Pyramid Visuals Blog

Since installing the Inca Syder V back in November / December last year, Pyramid Visuals are pleased on how well the new press has been performing and found it to prove how much of an asset it has been to the company. The machine has hardly stopped running since the beginning, producing all different POS items including exhibition panels, FSDU and Standees.

FSDU

The speed of the machine has helped turn around more items in shorter time and meet tight deadlines without any problems. With the support of the Zund cutter, which provide the finishing touches from the items produced on the Inca, it helps to know that the Zunds output is 3-4 times faster than the Inca, which ensures that it keeps up with the production of work flowing through the factory. Just a few examples of how well the Inca and Zund presses perform :

1. To produce 100 units of a 4 x shelf free standing display unit (FSDU) using EB flute corrugated material took around one week from start to finish, 2-3 days to print and cut out to shape, plus 2 days for gluing, part assembly and packing. The colours were vibrant and helped create a solid finish without any banding. The UV inks cured really well and did not have any problems with cracking even against the grain.

2. There was also a case of a small promotion campaign across 7 x elements of POS items, including Standees, hanging banners etc. These were required to be produced in very quick time. It was only for 3 x stores and what would normally take around 4-5 took only 3 x days from start to finish. This included the collation, packing and sending direct to store.

3. With the latest design software available with the Zund, complicated projects have helped Pyramid create units easily and quickly. For example, there was a recent sample box that needed to be produced, but not only did need to be changed to adapt different size products inside, the client wanted to re-use the outer box for another purpose, rather than just dispose of it. The lid and the base were perforated around all the edges and held in place. After the inside of the box was finished with, the two parts were ripped along the perforations and were placed back to back using a sign holder to create a double-sided header. Giving that we are all working to a more waste free environment, this certainly helped tick the boxes.

See more on Cardboard Engineering.

Amy Sweeting is one of three girl team taking part in the Mongol Rally, leaving on July 24th. This will entail a journey of approximately 10,000 miles through some difficult territory in a car which must have an engine capacity of no more than 1 litre!  We are undertaking this enormous challenge to raise funds for Disability Challengers, a Surrey charity which provides play schemes and other opportunities for disabled children and young people, and we are hoping that you will feel able to support us.

The three of them have worked at our local Disability Challengers play scheme during school and university holidays for some years now and have seen for ourselves the hugely important work that this charity does.  Play and leisure opportunities are vital for all children and young people to help develop important social and communication skills plus a host of other things, but sadly thousands of disabled children and young people are excluded from such opportunities because of the level of care they require.  This limits development and achievement of potential, and also places huge strains on families.  Disability Challengers welcomes youngsters however profound their disabilities and we all have great fun!  Unfortunately though, there is insufficient funding to meet need.  The charity estimates that for every disabled child and young person who uses its services, three more are desperately waiting to access their play and leisure schemes.

The girls want to raise as much money as possible to support the excellent work of Disability Challengers to open more schemes and have decided on something that will really challenge us – the Mongol Rally!  The journey will take them through about 15 countries depending on the route we finally decide, and deserts, mountains and wilderness. On average just over half the teams make the finish line but we are determined to make it. Our preparations are well under way but we need vital support.

Pyramid Visuals has produced some of the vehicle graphics and decals and wish the team good luck with their challenge.

Please do what you can to support them, in however small a way this is and need to raise not only funds but awareness of the charity and to do this, they will be hosting many fundraising events. Disability Challengers is celebrating 30 years of operation and in the past 10 years has  increased the number of families it supports from 70 to 1,000 and it hopes to continue developing and expanding its schemes to include even more disabled children and young people. Disability Challengers provides a life line for disabled children and young people and their families and parents, giving the latter a break from what can be a constant cycle of care.  As one parent told us, “I can’t imagine a future without the support of Challengers.”

http://mongolrally10.theadventurists.com/living-on-a-dare

http://mongolrally.theadventurists.com/index.php

Pyramid Visuals also produced the vehicle wrap graphics for the Land Rover Ambulance which is been donated to a hospital on its arrive.

http://www.stardustmongolrally2010.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51&Itemid=162

Mark (Vehicle Graphics Apprentice)

I decided a http://www.coap.org/ ago that I wanted to learn to wrap cars; I had very little experience in the printing industry but was confident that with time and persistence I could learn skills that would broaden my horizons in this industry.

