Whether or not you like the evolution of digital signage, there is one significant development that is setting it apart from more traditional methods: the ability to glean information about viewers and produce metrics. The Tokyo subway system has recently installed technology seen by visitors to Screenmedia Expo at Earls Court this year which can detect and store the age and gender of passersby, and could lead to the delivery of advanced statistical information to advertisers.
While the implementers have promised that the system does not identify viewers or capture images, there are those that will finish reading this story with a sense of discomfort. The Minority Report touted the idea that, in the not-too-distant future, advertising would be intelligent enough to tailor messages to our purchasing habits and demographics. It is not too far-fetched to assume that we are only a couple of technological hurdles away from individually customised messaging becoming a reality.
The queasy feeling comes from the same set of reasons for which consumers dislike cold calls, loyalty cards and direct mail – the idea that a central database dictates to a humanless outlet a series of adverts depending on personal information that you may never have forfeited willingly. As the wide-format printing sector starts to implement variable data printing (VDP) for community-sized audiences upwards, one wonders how much personalisation consumers can take, and how much they will resist when it starts to become more commonplace. Perhaps we will pine for printed advertising.
It’s ‘function creep’ that’s we find scariest: companies developing and delivering face recognition, tracking technology and biometric profiling ask consumers to trust their judgment and assure us that the data collected won’t be misused. Understandably, privacy specialists are dubious and want an open and thorough debate – not least Viviane Reding, the EU commissioner for information, society and media – before it is too late to reverse the trend. It would only take one misplaced data set or a single prodigious hacker to unfurl a breach of privacy tantamount to leaving a government database on a train.
There are positives to recognise: electronic and analogue campaigns are likely to become more interesting as marketers avoid those which are irritating or dull. Advertising will change more proactively depending on the time of day and therefore the demographic of the users around it, increasing relevance. However, storing personal data that is collected without the permission of the passerby (or voluntary ignoramus) is a conversation that must be had in depth at the legal and philosophical levels before it becomes common practice, however interesting the marketing potential.
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Friday, 23 July 2010
The rise and multiplication of social networks: relevance, commonality and monkey business
It will probably come as no surprise to read this month’s statistics from The Nielsen Company (via the BBC) about use of social media platforms, and to find out that Facebook is still on the ascendant. 500 million users are signed up to the internet’s largest network, equalling some 7.1% of the world’s population; half of them, or 3.55% of all the planet, logs in on a daily basis.
What’s also interesting is how much time we spend on Facebook, with the UK’s 24.2m users (39.3% of the population) spending an average of six hours, nine minutes and 32 seconds each every month interacting thereupon. Flanking this online community are two others which have had to stake out their own spaces as pop culture-specific and professional platforms respectively – MySpace (2.7m British users) and LinkedIn (2.1m). Bebo, MySpace and photo-sharing site Flickr have all suffered recently.
I’ll come to why these statistics are relevant momentarily, but we need to consider the role of Twitter, too. Mark Evans’s blog (‘Twitterati’) from January this year notes that only 20% of Twitter users are active and that many never use their accounts after opening – but that it appears to have a highly addictive model, with the most loyal users becoming more active.
As a community the sign and display world has been slow to catch on, but we are now turning our attention to these platforms as we realise their potential value for both sales and marketing. This is particularly true of Twitter, where relevance is determined by common topic and popularity by repetition, making for an organic phenomenon.
There are two issues surrounding the use of Twitter for sign-makers and display producers. The first is that there aren’t many people in these companies who can actually spare the time to undertake the creative, logistical and marketing planning they feel is required. The Fastsigns branches are rather good at this and the Leeds franchise has even appointed a full-time social media manager; sales promotions, such as time-limited offers, are used to lure in customers, while maintaining general activity updates keep the account noticed.
The second, and perhaps the more important consideration, is the difficulty in finding a growing community on the site. Commonality on Twitter is determined through hashtags, and the sign-making and wide-format world is badly represented. I made a push in my previous position to encourage #uksigns and #wideformat, but #print is still prevailing as a catch-all. Users in our market should concentrate on building these hashtags together to make sure that a real global community can be constructed, and that relevant sharing can take place.
