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EDITORIAL

SOCIAL

DISTANCING We're all in this together.

Kelley Holmes VP, Group Publisher

A

s we go to press on this issue, we are quarantined with the new buzz words, “Social Distancing.”

From Miami, I witness the world economy take a hiatus. We see empty cruise ships, a very quiet downtown with employees “working from home,” metro trains with no people, empty parks, malls shut down, bars and restaurants closing, grocery stores limiting entry to only allow small amounts of people in at a time, shelves missing hand sanitizer, soap, toilet paper and fabric cleaners. The entire world

We now truly realize we are on this beautiful blue planet together and that we are witnessing a perfect example of how life on the other side of the world affects everyone.

Find article at PrintingNews. com/21122767

4

02-05_Editorial.indd 4

is experiencing this together, from China and Italy to Germany, Spain, England, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, the United States etc...

In my 28 years in this industry and in my entire life, I have never seen a global reaction to a virus like we are witnessing now other than in the American thriller movie, “Contagion.”

Our favorite events, including the ISA Sign Expo, drupa, DScoop, Eskoworld, TechTextil and others have postponed

to a future date so we can do our part to pull together to squash the COVID19 virus, stop the numbers from rising and keep people safe. States of Emergency have been issued at the national, state and local levels. The Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates to 0, and the impact on the economy has yet to be seen.

It is my hope as we come out of this experience, that we now truly realize we are on this beautiful blue planet together and that we are witnessing a perfect example of how life on the other side of the world affects everyone. Not one industry will escape the chaos this virus has been able to cause.

The good news is that a vaccine is already in human test trials with others under development. The greatest minds in the world are working on it.

WhatTheyThink will be launching an online Technology Outlook week May 18-22 to educate the industry in the areas of Production Inkjet, Packaging, Textiles & Apparel and Print style. Please see WhatTheyThink.com and PrintingNews.com to access information on participation.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected by this crisis. As we navigate the next few months, we will continue to connect us all using our print & online platforms of communication for the entire print, sign and textile industries. Stay safe. ●

WhatTheyThink - Printing News | April 2020

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For more information, visit PrintingNews.com/10013323

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VP, GROUP PUBLISHER Kelley Holmes kelley@whattheythink.com 772-579-7360 PRODUCTION EDITOR & MANAGER Amy Hahn amy@whattheythink.com EDITOR Jessica Taylor jessica@whattheythink.com

CON APRIL 2020

MANAGING EDITOR Richard Romano richard@whattheythink.com SENIOR EDITOR Cary Sherburne cary@whattheythink.com

ANNUAL PRINT SHOP FRANCHISE REVIEW

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Paul Zimmerman paul@whattheythink.com 973-727-1376

By Cary Sherburne

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COO Adam Dewitz adam@whattheythink.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Pete Basiliere Elizabeth Gooding Christine Erna Joanne Gore Dave Fellman Jennifer Matt John Giles Debbie McKeegan

20 Jeff White Joann Whitcher Mark Vruno David Zwang

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CERAMICS PRINTING GOES DIGITAL

From mugs to tiles, the possibilities are endless.

By Cary Sherburne ELEVATING FOUNDATIONAL PRINT SOFTWARE DECISIONS

There are a lot of decisions to be made around print software; it might surprise you which ones I think are the most important.

LABELS ARE HOT! EMBELLISHMENT IS HOTTER!

Expand your business with these technology advancements.

By Pat McGrew INKJET DISRUPTORS

Five ways transaction printers can survive new competitors

By Elizabeth Gooding

Send address changes to WhatTheyThink, 2038 Ford Parkway #218, Saint Paul, MN 55116. Subscriptions: Individual subscriptions are available U.S.A $95; Canada $125 USD; all other countries $150 USD. Printed in the USA. Copyright © 2020 WTT Media, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recordings or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission. WTT Media Inc. does not assume and hereby disclaims any liability to any person or company for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions in the material herein, regardless of causation. The views and opinions in the articles herein are not those of the publishers, unless indicated. The publishers do not warrant, either expressly or by implication, the factual accuracy of the articles herein, or of any views or opinions offered by the authors of said articles.