I started by fixing a car wing to my living room wall and purchasing 50 metres of vehicle wrap vinyl, after spending most of my spare time applying and removing vinyl from the wing I felt I could not learn any more without expert advice so, I embarked on a 2 day certified training course.  I was now confident that I could wrap an entire car.  I was very very WRONG!  I have been with Pyramid Visuals for 2 months now as an apprentice and, alongside experienced staff, have successfully fitted approximately 20 vehicles from Double Decker Buses to Camper Vans.

Each job presents new challenges and I still have a lot to learn, it is also far more physically demanding than I could have anticipated and at the end of a full day fitting every bone in my body aches, as does my brain!

It can be very stressful knowing that even a small mistake can cost several hundreds of pounds and cause substantial delays to a customer who needs their vehicle back.  Like many things; what seems easy in theory is incredibly different in practice. However, I am thoroughly relishing the challenge.

Mark – Apprentice vehicle Wrapper

June 2010  –  Pyramid Visuals were approached by a TV production company who required three lorries to be branded for the shooting of the new Crunchy Nut advertisement.  Having carried out a site visit of the vehicles, we provided our expertise as to the logistics involved in delivering the job on time and in budget, the correct choice of material to use – a substrate that could be easily applied / removed given the tight turnaround of 3 days from start to finish of the job, colour matching the vinyl in line with the product branding, how the vehicles would be branded by our professional in-house fitters and providing CG visuals by our in-house studio of how the vehicles would look when branded.  Each vehicle was initially sprayed with a base cleanser to ensure the vinyl would successfully bond to the bodywork and then wrapped on all sides using a specifically colour-matched Avery vinyl.  Once complete, Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut branded cut vinyl decals were applied over the top of the base vinyl in accordance with the artwork and the Crunchy Nut branding.  The three vehicles were completely wrapped, branded and ready for filming in 3 working days.  After filming, the three vehicles were subsequently returned to Pyramid Visuals to be stripped of all branding and returned to their original condition and colour – a process that took 2 working days to complete.

If you haven’t seen it yet, below is the advert that aired on TV

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBoLauicqfw

Take a quick behind the scenes look at the prepping and wrapping of the vehicles, watch this video

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyllFBTBopA

Here’s the Audi Ad featuring the hotrods that were wrapped by Pyramid Visuals.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c9GmwTiuGk

In January 2010, prestigious advertising agency BBH London approached Rouge Films and Pyramid Visuals to provide vinyl wraps and graphics for their new Audi R8 television advertisement, having gained notoriety from their experience of working with TV productions on such projects as wrapping the Millennium Building for the Channel 5’s Gadget Show.

As an avid car lover and self confessed petrol head, Director Justin Murray was delighted, added to the fact that he has located Pyramid Visuals within Brooklands Park, the world’s first purpose-built motor racing circuit, constructed at Weybridge, Surrey in 1907.

The concept and storyline from BBH involved a theme of ‘Beauty and the Beast’, depicting Audi’s brand new R8 Spyder as the beauty surrounded by ‘beasts’ in the shape of some of the most marvellously beaten up old Hot Rods/stock cars in the world.
Production company Rogue Films sourced the 22 cars from all over the USA and UK.
The Hot Rods were then shipped directly to the Pyramid Visuals warehouse in Surrey for the transformation to begin.
In an intense race to the clock due to shipping delays, the Pyramid Visuals team of Graphic engineers worked as four teams of two, around the clock for four days to get the cars ready for the TV Commercial shoot.
Digitally printed on the HP9000 solvent printers, each car was given a unique and striking vinyl wrap design which was then carefully applied to each vehicle using Avery materials.
As the pressure mounted, the Rogue TV crew came to film the preparations and capture the progress of the Pyramid team as they worked their magic, turning each car into a personality.
The camera crew have produced a ‘making of the commercial’ documentary, which will be available to view in May on the Pyramid visuals website.
It perfectly captures the intensity and dedication of the Pyramid Visuals team to get the job done, perfectly, and on time – and naturally it was great to be part of ‘team Audi’.
On the day of the shoot everything was ready and the 4 day filming began.
Shooting in Excel London, the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ story involved all the noise and the attitude of Hot Rods, each one carrying its own distinctive design such as a skull and crossbones, or a crazy mouth with big sharp looking teeth, driving furiously around and missing each other by inches.
Naturally the Audi R8 glides through the carnage and escaped unscathed, looking like the perfect hero. The Audi R8 Launch advertisement, shot in March is due to screen in the UK during May 2010, was an original concept created by Kevin Stark and Nick Kidney for BBH London, and is directed by Sam Brown from Rogue Productions.