It’s this idea of relevance that brings me on to my next point: Facebook. Even with a growing population of US users in the 35-54 age bracket it can’t be forgotten that people are, generally, reticent to mix their personal and professional lives. The 13-35 bracket is more likely to have photos of their family, friends and the inevitable drunken monkey business somewhere on the site, and therefore photos and facts that they simply don’t want to share with clients and colleagues.
For that reason, marketing through Facebook works best for bigger brands which don’t need to build communities, such as Marmite and Oreo (although it backfired spectacularly for Nestlé); industry-specific fora tend not to do very well. My feeling is that it will take a massive change in the idea of advertising for Facebook to become relevant to the sign and display sector – for example, communities paying for larger poster sites which are currently prohibitively expensive – and that we’re not there yet.
I would encourage anybody in our curious, technical yet creative trade to give Twitter a go. Spend ten minutes every day hunting around for ideas, adding people of interest and following trails. Forget Facebook but get LinkedIn – this is a much more worthwhile professional network with well-defined groups for interests across all sectors, including sign and display. And don’t forget the various sign-specific fora out there – SignPig, The Sign Site and UK Sign Boards provide a vital undercurrent for small business owners to discuss issues, many of them based around production issues and costs for alternative media and inks.
What’s also interesting is how much time we spend on Facebook, with the UK’s 24.2m users (39.3% of the population) spending an average of six hours, nine minutes and 32 seconds each every month interacting thereupon. Flanking this online community are two others which have had to stake out their own spaces as pop culture-specific and professional platforms respectively – MySpace (2.7m British users) and LinkedIn (2.1m). Bebo, MySpace and photo-sharing site Flickr have all suffered recently.
I’ll come to why these statistics are relevant momentarily, but we need to consider the role of Twitter, too. Mark Evans’s blog (‘Twitterati’) from January this year notes that only 20% of Twitter users are active and that many never use their accounts after opening – but that it appears to have a highly addictive model, with the most loyal users becoming more active.
As a community the sign and display world has been slow to catch on, but we are now turning our attention to these platforms as we realise their potential value for both sales and marketing. This is particularly true of Twitter, where relevance is determined by common topic and popularity by repetition, making for an organic phenomenon.
There are two issues surrounding the use of Twitter for sign-makers and display producers. The first is that there aren’t many people in these companies who can actually spare the time to undertake the creative, logistical and marketing planning they feel is required. The Fastsigns branches are rather good at this and the Leeds franchise has even appointed a full-time social media manager; sales promotions, such as time-limited offers, are used to lure in customers, while maintaining general activity updates keep the account noticed.
The second, and perhaps the more important consideration, is the difficulty in finding a growing community on the site. Commonality on Twitter is determined through hashtags, and the sign-making and wide-format world is badly represented. I made a push in my previous position to encourage #uksigns and #wideformat, but #print is still prevailing as a catch-all. Users in our market should concentrate on building these hashtags together to make sure that a real global community can be constructed, and that relevant sharing can take place.
It’s this idea of relevance that brings me on to my next point: Facebook. Even with a growing population of US users in the 35-54 age bracket it can’t be forgotten that people are, generally, reticent to mix their personal and professional lives. The 13-35 bracket is more likely to have photos of their family, friends and the inevitable drunken monkey business somewhere on the site, and therefore photos and facts that they simply don’t want to share with clients and colleagues.
For that reason, marketing through Facebook works best for bigger brands which don’t need to build communities, such as Marmite and Oreo (although it backfired spectacularly for Nestlé); industry-specific fora tend not to do very well. My feeling is that it will take a massive change in the idea of advertising for Facebook to become relevant to the sign and display sector – for example, communities paying for larger poster sites which are currently prohibitively expensive – and that we’re not there yet.
I would encourage anybody in our curious, technical yet creative trade to give Twitter a go. Spend ten minutes every day hunting around for ideas, adding people of interest and following trails. Forget Facebook but get LinkedIn – this is a much more worthwhile professional network with well-defined groups for interests across all sectors, including sign and display. And don’t forget the various sign-specific fora out there – SignPig, The Sign Site and UK Sign Boards provide a vital undercurrent for small business owners to discuss issues, many of them based around production issues and costs for alternative media and inks.
