Printing Innovation Asia Issue 5 2021
32
The Missing Link in Print & Packaging In this article, Horst Huber, CEO priint Group / WERK II, shares his thoughts on questions such as “Can the printing industry keep pace with the digital transformation?” or “What is needed to establish it as a true link between brands and consumers?” Can the printing industry keep pace with the digital transformation? Or is it falling behind the fast, digital communication? What is needed to establish it as a true link between brands and consumers?” Let’s First Take a Look at the World of Print as a Marketing Tool It was the good old days when print was the main pillar of customer communication and other print shops were the only competitors. When print itself was not under scrutiny. That has changed radically. Digital thinking has become the rival of print shops. I recently heard from a marketing manager: “We want to increase the SEO budget by halving the print run.” Another printer told me that he was denied access to one of his former clients because print was not an issue at the moment.
Marketing Presentation – With or Without Print? Commercial printing clients include wholesalers, retailers and manufacturers. The companies’ marketers from the companies can serve as connectors. But if you look at the entire relation between the print industry and its clients, the print industry must face the provocative thesis that it has basically lost touch with them. A major factor, which I believe is largely ignored by at least some print shops, is that the relevant contact persons on customer side have changed and there is no connection to new relevant target groups. These new contact persons in companies are digital players, thinking digitally and acting agilely. The term “digital printer” takes on a new meaning here: “Digital printers” have to think digitally and have their customers understand the added value of print as part of digital
communication. To put it in another way: it’s not the printing process or the run length etc. that is decisive but the conversion rate, personalized content and emotional appeal of the respective communication measure. We know that end-consumers can encounter around 150 touchpoints on their customer journey of which around 15% are print-related touchpoints – whether in PDF or print form. “Only that few?” an offliner might react. “Still so many?” an onliner is likely to reply. Regardless of which perspective you take, it is undeniable that digital communication is on the rise, more and more digital natives are entering marketing departments, and end consumers are dictating the rules of modern communication. Nevertheless, we know from our daily work that print can achieve conversion rates in the higher double digits and that the haptic medium can trigger emotional moments and promote sales like hardly any other medium. We also know about sustainability and its importance as a “door opener” to digital business. But it’s a fact that print must adapt to the laws of digital communication if it wants to be and remain successful in the medium term. What Laws Does Digital Communication Follow? Law No. 1: On Demand Digital communication is available on demand. Of course, this cannot be achieved exactly for print communication. But if we look at the