To view the commercial, the making of the commercial documentary and all the Hot Rod cars and designs, go to www.pyramidvisials.co.uk Justin Murray, Pyramid Visuals commented. ‘In all truth, when I got the call I was very excited. Working on this type of project is a lot of fun and it’s exactly what we’re all about here, pulling together as a team to get the job done perfectly. We work on many vinyl wrap projects, so we’re used to turning it around quickly and getting it right first time and this proved to be key with the quick turnaround needed on this project.’ A spokesperson for BBH commented “The vehicle decals worked very well for this project. Pyramid Visuals managed to get the graphic designers ideas for the wraps and graphics into a reality making the cars characters really come out better than our expectations”

Press Further information on this press release including images, please contact Justin Murray – Pyramid Visuals either by email Justin.Murray@pyramidvisuals.co.uk or 01932 338899.

Pyramid Visuals installs Spyder after calls for faster turnaround.

Pyramid Visuals has reacted to demands for faster turnaround by adding an Inca Spyder V large-format UV inkjet printer from Fujifilm.

The Surrey-based large-format specialist also expects to expand its level of work in the point-of-sale (POS) market.

Production director Scott Meader said: “Every machine we have is digital. The beauty of digital is that although a run may be 150 sheets, those 150 don’t have to be the same design.

“For example, a free-standing display unit may be intended for a product that is priced differently in London, Scotland, Newcastle and Ireland. The client can have the same design, but can change the price and not incur extra set-up costs. It means we can be really competitive in that market.”

Pyramid will handle short-run POS jobs on the machine and it is already running at capacity. It runs at speeds of 130sqm per hour and covers a print area of 3.2×1.6m. It can handle substrates up to 30mm thick.

Pyramid Visuals was founded in 1993 as a sign and signwriting supplier. It made the move into the digital arena six years ago

http://www.printweek.com/digital/news/972806/Pyramid-Visuals-installs-Spyder-calls-faster-turnaround

Justin Murray

Pyramid Visuals Ltd

Marketing budgets have been slashed in recent years, but vehicle wrapping practically sells itself to larger companies that are interested in reaching potentially hundreds of thousands of viewers over the short-term. Striking a deal with a big brand name can drive significant revenues for your shop.

But let’s face it. Most of your prospects are probably neighborhood businesses. So, how do you seal the deal with those business owners who are still trying to decide whether or not an investment in vehicle wrapping will pay off for them? After all, we’re not talking about a few dollars for vehicle graphics here. Total vehicle wraps can be a major capital expenditure for smaller companies, like hair salons, restaurants and the like.

Lucky for you, leading auto wrapping shops, industry trade associations and research firms have been collecting case studies and viewer data that make your job as salesman much easier.

Benefits of Outdoor Media

You can start the sales process by explaining to your customer the general benefits of outdoor media. Outdoor media play a vital role in the media mix, according to a study by Arbitron, Inc., an international media and marketing research firm serving outdoor media, radio broadcasters, cable companies, advertisers and advertising agencies in the United States and Europe, because it reaches consumers missed by other media and enhances exposure of other media. Outdoor media reach consumers not exposed or only lightly exposed to newspaper and local television, for example, and are complimentary to radio campaigns.

