It’s time to fight back
If you haven’t noticed by now, the crusade to eliminate, or at least decrease, the use of printing is in full swing in the corporate world.
Annual reports are being reduced to one-colour manuals printed on 50 lb. book stock. Quarterly financials are being photocopied by some companies and shareholders are being encouraged not to ask for the printed financials to save their company money. Companies are asking customers to accept e-mailed invoices to save on paper—something one paper merchant did recently. (I thought paper merchants were in the business of selling paper.)
On its new change-of-address forms Canada Post is asking if people want third-class or junk mail not to be forwarded to their new address. More than 700,000 individuals have chosen this option. (Funny, I thought Canada Post was in the mail delivery business.)
Banks are encouraging online bill payments instead of using cheques. Airlines are issuing virtual tickets instead of printed ones. You’re still given one at the airport in a printed folder but they say it cuts down on print costs. Catalogues and brochures are being eliminated by some companies in order to “save trees” and also to cut costs. Plus, putting them on the Internet is sexier. (Finding their website and trying to navigate them is another problem.) The town of Oakville in Ontario is no longer accepting paper resumes so it can be “environmentally friendly.” (Also probably to reduce the number of applicants.)
The Walmartization of printing is taking hold: printing is starting to be commoditized against other media, using price as the lowest common denominator.
The strengths of print—permanence, ease of access (only two eyeballs required), portability, detail, touch and feel, to name the most obvious ones are being ignored or even forgotten. The printing industry has always relied on customers to come up with uses for printing. For the last 400 years it worked. Now not only is it not working, it is working in reverse as customers are finding ways to eliminate printing.
Not only do we have to sell customers on the value of print, but we are going to have to find new uses for print for them. The successful companies can no longer be reactive but have to be proactive.
Some industry experts have said that what’s happening is inevitable and you cannot fight the tide. I strongly disagree. Print is still one of the most cost effective mediums there is. It just has to be sold properly, or for that matter sold as a medium. The radio industry was told by industry experts that with the advance of television it was doomed. There are now more radio stations in North America with bigger revenues and profits than ever before. The difference is the radio industry went out and sold the benefits of radio.
Some bright lights have appeared in our industry. Davis + Henderson, the cheque printer, has not only survived in a down market but increased their revenue and profits. Yes, the volume of cheque usage is down but the value of what Davis + Henderson is selling is up. It has introduced more security features, better designs, more variety and it even talked the credit card companies into offering cheques to card holders. A small printer in Calgary, Blitzprint, prints short-run books for authors who want to publish their own books. Sales were up 45% last year. A printer in Winnipeg prints cookbooks for charities and non-profit organizations as fund raisers. He sells the idea then gives them an easy-to-use kit on how to produce a cookbook.
Yes our industry is now in a very competitive environment. The rules have changed dramatically. We have to justify the reasons to use print. We can no longer just take what comes our way. We have to fight back.
Alexander Donald is the publisher of Graphic Monthly Canada.