Digital printing in European and American newspapers

(Author: Newspaper Association of America columnist Rachel Stretton, compiled from "media space" in the October issue 2008)

The mother of two children, Jackie, read the following in a subscribed local newspaper: an article about a robbery that happened near her home, an article about how to educate children, and an article about self-help in Mexico Close-up of the trip (the Jackie family planned to go there on vacation this year). After reading the newspaper, she immediately found half-page advertisements of three of her favorite stores, including Macy's.

This newspaper does not include the sports and commercial editions that Jackie might abandon, and every article in the newspaper grabbed her attention. This is because she subscribed to a personalized newspaper, and the content of the newspaper was selected, typeset, and controlled by the computer according to her choice when filling in the subscription form on the newspaper website. The content option information she filled in when subscribing was added to a large database, which was embedded with variable data software. This software can help the system generate the newspaper layout by itself and send the layout to a digital printing machine. The digital printing press is responsible for printing thousands of newspapers with different contents "tailor-made" for different subscribers.

"Once the newspaper industry begins to consider digital printing presses, then more comprehensive business opportunities will begin to emerge. You will find the potential opportunity to publish subscribers 'personalized publications, and the potential to accurately target advertisements to subscribers' needs." Scott Shearer, HP laser high-speed product solution marketing and business development manager, said, "But all this cannot happen overnight, you have to be in it and wait for the tipping point to come before you can consider publishing a personalized newspaper on a large scale. Localized. "

The breakthrough direction of digital printing

Because of the variable data performance of digital printing presses, newspapers can create more “narrow crowds” or even unique “newspapers” for subscribers based on statistics on subscriber demand data, said Justin Hiller, consultant of “Information Trends”. Shearer suggested that newspaper publishers can try to publish regional or narrower groups of newspapers before publishing personalized newspapers. "If you look at the digital printing revolution through the commercial printing market, they have also gone through the process of small print volume, narrow demographics, and then personalization," he said.

Newspapers with smaller circulations will benefit most from this, and digital presses can also be used to print advertisements or direct publication publications. The method of narrowing the crowd can also be used as a way to reach a special readership, such as those college students who may have empathized with other media.

Some newspaper companies, including the Arizona Republic and the New York Times Local Media Group, are trying to apply digital printing to the production of marketing prints and commercial advertising prints, but they are only "minorities" in the newspaper industry. . Regardless of whether digital printing can bring more revenue and advertising opportunities, most newspapers today are reluctant to try.

"Recently, the newspaper industry is focusing more on how to reduce costs, rather than trying to get more revenue." Said Ron Sam, vice president of North America at Manroland. In 2007, Manroland launched the COLORMAN XXL printer integrated with Kodak ’s DS6240 inkjet digital printing system. This equipment allows users to continuously print newspapers and magazines with different contents at a speed of 90,000 copies per hour, which makes newspaper The further "narrow crowd" becomes possible. But even so, trying to "sell" this idea to the newspaper industry is not a simple matter.

Business

Some newspapers are using digital printing presses to absorb the printing business of direct publication or advertisements. "Republic Express" is a direct investment version of the Arizona Republic. The purpose of publishing "Republic Express" is to print the personalized newspaper tailored for the direct investment version subscribers. Most of the advertisers in the direct investment version are long-term advertisers of the Arizona Republic, and Bob Peebler, advertising general manager and financial manager of "Republic Express", Arizona Republic and the newspaper's website, said: "Our direct investment version has many advertisers for furniture and auto retailers, and their positioning needs for consumers allow them to use the direct investment version to launch an accurate advertising offensive." 75% of direct investment advertisers are also the main newspaper Advertiser of the Arizona Republic.

The staffing of "Republic Express" includes 1 printing operator, 6 sales representatives, 1 data department and 1 art design department. "We are a one-stop shop." Pibler said. The newspaper upgraded its equipment by purchasing two Xerox DocuColor5000s digital printing presses in November 2007. The newspaper originally was a Canon USA image RUNNERS digital printing machine that has been in service for 5 years. This printing machine can only add the name and address of the subscribers in black and white text to the newspapers that have been printed in four colors on the large offset press (in each newspaper or The name and address of the subscriber printed on the newspaper packaging is a common practice in the US newspaper industry, because this part of each newspaper is different, so it must be achieved by digital printing). The new digital press can directly print any number of direct-issue publications with four-color effects.

