but he started consulting for the compa-
ny, which wanted more design assets in
Europe. Leonhardt quickly realized the
next great creative offer was staring him
right in the face, and he didn't flinch.
Schawk's business process made too
much sense.
Leonhardt believes branding for most
companies depends on three elements.
The first is to be tied into a process that
clients perceive as professional. The sec-
ond is the history or experience of the
company, which smart ones layout in case
studies. "And from those two, comes the
opportunity to build a special message
that is based on the real history of the
organization so that it is believable," he
says. "Building a unique point of view, a
secret sauce, a unique selling opportunity,
a way of articulating what's special about
your organization that draws on the real-
ity of your history and your process."
A smart business plan is essential to
branding, according to Leonhardt, who
is adamant that while a brand is indeed
meant to soothe clients, it cannot be sus-
tained without cash flow. "There is only
one reason to think about brand and
that is to improve your margins."
Process before technology
"When you say branding to a printer
they will say `well, we have Heidelberg
presses and you should use us because
there are Komori's over there and
Mitsubishi's," says Ron Sibley, manager
of strategic sourcing for Warner Bros.
Canada. "There was a time when buyers
would have considered that as impor-
tant, right now I'm concerned about the
finished product."
One of the most significant impacts
on the printing industry, according to
Sibley, is the continuing proliferation of
trade printers. Print outsourcing took a
while to find its way into the industry
primarily because buyers and printers
alike wanted production done in-house.
Whether it was a client's concern over
quality control or a printer's concern
over lost revenue, these views stopped
many companies from focusing on what
they do best. Instead, many tried to
diversify into bindery, die-cutting, dif-
ferent press formats and so on.
Schawk's move upstream with
Anthem Group may appear very differ-
ent from an outsourcing strategy, but the
company actually redeveloped its core
competency to focus on technology-
based brand imaging. This required a
new business process very similar to the
way in which IBM returned to domi-
nance in its marketplace by branding
itself as a consulting company. Hardware
and software continue to be a large part
of IBM's success, just as prepress is still
very much a part of Schawk, but Big Blue
uses the PC, the mainframe, and soft-
ware to pull a client deeper into its con-
sulting process.
"It's not a case of investing in technol-
ogy," says Warner's Sibley. "It's investing
in process because the technology can be
at a trade printer or an outside service. I
think that investing in the process means
to come up with methodologies to tie
those pieces together. To get the relation-
ships established with partners."
Sibley believes this model is supported
by the trade printer's ability to run
equipment practically 24 hours a day.
They are not going to force print projects
on unsuitable or inefficient equipment,
as many commercial printers do today.
"They are going to have to figure it out
or you are going to see more of these
bigger printers disappear and it's going
to be trade work," says Sibley. "You
are going to have small and aggressive
print-marketing organizations come in
and say `we are going to set you up with
all this wonderful technology and give
you all these benefits. Give us your work
and we are going to coordinate it.
We are going to place it where it is best
suited." (See Print Under Management,
PrintAction, October 2003.)
The best example of this outsourcing
model comes from the strategic relation-
ships many printers have with binderies
(see Piece-of-mind Printer, page 16).
Sibley believes this same idea can be
applied to every aspect of the printing
industry, even if it means sending some-
one work because it is better suited on a
40-inch press than your 60-inch press.
"You can promote yourself as the highest
quality shop in the city and not have any
equipment out back," he says. "If you
forge the right alliances with the right
supplier group then you can do that."
Such a model will not excuse a compa-
ny from required, sizable and risky capital
investments, but outsourcing may solve
technology concerns analogous to the
millions of dollars spent on Scitex pre-
press equipment in the early 1980s, only
to be superseded thereafter shortly after
by the Mac at a fraction of the cost.
"What is the benefit to that person
who is buying the work?" asks Sibley.
"You can talk features with me all day
long but it really doesn't matter that you
have computer-to-plate or this type of
press and that type of bindery. Who
cares? What do you have that is going to
make my life easier?"
Sibley is surprised that remote proof-
ing has not yet overtaken the market. To
have a proofing printer calibrated at a
client's site supported by online anno-
tation is of enormous value to a client,
who can run off a proof in minutes, take
it to marketing and have them sign off.
With an online system allowing for on-
screen corrections, onsite proofing is a
very effective way to tie up the customer.
"Printers have to educate us, as buyers,
about what the benefits are," says Sibley.
"To tell me that you have digital technol-
ogy, what does that mean? That you have
a calculator on your desk?"
OK, now the technology
"I personally like to walk and talk work-
flow because I feel that it can make a big
impact," says Eve Asbury, senior vice
president, director of print and digital
production at Saatchi & Saatchi. "I don't
like doing business with somebody who
is clueless about workflow because in the
end we are going to pay for that."
