Girl on print - Business thinking behind the Printing World

Paper price rises... believe it or not its cheaper than six years ago

2009-01-06T17:07:00Z

The festive Christmas period for me involved a lot of paper heavy activities. For a start there was the wrapping, the crackers and the carol sheet in church, not to mention the book amongst the presents’ stash and the thank-you notes. And in a house with no heating, paper played a vital roll in getting the home fire lit (note coloured newspaper does not burn as well as non coloured.) So I pile back into work to enjoy the many benefits of heating and hot water and also a lively email box. And as turkey is turkey the paper price rise notifications are coming into the box… BUT print and paper buyers before you heave a sigh and sink into a slough of budgetary despair ponder on the latest comment from the NAPM. The organisation has hailed the fact that according to its own price index on all sales of fine paper in the UK have only just passed in October 2008 the level they were at in January 2003, meaning in real terms that paper is now some 20% cheaper than it was nearly six years ago. And if we take our eye for one moment off the financial plight of the industry, the environmental issues are still out there…. creative paper manufacturer Arjowiggins has launched a new division called Arjowiggins Graphic which is focusing on the development of cutting edge environmental papers. I shall keep this development on my radar and see how these new papers develop.

Anybody who is moving premises should read this...

2008-12-19T09:42:00Z

I write this during a slightly obsessive list mode moment.

I am moving house…. yep three days before Christmas and even better three days before I have guests arriving for a party on Christmas Eve… (was quite clearly wildly optimistic about how long it takes to gut and rebuild and paint a house in October).

Fine you think, the woman is a grown up surely she can cope with this. And yes I can… or rather I will at the weekend. However there are a few things I have learned in the last few traumatic months that might help businesses out there in printing land.

The business side of a personal life is a little like running a small business. The same tax man cometh and taketh away if the tax return is not shot in at the right moment…. (and yes there is one of those due in as well very soon). I consider Christmas day a perfectly acceptable time to do this. Eating and drinking wildly overrated this year in my environs.

Despite humankind growing in vast intelligence and adding technological wonder devices an a daily basis it would seem that we all need to fall at the foot of the good God BT should we wish our broadband connection to continue within the same month of one moving…. Lesson one… plan ahead and communicate with essential suppliers earlier on if planning any move of any sort.

Again humans may be a joyous species when in the pub but mistakes do happen. Take one well known kitchen company add to that a request for three matching worktops and see what turns up. In my case three non matching worktops. Lesson two… check your deliveries AS SOON AS THEY ARRIVE. This will allay any hot, sweaty moments minutes before you realise, but your husband/business partner/colleague has yet to realise, that you are facing a CALAMITY.

Lesson three: there is a reason for Gantt charts in developmental work. Find one, use it and stick to it.

Lesson four: make good friends with those key people in life… the postroom, the postman and the electrician.

Lesson five: there will always be more rubbish than you ever thought in your wildest dreams possible. Ensure you have enough black bags early on in the mission or skips to put it in. Remember that to put it in the wrong place will incur fines, and may be illegal.

Happy Christmas to you all. I look forward to the New Year with some trepidation it has to be said but I bet that’s the same for the majority of us. Whatever the festive season brings, let’s meet again in January.

M&S stays streets ahead with promo flyers

2008-12-10T15:03:00Z

Never in my many oxygen breathing adult years did I think I would see the sight that faced me at lunchtime in the shopping Mecca of Hammersmith high street. For, sprouting from the pavements, like green shoots of hope for printing, were neatly dressed young men sporting black jackets, green ID badges and hope for the print sector. The gentlemen I refer you to were handing out leaflets promoting marks and sparks food….

Yes Marks and Spencer was on the streets enticing us, whether moneyed or cashless, into the store to buy the full roast for Christmas lunch. ….

And then there was more….. Once I had scurried past the black jackets I was again met with a gentlewoman inside the shop, this time handing out different leaflets to further induce me to accost the food sales racks at the back of the store.

While Woolies’ rescue talks with a TV dragon have failed and the Tesco goliath is having its toes tickled by the likes of nippers, Aldi and Lidl; stores will need to use print in and around stores to promote discounted wares or even closing down sales in the case of dear old 107 year old Woolies.

The stores have taken the fight for consumers on to the streets and print, for today at least, is their chosen armament of war.

You can bet your bottom pound that Marks and Sparks won’t be alone foraging for Christmas shoppers on the street. November’s sales are down 0.4% from a year earlier, which follows a 0.1% decline in October Total retail sales have fallen in consecutive months for the first time in 13 years.

Print is coming back into its own and print buyers are going to be busy.