Outdoor media also reaches the entire socioeconomic spectrum of Americans, according to the study. People with heavy vehicle mileage and long commutes are more difficult to reach with both the newspaper — almost one out of three Americans do not read a daily newspaper anyway — and local TV news broadcasts. On the contrary, the study showed that virtually every American (96 percent) travels in a vehicle each week as either a driver or a passenger.

So by nature, commuters are an exceptional advertising target in terms of both income and consumption habits. Thirty-five percent of heavy commuters come from households earning $75,000+, compared to only 23 percent for the U.S. average income profile. This group is likely to be aged between 25 and 54.

Moreover, the Arbitron study concludes consumers that are reached repeatedly with a message show higher advertiser awareness, brand recall and purchase behavior. Vehicle wrapping, then, offers advertisers an excellent opportunity to reach commuters on the highways and city streets.

“Wrapped vehicles not only place messages in front of target consumers, they also provide the opportunity for direct customer contact through coupon distribution, sampling and other promotional tactics,” notes Stephen Freitas, spokesperson for the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA).

Vehicles by the Numbers

Beyond communicating the traditional benefits of outdoor advertising, you can also cite numbers that will pique the interest of even your most frugal prospects.

“The cost of advertising over the life of the vehicle is a miniscule amount,” says Peter Bearth, director of Spectrum Media Group in Dallas, a division of J Perez Associates.

How does he know? New non-public transportation campaigns are being measured and the results will help you gauge the number of vehicles your client needs to wrap or the number of hours the vehicle must be driven in order to reach the desired audience levels in their markets. According to the Transportation Advertising Council, a division of the OAAA, vehicle advertising generates between 30,000-70,000 daily vehicular impressions.

“The vehicles are often equipped with Global Positioning Satellite tracking systems, which can provide detailed vehicle tracking information and, in some cases, audited reports necessary for monitoring the effectiveness of an advertising campaign,” says Freitas.

Driving Revenues, a vehicle-advertising firm in Washington, broke those numbers down even further and compared vehicle wrapping head-on against other forms of advertising. Here is what they found a $20,000 investment buys:

· Vehicle signage garners about 8.4 million impressions in a 12-month period.

· Radio attracts 900,000 listeners in six weeks with 10 to 12 30-second spots.

· Value Pak offers a reach of 600,000 with 100,000 addresses per drop and your client is just one of many advertisers included in the packet.

· Direct mail reaches 20,000 names with one post card mailer.

· Seven city buses get 600,000 impressions in two months.

· Billboards get 700,000 impressions in one month.

Case Studies Prove the Point

Autowraps, Inc., a mobile sampling company in New York City, charges between $2,000 and $4,000 for a vehicle wrap that lasts for three years. In this scenario, the return on the investment could be even greater than the figures listed above. Autowraps owner Daniel Shifrin insists that there is no other form of advertising for which small businesses can opt that comes even close to the cost per impression of vehicle wrapping.

“An advertisement in the yellow pages costs up to $15,000 for one year for a display ad,” says Shifrin. “And your competitors are right there with you and you have to wait for someone to decide to pick up the yellow pages.”

Let’s look at some real-life examples that prove the point.

Autowraps initially wrapped 10 VW Bugs for Dreyer’s Ice Cream. The cars featured Dreyer’s Dreamery logo, an American flag and some landscaping. VW owners were selected from Autowraps’ database based on their demographic driving patterns and personal demographics. Owner/drivers were paid a monthly fee for two months to drive their wrapped vehicles around pre-determined routes. The selected routes were based on traffic and population flows during peak hours and weekend exposure in specific locations. Each vehicle accumulated at least 500,000 impressions per month.

“From the day we wrapped our first Bug we have been inundated by people who have seen the Bugs and want to wrap their cars,” says David Ritterbush, vice president of marketing for Dreyers Ice Cream.

By the second week of the launch, Dryers had received such an overwhelming response that they added another 11 vehicles to the campaign. The “Sweet Fleet” was also driven through grocery store and convenience store parking lots where the drivers would get out of their vehicles and hand out coupons. Other successful events included drivers going to baseball games and other venues where the Sweet Fleet cars would be seen by thousands of people at one time.