Asbury believes in the craft of print
because Saatchi often deals with very
high-end advertising pieces, such as cos-
metic ad inserts and car brochures. If
Toyota wants beige leather interior it
cannot look like brown vinyl. Asbury is
unique in advertising circles because she
has spent much of her career promoting
standards for the digital creation and
distribution of advertising. She won the
2003 Enovation/Fujifilm Industry
Achievement Award because of her work
in this field.
"If I'm working with a prepress sup-
plier and their RIP technology is out of
date, any PDF files processed by that RIP
are not indicative of how they are going
to be processed by a RIP, through a
printing plant," she says. "Therefore, my
ads are going to run wrong, potentially."
Asbury's team regularly has inter-
company seminars to learn about new
trends surrounding production issues,
with the goal of finding out whether a
technology is flat or if it can add value to
their creative strategy. Added value in the
creative strategy, according to Asbury, is
not the latest gadget, but a sound tech-
nology that printers truly know how to
use. This is the type of professionalism
that Ted Leonhardt talks about as a core
element in a brand strategy.
It is becoming more difficult for a
company to promote its expertise with
an advertising agency because of efforts
toward standardization, and the power
of software turning prepress into a plug-
and-play commodity. With the growth
of Job Definition Format and Extensible
Markup Language, eventually an adver-
tising agency will be able to ship its digi-
tal ads accompanied by some type of soft
proof, as well as insertion orders and
printing instructions.
"Three or four years ago, when the
RIP technology was just being developed
so that it was able to deal with the enor-
mous processing of the FM/XM screen-
ing, a couple of printers pointed it out
[to us]," says Asbury. "That was enough
for me to sit down with them and see
what they meant."
It may have been the RIP that attracted
Asbury to those printing companys, but
the ability to work with FM screening was
the real value added, because Asbury
could produce a piece with a stronger line
screen. "If you are a dead-standard print-
er, I have those. Why should I change
companies when these guys have deliv-
ered? That is what I say to these people
who are calling me all the time: `OK send
in your RFI, request for information, and
on there make sure that you state very
clearly why you are so special."
And most important of all
"I would say there was more branding
when the quality was more determined by
individual craft skills," says Ted Leonhardt.
"Today we have marvelous quality control
systems that are built into the machinery.
The technology is so good that it is hard to
differentiate based on quality. You have to
find a differentiating factor that is genuine
and real, and it is not generic technology."
Making the technology real to the client,
to even have an idea about what technolo-
gy might be real for the client, means
interacting with the client. They are look-
ing for the knowledge that a printer can
bring to the table. The ability to say a job
cannot be done a certain way, because you
have tried it and it just didn't work, is as
important as having the expertise to say
why a job will work.
Sibley feels a lot has changed in the
branding of a company, because of the
relationships that he and many other print
purchasers seek. In the past, an established
company had branding power because of
the equipment, and most of the produc-
tion staff had familiarity with the jobs that
a particular client would push through.
But that has changed.
"Ultimately it is going to come down to
a healthy trusting relationship with the
person sitting across the desk," says Sibley.
"If you are with company A this week and
maybe you move to company B down the
road, I would say, more so now than in the
past, that the customer will move with the
person as opposed to staying with the
company."
Sibley continues to say this trust will
develop if a print buyer believes a compa-
ny is more than just a printer. Clients want
to work with an innovator that will look
into other areas of their business and spot
opportunities. Most print buyers do not
have the time to concentrate on print
exclusively, as few companies have staff
dedicated to that particular spend catego-
ry. Printers need to realize that pressures of
time are not exclusive to printing.
"I think that our suppliers don't realize
just what we give to our clients," says
Asbury. "We are asking a lot less of them
than we do of ourselves. They don't even
see that. It's not even within their grasp
and I think that is a big issue, because they
just look at this demanding client and
think `oh god, you know they are all a pain
in the ass.' But we are not, it's just what we
need to do."
It will not be easy to find more time for
those clients that want to build a trusting
relationship. But how else will they under-
stand your process, your history, your spe-
cial ingredient... your brand. A broker
won't tell them.
"Forget about the quotes. Keep me
aware and start to build up that relation-
ship. You are really just trying to build up
credibility. That is the type of supplier I
want to line myself up with," says Sibley.
"If we have that working relationship, I'm
more likely to stay with you and let you
traffic that project where you think
appropriate. It is more important than
the branding of the organization behind
it. It is actually the branding of the sales-
person."
"I don't like doing business with somebody who is
clueless about workflow because in the end we are
going to pay for that," says Eve Asbury
Brand
PRINTACTION January 2004
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