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Mimaki breaks Roland’s exclusivity on the wide-format metallic market
It was never going to take too long: Mimaki, represented in the UK by Hybrid Services, has announced that it, too, will bring to market a metallic ink type for wide-format production. With a release date of October this year, I suspect this is well-timed to pitch for the key Halloween and Christmas markets, and it makes me wonder how soon we will start to see metallic-based point-of-sale and other displays in our retail environment.
The two manufacturers have chosen different approaches to market for their metallic products. Roland has had longer on the metallic scene and offers two machines capable of this kind of output, but Mimaki is advertising that its new ink – which accompanies a new white in the ES3 set – can be retrofitted to popular JV33 and CJV30 models.
Each manufacturer provides a library to take the effort out of applying metallic to existing shades, and each also offers metallic in combination with print-and-cut. I suspect, too, that they both want to tie new users more firmly into their proprietary RIP software packages (Roland’s VersaWorks and Mimaki’s Raster Link Pro5).
Users looking for a new machine will be susceptible to the same old sales game and may, ultimately, go with their established preference. However, existing users of Mimaki technology are likely to be very tempted by the potential to upgrade with only the purchase of some new cartridges and a firmware and software upgrade. This is countered, of course, by Roland’s low price points for its SolJet Pro III XC-540MT and VersaCamm VS-640, which are also alluring.
How commonplace will metallic actually become? While some buyers (Marks and Spencer being one) won’t accept any solvent print, for other retail brands – especially up-market, luxury types – there is so much potential for bronze, gold and silver, not to mention the hundreds of other shades, to liven up point-of-sale displays and other advertising graphics. Foilblocking and other effects have always been popular, and metallic substrates are expensive to purchase and hard to print on.
But healthy competition should spur innovation, and perhaps new applications will come out of that drive, too. Now that the eco-solvent metallic market has opened up, I am waiting eagerly for news that these hues have hit the UV-curable market. Who will be the first to do it? Watch this space.
The two manufacturers have chosen different approaches to market for their metallic products. Roland has had longer on the metallic scene and offers two machines capable of this kind of output, but Mimaki is advertising that its new ink – which accompanies a new white in the ES3 set – can be retrofitted to popular JV33 and CJV30 models.
Each manufacturer provides a library to take the effort out of applying metallic to existing shades, and each also offers metallic in combination with print-and-cut. I suspect, too, that they both want to tie new users more firmly into their proprietary RIP software packages (Roland’s VersaWorks and Mimaki’s Raster Link Pro5).
Users looking for a new machine will be susceptible to the same old sales game and may, ultimately, go with their established preference. However, existing users of Mimaki technology are likely to be very tempted by the potential to upgrade with only the purchase of some new cartridges and a firmware and software upgrade. This is countered, of course, by Roland’s low price points for its SolJet Pro III XC-540MT and VersaCamm VS-640, which are also alluring.
How commonplace will metallic actually become? While some buyers (Marks and Spencer being one) won’t accept any solvent print, for other retail brands – especially up-market, luxury types – there is so much potential for bronze, gold and silver, not to mention the hundreds of other shades, to liven up point-of-sale displays and other advertising graphics. Foilblocking and other effects have always been popular, and metallic substrates are expensive to purchase and hard to print on.
But healthy competition should spur innovation, and perhaps new applications will come out of that drive, too. Now that the eco-solvent metallic market has opened up, I am waiting eagerly for news that these hues have hit the UV-curable market. Who will be the first to do it? Watch this space.
Monday, 19 July 2010
Interviewed on Océ TV at Ipex 2010
It was all rather nerve-wracking: on the back on a stream of more important journalists, I found myself herded by Océ onto its stage at Ipex to be interviewed. An unusual position for a print journalist to find himself in all of a sudden, but the talented Katy Haswell was a kind and engaging host.
I get the better of the nerves after the first question, and try to make a few points. One of them is a point I hope to make regularly on this blog -- that wide-format printing and all of the possibilities therein should be introduced to the younger generation as soon as possible. It is an accessible industry despite being highly technological and my gut feeling is that teenagers would lap up the chance to play around with these technologies.