So just in case print buyers can find some spare time in amongst time pressured schedules, news arrived on my desk of a Print Buyer University. Heidelberg’s Print Media Academy has designed a four day programme for professional marketers, creatives and purchasers. It will take place on January 13-16, 2009 and fees including all course documentation and lunches are set at EUR1,550 plus VAT. Silvia Becker can provide further information and can be found on pma-seminare@heidelberg.com. More information www.print-media-academy.com. Organiser Frank Pörschke says the Academy has been offering these international programs since 2002 and last year it ran 13 print buyer seminars in Germany.

Role calls

2008-11-05T14:33:00Z

The role of a print buyer is rapidly changing. Indeed I cannot be sure that the title “print buyer” sufficiently covers the broad church of activity that a print buyer is now involved with.

Of course, there are the traditional roles of print buying that will continue for the foreseeable future but there are many other roles that are growing and will continue to expand possibly into areas such as marketing and sales … whether remits will be expanded with enthusiasm or through the gritted teeth of an already overworked print buyer... like it or not it is happening.

So enter into the discussion the option of training. Training is vital in this sector. Whether self funded or paid for by a far seeing management it is worth drawing up a business plan giving reasons as to why you need to update skills.

Companies need workers that are aware of the full options of help and advice out there, such as the new, emerging technologies of cross media applications or variable data work.

Print buyers need to support themselves by proactively seeking out knowledge. A good start for research and more information would be November’s PrintBuyer’s best practice feature on training – complete with a table of contacts.

It is a bit early to start planning New Year’s resolutions but perhaps quick look at the options and the drawing up of a 12 month and longer term five year learning and career plan might soon be in order.

if you pay for accreditation, use it...

2008-11-03T16:25:00Z

Something I heard recently made me stop and gasp in amazement.

Thankfully I was sitting down when I heard Sam Neal, managing director at Geoff Neal printers, say some customers ask for FSC accredited paper but then do not follow through and ask for the relevant accreditation logo to go on the product. He was speaking a recent Printing World roundtable event and he was not alone in his comments… other printers round the table agreed with him.

To go to the effort of securing FSC accredited paper, to pay the costs involved in getting an environmentally friendly piece of print to product stage and then not include the relevant environmental accrediting logo is to me like making the most glorious Victoria sponge, boiling up the jam, shifting a gentle mist of icing sugar on top and then not eating it.

Why is this happening I wonder? Do let me know – why not go that one last step to acknowledge your buying efforts… after all you have done the hard work... reap the rewards and promote your environmental prowess.

The public still do not understand the environmental impact of paper according to results from a recent survey from the National Association of Paper Merchants (NAPM). From the survey 27% of respondents believe that paper production is a major cause of deforestation and 55% felt that recycled paper is better than virgin fibre grades. There clearly needs to be a concentrated effort to educate so if can get the logos out there on products and visible it will help start to spread the news that paper is not all bad when it comes to the environment.

Get Creative at Total Print! Expo

2008-09-29T09:11:00Z

Printing World and PrintBuyer magazine has put together a really informative and useful series of seminars for the first two days of Total Print! Expo. More details can be found at http://www.totalprintexpo.com/.

In my line of work I see many, many examples of wonderful print. It has always seemed a shame to me that I can’t share these wonderful creations with more people. But now I can…

On the 15^th October, the second day of Total Print! Expo, I shall be showing a good sample of different kinds of print and highlighting a very special campaign from capsule8 that has given me and my fellow comrades in the office a lot of smiles.

So if you are popping along to Total Print! Expo and want to just see what can be done in our clever, innovative market sector come to the Seminar Theatre at 3pm. I look forward to meeting you.

From PrintWeek

hand puppets point the way

2008-03-13T17:18:00Z

Printing in this economic climate is hard work. It has been hard work for a while and that’s why perhaps it is a joy sometimes to look back to those fondly remembered good old days. You can see from the attached link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phD0pEaczzg that the years of the 1700s must have been interesting from a printing point of view. The two glove puppets lend a certain level of amusement… this link to you tube is worth a look….and will make you smile which has to be good. The look of shock on the yellow puppet right at the end makes watching the clip well worthwhile….

Cheers till the next time.

sick note with apologies but worth reading anyway

2008-02-14T13:54:00Z

Since mid December life has been very quiet for me. For on this is the date I succumbed to a varied and it would seem continuing list of ailments… let there be no confusion here: I am working my way through the A to Z of general illness and woes.
Not that I am alone in my bug ridden existence… others seem also to to be battling through croaks, coughs, splutters and general malaise. you have my best wishes.

Never had I had to lie so low for so long (well there was chicken pox when I was 13 but that is another story completely). So with cancelled appointments and parties strewn around my diary I finally rear into vision again on my first 08 blog.
One thing that you notice when you are left marooned in bed while the world parties its way through Christmas, New Year, going back to work, and all the other high points around at this time of year, is how much print is involved in being ill.
If we are a nation of computer users illness is not where it is at.

