifies five steps that will help establish a process control culture in your print business. Creating an environment based on equipment measurement and monitoring, combined with continued investment in employee education, will lead to more satisfied and productive employees, better and more consistently performing equipment, and, ultimately, more satisfied customers.

How Data Analytics Bring Value to a World of Information

In a recent survey, Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends examined the behaviors of different types of print service providers (PSPs). We determined that the most successful PSPs possess unique qualities that separate them from their competitors. One such quality that enables this group to be successful is their use of data analytics to process and leverage the marketing information they obtain for self-promotion.

Print MIS Product Spotlight: Avanti’s Slingshot

Jennifer Matt reviews Slingshot by Avanti, and feels that its integrated warehouse management, multiple approaches to scheduling, and approach to implementation are its core strengths.

Do You Have Your “Do Good” On?

Doing good has become good business practice. We not only see it in action, but the research bears it out, too. Fortunately, we are seeing printers taking up the mantle and investing in various areas of social responsibility, cementing customer relationships and (hopefully) creating positive peer pressure to do the same.

Rebirth of Flexo: Technology Shifts…Are We Asking the Right Questions?

During new printing technology introductions there has usually been displacement and realignment of the existing print technology roles. During those transformational times, there are many old and new options. Packaging production is now going through one of these periods, raising the question: what type of print technology is best? In packaging production, this decision is getting harder, as a result of the rebirth of flexo printing.

Lifelong Learners Come to Feast at the Xeikon Café

Kevin Karstedt reports from last week’s Xeikon Café, two days of forward-thinking presentations, nearly 40 solutions partners, and some new “killer apps” that are pushing far more than envelopes in today’s digital printing environment.

Design Pool Aims to Make Fabric Design Selection Easier for Interior Designers

In the world of interior design, finding the exact fabric needed for a commercial or residential interior design project can be difficult. But why not have the exact fabrics you need, designed and printed on demand in the exact quantity you need? That’s the concept behind Design Pool.

Beyond PRINT: With Tarsus Alliance, APTech Begins a New Chapter for Itself and for the Industry

Last week, the Association for PRINT Technologies (APTech) announced that it has joined forces with Tarsus Group, the owner and organizer of the Labelexpo and Brand Print Global trade shows, to launch a new show called Brand Print Americas. We spoke with APTech president Thayer Long about what the new alliance means for the future of APTech—and for the industry.

March Printing Shipments: A Day at the Races

The value of printing shipments for March were up from February. However, at $6.66 billion, March 2019 shipments came in below March 2018’s $6.74 billion. That’s not a huge disappointment, but we were hoping for a better month.

Around the Web: Revised Receipts. Lost Libraries. Elusive Elements. Killer Conferences. Otic Apps. Flora Fluorescence.

Adding visual information to register receipts. 75 years of ISA. A recently discovered 500-year-old library catalog of lost books. Our dwindling helium supply. Does conference room air negatively affect decision-making? Plant-based lighting. All that and more in WhatTheyThink’s weekly miscellany.

The Power of the Hit Ratio

In the second installment in his series on pricing, Robert Lindgren looks at the “hit ratio”—the percentage of quotes that turn into actual orders. Differentiating customers based on their respective hit ratios, and adjusting pricing accordingly, can lead to a substantial increase in the bottom line.

FESPA 2019: Beer, Brats, and Dots

FESPA 2019 attracted attendees on a global scale under the theme of an “Explosion of Possibilities.” In partnership with Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends, the event’s organizers collected feedback from the 2018 Print Census research to determine key areas of focus for the 2019 event.

Yesterday’s Workflow Tools: Spreadsheets, Email, and PDFs

The toolset for solving business workflow challenges has completely changed in the last decade. If the only tool(s) you’re deploying are email, spreadsheets, and/or PDFs, you are using yesterday’s tools to solve today’s challenges.

Is In-App Use the Future of QR Codes?

Is in-app use the future of QR Codes? As in, not a QR Code app, but someone else’s app? Maybe this explains research that shows that QR Code use is increasing.

A RIP Designed with Label and Packaging Production in Mind: Harlequin RIP v12.1

We are seeing significant advancements in label and packaging production in both digital and analog production. However, one thing in common is rapid growth. Global Graphics released the Harlequin RIP v12 about a year ago with some of the new PDF 2.0 features. This new Harlequin RIP/Renderer v12.1 has added many additional features designed for print and further targeted at label and packaging production. David Zwang takes an in-depth look at this new release.

Do Your Employees Work Well as a Team?

The printing industry is in the middle of a talent crisis. It’s getting harder and harder to find employees, let alone ones who work well on a team. In this article, Wayne Lynn looks at the three characteristics of good team players, and how print business leaders can help identify and improve these characteristics in their own employees.

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