JetBlue Airways contracted Autowraps to wrap nine VW Bugs for a four-week program in which drivers drove the cars eight hour a day, six days a week to generate awareness for the airline’s new route from Long Beach to JFK. The cars featured the JetBlue logo and colors with information about the new route and were driven through targeted high traffic areas. The vehicles were driven in groups of two or three to attract even more attention. The result was more than 6.75 million impressions in the month-long period.

While these are examples of large companies, Shifrin says vehicle wrapping is just as effective for smaller businesses that wrap one vehicle and drive it along normal routes as they do every day business. “We are wrapping cars for real estate agents and bars and restaurants and sun tanning places every kind of business you can imagine,” he says. “It’s cost-effective and it works well.”

Indeed, as Shifrin notes, wrapped vehicles are one of the only mediums that people make an effort to view. Could vehicle advertisers like Nike, Reebok, Proctor & Gamble, Lycos Sports, Kraft Foods and Coca-Cola be wrong?

Seven of the industry’s finest came together in November to discuss all things wide-format in the inaugural Image Reports Widthwise Round Table. The idea was to open debate on the real-life issues that affect printers in the sector. The participants did not hold back..

Equipment service and development issues, threats to business, opportunities for growth, predications for 2009 – all of these topics and more became a hot-bed of debate among key industry players at the first Image Reports Round Table held in London in November.

The purpose of this inaugural event was to discuss the points raised in the WidthWise Report, commissioned by this magazine as the first ever survey of the UK wide-format market and published at the beginning of the year, and to provide a backdrop to the next Widthwise Report which will be published in 2009. As anticipated, first-hand knowledge of running companies in the wide-format sector meant there was no shortage of thought-provoking feedback from panel members who, perhaps surprisingly given these straightened economic times, were rather upbeat about levels of business.

To ensure that no stone was left unturned, the discussion was broken down into various sections. Here’s how things played out…

Economy/threats:
“Macro Art moved three years ago behind a row of trees and the credit crunch zoomed down the road and didn’t see us,” said a bullish John Walker. “Our volumes are up 20%, our net profit is up 75% and we may be in for our best year ever. All our areas of business are growing strongly.”

In particular, Walker pointed to the successful introduction to its portfolio of anti-graffiti lacquer, saying that 23% of Macro Art’s turnover now demands its use. He also highlighted an outdoor display that with one switch can turn it from a day to a night-time product.

Grabbing a slice of the EU export market has also helped the company along. “We have a growing export market – the Euro/Pound exchange rate has been a gift to us,” he enthused. The company also recently made the bold move of raising prices, and added a flat-rate delivery charge as a disguised recovery fee for the price hikes it has seen in inks and substrates costs.

“I seem to live in two different worlds: during the day I inhabit a world where things are going OK, and then I go home to this world full of media coverage about how we’re all going into recession. Things may be harder that they should be for some, but we’re not facing the desperate scenario much talked about.”

This was a feeling echoed around the table, but with words of caution about times ahead from some. “I think the doom and gloom has been overhyped, but if you look at the financial fundamentals they have been shaken and the shockwaves are still coming. I haven’t seen a general slowdown in work, but a stuttering, spluttering effect and I think we’re going to get more heart attack moments as the world faces more economic shocks. My fear is that we’ll get irrational finance based decisions on cutting marketing budgets that will impact on us down the line,” said Stephen Hood.

For now, things aren’t looking as bleak as generally suggested. A number of people said they too had managed to raise prices during the year. And Justin Murray pointed out that he’s noticed an increase in the number of companies coming to him for quote. But, this is largely because companies, especially retailers, are having to seek out better prices and want to do comparative costings. “Obviously that kind of work can reduce your margins, but it may get you new clients for the longer haul,” he said.

The comment opened up many a wound on the topic of tight margins and price cutting. “Our sales have dropped in the last year but our margins have improved,” said Darren Marsh. “I’m only interested in work bringing in good margin. I’ve got rid of the rest.” Richard Clark agreed: “I take pride in the fact that we’re probably the most expensive [vehicle wrapping company]. I’d rather profit over turnover any day of the week.”