I shall give a brief listing of print necessary to accompany one during a journey through the valley of sickness and we can all glory in the fact that print is well and truly still a vital part of our lives.

Get well cards (one hand drawn by a six year old), printed prescriptions, labels on drugs, leaflet in drugs to confirm that I was not going to kill myself by adding another tablet to the rattling cocktail. Newspapers to read to stave off deadly boredom, TV guides to monitor in case anything worth watching was to pop up, the printed envelopes to the DVDs coming through the post… (ok the computer was used to order them but they still needed a cover), holiday brochures to peruse in case I lived, recipes to read and possibly cook, a printed map to get to the more alternative doctor I tried alongside the NHS and finally when the wheezing reached a crescendo that neither I nor my fellow passengers on board my train could ignore, the hospital charts in A&E which monitored whether I was going to go pop.

So I enter February with a renewed sense of my own mortality, a grateful thanks to modern medicine and apologies to those I have cancelled, postponed or am due to get back to. Normal service one hopes will resume soon.

drupacube for buyers

2007-12-11T15:21:00Z

Print buyers stand by your desks. Drupa is coming and there’s something for you. Drupa 2008 will host drupacube – a portal for print buyers, and I quote serving up: “concise infotainment on all things print communications.”

Drupa organisers Messe Dusseldorf acknowledge that print buyers come in many guises and with many a differing budget, and will be offering specific information and workshops for heads of marketing, publishing directors, production managers, account executives and creative directors. Daily topics such as direct marketing, catalogues and corporate communications are on the symposium’s workshop list so there will be something of interest to all.

So why don’t you make 2008 your drupa year, invest in a pair of comfortable shoes and book your hotel? Drupacube will be sited within the grounds of the exhibition on the banks of the Rhine.

Keeping a lid on secure data

2007-12-07T12:37:00Z

With all the recent brouhaha about the secure transfer of data, perhaps a question one should ponder is how safe is the data I hold? And what rules and regulations should I know about?

Printing companies are entrusted more and more with valuable personal data and this trend will continue.

I am no IT expert and am still baffled as to why such vital personal details are being whistled round the country on disc by motorbike, but I think more and more print buyers are going to ask printers: "Just how are you going to keep this data secure?"

On this issue, where does the responsibility start and stop... maybe this is something to look into and to place carefully at the top of the list of New Year resolutions.

As a printer or a print buyer, do you want me to look into it further? Let me know.

The greenest way to read news?

2007-11-30T11:47:00Z

So the next e-reader device is out there for us to snap up. However, before print buyers despair too much, Amazon's Kindle e-book reader, which can subscribe to newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the wireless technology Amazon uses in the Kindle is not compatible with UK mobile networks.

Phew...

However, from an environmental viewpoint, it pays to look further at the research in this field.

A recent study from researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm looked at the environmental impact of reading the daily news by the Irex Iliad e-reader tablet as well as print and online editions.

The research, known as a "simplified life-cycle assessment", looked at the energy used in editorial work, paper production, printing, distribution, waste-paper disposal, the energy used for producing downloading and reading digital versions, and the production and waste disposal of PCs, tablets and screens.

One thing that was not included in the study was any acknowledgement of the impact of journalists' travel, the production of e-reader screens, recycling electronic waste, or internet infrastructure – all important considerations. And I think that unless these figures are taken into account, the statistics are of limited use.

Send those Christmas cards

2007-11-23T12:33:00Z

As we enter the season of revelry Britain it would seem is more traditional at Christmas than our continental friends when it comes to sending Christmas cards.

Us Brits still hold true to tradition and this year, according to a survey from European digital marketing company eCircle, 86% of us will still pop a card in the post, keeping both Royal Mail and printers of Christmas cards in work. In this pan-European survey of over 7,000 people eCircle found that compared to us energetic UK residents, only 22% of Italians 44% of French and 47% of Germans will send Christmas cards. Roll over Scrooge.

News in print is here to stay

2007-10-19T11:35:00Z

Remember the idea of the paperless office? Was there any truth in that? Hell no. I'm still knee deep in the stuff, carrying vast quantities of processed tree around with me in my bag and buying a tidy ream of it daily inscribed with the torrent of news. Paper 1; trees 0.

A colleague of mind recently spotted a website that follows an extinction deadline of those things near and dear to us. According to Ross Dawson's Trends in the Living Networks blog, retirement will be long gone by 2016, coins will lie unused around 2033 and glaciers (this one could be true) will be a distant chilly memory by 2037. Though for those of us in the printing sector I end on a high note. according to Dawson, newspapers in their physical format remain long into the future before finally expiring in 2049. Long live print.