By Patrick Henry
Published: September 23, 2011
Whatever may be happening to the demand for print, Graph Expo 2011 made one thing abundantly clear: never before have printers had as many options as they now possess for adding beauty, charisma, and value to a piece of paper. But is this mere irony, or is it a fresh opportunity?
On the one hand, there's no disputing the accuracy of an observation made by Vince Lapinski, CEO of manroland, in a media briefing during the show. "Printing has become commoditized," he said. "It's a shame, but it has." Fair enough. But maybe the "shame" lies in not bragging about it.
If commoditization has occurred, it's precisely because the technologies developed by manroland and all of the other Graph Expo exhibitors have made it relatively easy to print and finish nearly everything superlatively well. The defect-free sameness of the product is both the bad news and the good news about its almost universally high quality.
That's the ironic part. The opportunity springs from the urgency of sharing the message-minus the irony-with creatives, brand owners, media planners, and other marketing-spend influencers who should know, if they do not already, that when it comes to what print can do for them and their multi-channel promotional campaigns, they have never had it so good.
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