iT HAS TAKEN MORE THAN a decade, but digital printing is now mainstream. “Of all United States commercial and quick printers, more than 60 percent currently have some level of digital color capability,” noted Frank Romano, professor emeritus of the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Print Media located in Rochester, New York. “It is no longer a case of printers asking ‘Should I’, but rather, ‘Which one should I buy?’”
He also reported that print buyers are increasingly specifying digital output for many applications where offset once dominated. “Even though offset printing is evolving to provide more economical and more competitive approaches, some of its volume will continue to erode,” said Romano.
Still, Francis McMahon, North American marketing manager for Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) Indigo division, acknowledged that there are some die-hard industry professionals who believe that offset is the only way to go. “They have not been able to make the leap and adopt a new way of creating business as a service provider,” he said.
Both gentleman stressed that the transition for manufacturers and distributors requires a fair amount of education, planning and networking, as well as a different mindset when going to market. To begin with, digital quality was initially uncertain, making the shift from offset very difficult for sales professionals accustomed to selling on quality.
“Another huge factor is the cost differential. With standard traditional printing, print buyers are basing decisions on cost per page. With digital, the issue is the cost of acquiring a new customer or increasing returns on an ad campaign,” observed McMahon. “So, instead of talking about printing 40,000 direct mail pieces at pennies per page, distributors are discussing the value of variable content in targeted, personalized mailers for greater responses that can be mapped back to specific campaigns, and this is a different conversation all together. Then, there is the cultural shift of gearing advertising and promotions to the needs and requirements of a unique individual rather than reaching 20,000 consumers with the exact same piece.”
Here, Romano and McMahon identify some design and marketing challenges and a couple of ways the industry is helping print providers dive into digital.
Business Development
Romano is on the steering committee of the Digital Printing Council (DPC), established in 1995 by PIA/GATF (Printing Industries of America/Graphic Arts Technical Foundation) located in Alexandria, Va. The DPC recently launched its Marketing 4 Digital (M4D) initiative, a program providing detailed reports on 24 industries representing more than 80 percent of all print buying in the United States, so industry professionals can become effective marketers of digital printing.
“Besides traditional print buyers, many opportunities for providing digital printing are created by marketing professionals looking for new ideas and approaches to promotion,” observed Romano. “The competitive climate in the printing industry is undergoing drastic and turbulent change as marketers expend their ad/promotion dollars across multiple media. The key is learning to speak the specific language of vertical segment customers.”
To this end, M4D breaks down each report into a specific market overview, including:
• A glossary of terms
• Key trends and applications for digital printing
• Top organizations and their internal structure
• Instructions on how to market to the particular category and its print buying practices
• Resources such as federal data and supporting trade associations and publications.
Even then, the burden remains on the industry to help distributors maximize account potential. Romano pointed out that the industry isn’t fully utilizing digital technology for variable data. “All suppliers have not adopted the ISO standard PPML/VDX (Personalized Print Markup Language/Variable Data Exchange),” he explained. Developed by the Committee for Graphic Arts Technologies Standards, and approved by the American National Standards Institute in early 2002, it specifies a way to use information in PDF and PPML format for variable-data printing as intended by the originator. “Some suppliers also have proprietary approaches that won’t allow blind transfers or moving jobs from machine to machine,” he added.
There is also the issue of being able to use digital color printing systems for b/w printing at the same cost as a b/w printer, which is still evolving. “After one of the big suppliers makes it happen, the rest will follow,” predicted Romano.
Creative Input
When it comes to designing for digital, the inclusion of variable data print fields requires special consideration. “The creator of the piece needs to know the purpose and what is going to be variably imaged before building the template, making sure that data fields are sufficient to accommodate any overly long names that may be included in a data base,” said McMahon.
HP uses ink in its digital processes, but with toner-based devices, he stressed the need to be careful when placing folds to avoid flaking and cracking. “However, applying some type of coating minimizes the likelihood of this happening,” said McMahon. To be on the safe side, he suggested designing the piece with little or no toner in the folding areas.
“Also, creative teams used to an offset process know how colors are going to reproduce when they select Pantones through Quark and other programs. But, the CMYK mix needed to get a Pantone color will be different depending on the digital device, and both the creative people and the prepress people need to understand this,” he continued.
McMahon went on to say that HP is continually coming up with new spot colors, and for higher-end printing devices—such as its Indigo product line—fifth, sixth and even seventh colors are available. “We also have matte ink, which is very cool, and both of these things really open up the applications capabilities for creative people,” he said.
Some substrate restrictions still exist with digital printing, although McMahon noted that the media gamut today is wider than ever. “For instance, one of our customers runs a digital job printing flight manuals using super-thin stock that is almost like tissue paper—that couldn’t have run three years ago,” he said.
Getting up to Speed
Like the DPC, HP recognizes the link between education and success when it comes to this developing technology. On April 27, hundreds of HP owners and operators, together with HP Indigo specialists and solutions providers, will gather at Sanibel Harbour Resort and Spa in Ft. Myers, Fla., for the 1st annual conference of the Digital Solutions Cooperative—an association focused on helping Indigo users support each other to improve their print businesses, as well as the backbone technology of HP Indigo’s digital solutions. HP Indigo customers, press owners, operators and affiliated professionals use the Digital Solutions Cooperative as their front-line peer-to-peer resource for learning and sharing.
The conference will feature a choice of business, sales and technical tracks for HP Indigo owners, sales and marketing teams, production managers and operators. Key industry partners will also be demonstrating their solutions.
“Commercial printers can network and share best practices, while also supporting companies that work on finishing and end-to-end solutions and Web-to-print. Everyone feeds off of one another and that is how the market grows,” said McMahon.
Related story: Digital Printing Trends