Recently, "Republic Express" has an outstanding record in the development of small-volume advertisers, Peebler said. "The volume of their direct-issue publications is mostly between 500 and 10,000 copies." He said that after the printing press was upgraded, the total business volume of "Republic Express" rose by 10 percentage points.

Digital printing outsourcing

Unlike buying a digital printing machine by itself, the New York Times Local Media Group has signed a contract with the "American Marketing and Mail Service Company" to print personalized direct mail and mail the direct mail to potential newspaper subscribers. According to Daniel Williams, the subscriber development manager of the group, the group plans to use the Xerox iGen3s digital printing machine of “American Marketing and Mail Service Company” in 2008 to print and deliver 2.2 million copies of printed matter, 75% of which will be sent to The group's 16 sub-subscribers have a potential subscriber base.

Since the group began printing and distributing marketing promotional materials in 2006, the feedback received from potential target subscribers has increased from 0.61% in 2006 to 0.77%, Williams said. The marketing cost of each new subscriber dropped from US $ 81 to US $ 68.5, a decrease of 15.4%, said Bill Duette, director of group distribution strategy. The decrease in subscriber development costs is due to the fact that the group has handed over all direct investment printing to fixed business partners. Prior to this, the printing of direct investment prints of the group's sub-media had its own strategy.

The New York Times Local Media Group decided to outsource this business because it was more cost-effective than buying digital printing equipment by itself, and it has greater financial flexibility to operate this way, Duet said, "If we ca n’t send marketing emails from us Get the feedback we need there, we can stop printing at any time, and do n’t have to worry about buying digital printers idle to cause dust. "

Due to the flexibility of digital printing, newspapers can distribute different marketing direct investment materials for different distribution marketing objects. "We use different marketing materials for every 25% to 30% of marketing objects. We can put different charts, photos and discount cards in the materials according to the age and preferences of the objects." Duette said.

Expand the reach of newspaper readers

While some newspapers use digital printers to print direct investment materials and newspaper advertisements, others start to use these technologies for remote printing in order to expand the coverage of their newspapers in remote areas. This method can also be used in areas where the circulation of newspapers is very small, or in areas that must be transported and distributed by plane or ship, Hewlett-Packard said.

Since 2001, Océ, a digital printing press manufacturer, has made it possible to print newspapers remotely (including across the United States or even globally) through its commercial printers all over the world. Through the Océ Digital Newspaper Network, such as the New York Times, Australia ’s Sydney Herald, etc., the digital print files can be passed to the Océ company, which sends these files to the newspaper distribution destination with its digital press installed Commercial printing outlets, the company is responsible for data flow and product printing supervision.

This remote printing may be more widely used in Europe because of the greater mobility of the population there. The Frankfurt newspaper in Germany uses Océ's digital printing network to publish newspapers in the UK and Germany at the same time. Its British version contains local British advertisements.

"The advent of the digital century means that your newspaper can be distributed anywhere you need, as long as you can find the right digital printing partner." Newton said.

Narrow crowd or version

Kodak ’s Global Vice President of Publishing and Marketing, Jack Naken, firmly believes that more American newspapers should consider the narrowing of newspapers, because it can win more ads. "Unlike other countries in the world, American newspapers have a lot of household delivery," he said. "You can use digital printing technology to launch advertising campaigns that are accurate to the streets and communities."

Los Angeles' "Daily Business Investor" will soon invest in this area. O'Neill Data Systems announced in May this year that the company plans to integrate the company's various data into the news department of its brother company "Daily Business Investor". The newspaper may use HP's inkjet wide-format digital printing machine to print, and ultimately target readers to high-end personalized subscriber groups.

Digital printing does not require plate-making, and design printing is rapid. From design to distribution, one-stop management features can be achieved, which greatly improves its printing and distribution efficiency.

Looking to the future

"When it comes to the newspaper industry and digital printing, everything is possible," Adonio said. "In the near future, we may see more narrowly targeted publications. Personalized newspapers for individual people It is also possible, although achieving this goal requires a certain amount of manpower to support the control and monitoring of processes and quality. "

However, newspapers must first try in this area. In fact, for only about 2 million US dollars, your newspaper can enter the ranks of color digital printing. Using digital printers to print newspapers remotely and distribute narrow versions of newspapers will bring publishers closer to readers through the relevance of content. If you are not sure whether this fixed investment will make you profitable, you may wish to find a digital printer as a partner to see how the market response of readers and advertisers. Unfortunately, few newspapers today have an appetite to explore unknown markets. Nowadays, the decline in the circulation of newspapers and the decrease in income have caused many issuers to focus only on their core products.

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