“As an industry we’re renowned for cutting prices to get volume,” added Graham Clark. “We must stop selling print as a commodity and treat it as a service.” On the whole the panel agreed, with various members quoting ludicrously low figures that they’ve heard of across the sector.

“It’s about creating an interdependence between you and your customers,” added Walker. “If you pull your finger out to help them they won’t go to someone who’s charging £2 a square metre less.”

Finding finance naturally came to the fore in this part of the debate. Most have found it increasingly difficult to raise finance through the bank, which they joked would perhaps prevent more start-ups adding to the competition! “We have a fixed rate three year credit deal with the bank and I make sure we trade within that limit. It makes you more disciplined, especially in getting paid up front,” said Richard Clark.

That took the panel onto the issue of increasing bad debt, with a 90 day cut-off period becoming the norm. Putting customers on stop credit has also proved problematic, with Murray saying he’s had so many companies on stop that he’s been force to look for new clients. Credit ratings were slammed for being out of date and therefore pretty useless, and late payment charges, while added by some, were found difficult to enforce in reality.

Mark Simpson said his group is not suffering from bad debt because it insures against all such losses. Some said they do likewise, but others, such as Murray and Marsh, find the insurance costs more than the bad debt!

Applications
The need to diversify was a key finding in the Widthwise Report but there were mixed feelings among the panel as to what that would actually mean for them.

“Going into new markets is risky, especially where it means investing in new equipment,” said Simpson. “We try to introduce new products within the markets we know. Retailers are being bought up and we’re becoming very involved in helping with rebrands – we have a brand development company and the production group works closely with them.”

“We’ve actually taken on sales people specifically to look into new areas for us, for instance we’re talking to morgues,” said Graham Clark. Murray said Pyramid Visuals has also taken on extra sales staff to look into markets new to the company, mainly in POS. “About five percent of our clients have gone into administration this year so we’re having to look further afield,” he pointed out. “We do a lot of vehicle graphics, which has been healthy over the last six months but I think that is going to start falling away.” Richard Clark agreed: “Potentially, vehicle graphics is a shrinking market because vehicles are being sold in lower volumes.”

Walker said he can see one new market sector emerging, though he was unprepared, understandably, to enlighten the rest of the panel as to what that might be.

Technology:
Service was the hot potato when it came to kit and suppliers, with many of the panel extremely dismayed at the treatment they receive.

“We spend £100,000 a year on service contracts with a certain company, and yet we have had to wait weeks for someone to sort out a problem machine,” said one panellist. “We sometimes end up having our own engineer on the phone – a bill I’m paying for – to talk to the manufacturer so they can talk him through the service required to a machine.”

Hood said: “We’ve got a supplier who said it would charge us £5,000 for a maintenance manual for one of our machines if we were fed up with their service and wanted to handle it ourselves.”

Marsh got so fed up with waiting for a supplier to come and fix one of his printers that he told his bank that he was not going to pay the £7,000+ he had outstanding on the machine and that the bank could have it because it was not fit for purpose. “As far as the supplier was concerned I was just some piddly little outfit that they didn’t want to listen to – I thought the bank may have more clout. Some manufacturers just care that if you have a machine down you’re stuffed.”

“Lack of stock in the UK is another problem,” added Walker, to which there was much agreement.

It wasn’t all bad: Richard Clark said service isn’t really an issue as far as he’s concerned as his machines run fine and he’s only had to call out an engineer once in four years.

Outside of service issues, the technology part of the programme dwelt on kit living up to expectation, an issue almost everyone found was a problem. Hood summed up the mood: “Part of the problem is that manufacturers create disillusionment. They say a printer can do this and that but practical terms it just can’t. We need a more realistic and practical approach. We are the suppliers’ customers, but how well we mesh together? Well, we don’t.”

“The thing that annoys me is this talk of a machine running at X speed in quality mode, and X speed in production mode – is that just more crap than quality mode?” asked Simpson.