I get the better of the nerves after the first question, and try to make a few points. One of them is a point I hope to make regularly on this blog -- that wide-format printing and all of the possibilities therein should be introduced to the younger generation as soon as possible. It is an accessible industry despite being highly technological and my gut feeling is that teenagers would lap up the chance to play around with these technologies.
Friday, 16 July 2010
How FESPA both innovated and motivated
FESPA 2010 was a reassuring moment of motivation for an industry which has undergone a wide range of subjective and objective questioning since the financial markets were plunged into cold water. Processes, suitability for purpose, variety of applications, the environmental challenge and the lack of young people in the industry are all subjects that need addressing, and FESPA’s mixture of debates, presentations, summits and seminars seemed purposed to do just that.
What FESPA does well, though, is to manage its size properly. The nature of a trade exhibition is that you never end up seeing all the people you wished to, nor all the new products, or indeed attending the horizon-expanding symposia on offer. If you stay for the duration there is easily enough to entertain you throughout, while single-day visitors will have time to reach all the companies they need to see, as well as dip into less familiar territories. The layout of the Munich Messe helped no end with its sensible structure and good facilities, as did easy access to both the airport and the city centre.
2010 was my first edition of the show without any particular agenda. Usually, as an industry editor, there is a long list of stakeholders to see and tick off and, inevitably, a couple of them are always left out. This time, though, my duties were split between gathering resources for my own freelance activities and Line 12’s PR clients, all of whom reported an exciting show with plenty of lead generation.
Curiously, though, I don’t feel that I saw anything particularly new (perhaps due to dashing around and being less observant than usual), but instead witnessed a market vibrant with optimism. Ipex set the tone, in a way, with many commercial printers making early signs of wanting to adopt wide-format kit in order to penetrate various advertising and display markets. Whether or not these converted into visitors at FESPA, the industry seemed stable and committed to adapting, and FESPA provided both the platform and the inspiration for that to happen.
It is difficult to populate peripheral activities but the debates, talks and discussions were well attended and not just by the same old faces, but visitors whose primary interest was in screen-printing or garment production who wanted to access new markets. I think this is the fortuitous and concluding point of my FESPA experience: accessing vertical markets and the need to innovate. This latter point was identified by the FESPA team some time ago and served as a strong banner under which to hold the show, but there was a genuine sense of profitability and thinking outside the box which can only stand the industry in good stead.
What FESPA does well, though, is to manage its size properly. The nature of a trade exhibition is that you never end up seeing all the people you wished to, nor all the new products, or indeed attending the horizon-expanding symposia on offer. If you stay for the duration there is easily enough to entertain you throughout, while single-day visitors will have time to reach all the companies they need to see, as well as dip into less familiar territories. The layout of the Munich Messe helped no end with its sensible structure and good facilities, as did easy access to both the airport and the city centre.
2010 was my first edition of the show without any particular agenda. Usually, as an industry editor, there is a long list of stakeholders to see and tick off and, inevitably, a couple of them are always left out. This time, though, my duties were split between gathering resources for my own freelance activities and Line 12’s PR clients, all of whom reported an exciting show with plenty of lead generation.
Curiously, though, I don’t feel that I saw anything particularly new (perhaps due to dashing around and being less observant than usual), but instead witnessed a market vibrant with optimism. Ipex set the tone, in a way, with many commercial printers making early signs of wanting to adopt wide-format kit in order to penetrate various advertising and display markets. Whether or not these converted into visitors at FESPA, the industry seemed stable and committed to adapting, and FESPA provided both the platform and the inspiration for that to happen.
It is difficult to populate peripheral activities but the debates, talks and discussions were well attended and not just by the same old faces, but visitors whose primary interest was in screen-printing or garment production who wanted to access new markets. I think this is the fortuitous and concluding point of my FESPA experience: accessing vertical markets and the need to innovate. This latter point was identified by the FESPA team some time ago and served as a strong banner under which to hold the show, but there was a genuine sense of profitability and thinking outside the box which can only stand the industry in good stead.
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