“We recently bought a machine and found it ran 30% slower than the quoted speed,” added Murray. “Buying on quoted speed is stupid – you need to do your homework.”

Difficulties in colour matching and profiling came under the microscope too, the consensus being that there is never going to be an easy solution. “I still see this as a nightmare area,” continued Hood, a point of view echoed by most of the panellists. “We have an issue with profiling so the kit supplier blames the materials manufacturer and vice-versa. We go around in circles.”

“Even the experts can’t get it right,” said Richard Clark. “I get all these specialists to come in and they know less than me – so we have no option but to try and deal with it ourselves. The problem is you have to profile each material you’re going to use with every machine you’re going to use it on. It’s unrealistic for the suppliers to do that.” Marsh admits that when he buys a new machine he throws the manufacturer’s profiles away and sets up his own.

“You’re never going to get an industry standard in profiling/colour management. There’s no standardisation across software, so if customers are using different software and profiles you’re still going to have problems,” added Simpson.

Environment:
This was a topic of real contention, with stridently different views. “There’s a real commercial benefit to having various accreditations – not just in using them as a sales tool but because they make you get your house in order,” said Simpson. Graham Clark echoed the feeling, adding: “The environment is a great sales tool. We find very few clients who won’t sit down and talk about what you can do in these terms, because they need help too.”

Though this was a widely accepted view, there were those who feel the environment is a bit of a red herring. “We do see ‘green’ as a sales tool, and if you’re involved in anything to with the likes of print for the Olympics in 2012 then you have to be pretty on hot on being able to show environmental responsibility, but I did a customer analysis and found 70% don’t care about the environment. We’re having a major drive to get our collect and recycle print initiative moving so we’ll see,” said Walker. This prompted Murray to add: “We offer a recycling facility and no-one has taken us up on it: customers just won’t pay to get their waste back to us.” Hood further added: “I’ve been surprised by the number of customers saying they’re really not interested in the ‘green’ argument.”

“There’s so much hypocrisy,” stressed Marsh. “On EU tenders there’s a big section on the environment but when we went to talk to about how we could use a substrate that wasn’t vinyl we were told they were duty bound to take the lowest quote, so out suggestion was out of the window. Yet if I put the wrong bit of rubbish in the wrong bin outside my house the same council would fine me.”

There was an overall acceptance that the use of PVC in the sector needs to be addressed and alternatives found as customers shy away from its use. And the issue of landfill continues to create problems, with the likes of Richard Clark saying he can find no good way of getting rid of waste vinyl and release liners. Graham Clark offered up that he has found companies that will incinerate such waste, which then produces power so proves a ‘greener’ alternative to landfill.

“The problem is that it’s often about perception rather that realities,” said Murray.

Training:
Many of those around the table initially focussed on production skills training, with difficulties in pre-press becoming apparent, especially in terms of the need to educate designers on how to provide print-ready files. As to whether that is the printers’ job was an arguable point.

“I think we are talking too much about technical training and not enough about training in general,” came the call from Simpson. “I see the real training gaps as being in general business areas, such as management leadership, marketing, better negotiation skills. We find that when we try to find good managers/sales within the industry there just isn’t enough talent out there. We went on a course last year to improve our recruitment process we that we can find better talented young people – this industry can be too myopic.”

Future gazing
Here’s a précis off the predictions the panelists offered for the next three years:

Darren Marsh

1. Total market spend in wide-format will grow
2. Our POS work will develop
3. Green issues will become more important
4. Latex inks will make inroads

Stephen Hood

1. Irrational budget cutting due to general economic fears

Justin Murray

1. POS will grow
2. Dye-sub will prove the new technology
3. Vehicle branding and building wrapping will be static

Graham Clark

1. Olympic effect will boost wide-format

John Walker

1. More investment in UV and dye sub
2. Olympics will help wide-format
3. Swinging cuts to media budgets in 2009

Mark Simpson

1. More consolidation due to overcapcity

Richard Clark

1. Vehicle wrapping will grow longer term but 2009 difficult
2. Anticipates a UV vinyl for vehicle wrapping