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NTENTS COLUMNS

30

2020 ANNUAL SIGN FRANCHISE REVIEW

36

46

40

50

ROCKIN’ THE BOAT

By Joann Whitcher THE SECRET WEAPON TO PRINT AND SIGN FRANCHISE SUCCESS

By Joanne Gore

- PAGE -

WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE

IT'S IN THE BANK

38

XEIKON 2020:

By Cary Sherburne

By Richard Romano FLYING HIGH WITH NEW MAGGIE MCFLY’S LOCATION

66

ASSOCIATION INSIGHTS

By Richard Romano

54

FINDING HARD PROFIT IN SOFT SIGNAGE

By Mark Vruno

58

THE SCIENCE OF INK

By Debbie McKeegan

36

46 DEPARTMENTS

34

4 Editorial 34 Watch List: Video

FOLLOW US

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@printingnews; @wideformatsign; @whattheythink

Directory

@printingnewscom; @wideformatsignage; @WhatTheyThink Printing News; Wide-Format&Signage; whattheythink PrintingNews.com

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MANAGEMENT

Print Franchise Review

2019

ANNUAL

PRINT SHOP

FRANCHISE REVIEW

By Cary Sherburne

O

verall, 2019 was a relatively good year for print shop franchise orgaing print shop franchise organiza-

Franchise

International

How many total shops were in your system in 2019?

How many shops were corporateowned in 2019?

How many What was What were What was shops were the average What were systhe average your highest in North investment to tem-wide sales sales per shop revenue shop America in open a new in 2019? in 2019? in 2019?

2019? shop in 2019?

967

-

789

632,222

150,000

462,981,369

7,484,595

38

-

38

450,000

238,875

14,536,069

1,748,024

322

-

232

1,158,094

227,000

302,000,000

13,600,000

279

2

279

909,539

255,164,013

9,907,916

273

4

250

1,391,552

304,791,083

12,491,330

1,588

4,541,407

Franchise Services, Graphics,

TOTALS

8

1,879

300,000

1,339,472,534

WhatTheyThink - Printing News | April 2020

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In speaking with the leaders of these organizations, all shared a bright outlook for the future.

They believe in their respective business models and continue to develop and evolve them to stay aligned with market demands while taking into consideration the very different requirements of each center within their respective networks. organization. We thank them for taking the time to respond to our survey and to spend time with us talking about their achievements, concerns and strategies for the future.

Alliance Franchise Brands The Print & Marketing Division of Alliance Franchise Brands incorporates a number of brands, including Allegra, American Speedy Printing, Insty Prints and KKP Canada. The brand in the U.S. The franchise network of print and marketing centers declined from 289 in 2018 to 279 in 2019. Gross systemwide sales in 2019 were $255,164,013, down slightly from $259,363,186 in 2018. The decline in the number of centers is attributed to exit of lower-performing centers and/ or retirement of franchisees that results in their center being merged with a nearby facility. Average sales per shop came in at $909,539 for 2019, with the highest revenue shop delivering revenues of just under $10 million.

The network has been aggressive at recruiting new talent as franchisees. Two programs are available to independent printers and entrepreneurs looking for a proven franchise model.

“The Allegra MatchMaker Program allows entrepreneurs to purchase an established business with an exist-

and staff,” Allegra President Kevin Cushing said.

“Owners of independent print shops looking to retire or sell their businesses can work with one

members looking to expand in other markets. A rebranding to Allegra Marketing Print Mail allows the new owner to capitalize on the power of the network and hit the ground running.”

The Allegra Advantage Program is designed for independently branded print services providers who want to grow the value of their company by gaining access to a host of franchise network resources plus develop a strategy for when they are ready to sell.

“They are often facing issues with sales, sales management and technology,” Cushing said, “and having all of that vetted for them by our home on growing instead of on infrastructure. When it’s time, exiting the business is easier to achieve because we can work with them to better position their company for sale. We’re out talking to entrepreneurs all the time.”

In addition, as many executives leave the industry’s OEM/supplier businesses, either through retirement or through the consolidation many of these companies are going through, the organiza-

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MANAGEMENT

Print Franchise Review

ease them into a new business. And a referral program compensates anyone referring an entrepreneur who signs a franchise agreement. Cushing invites interested parties to contact him at kevinc@ alliancefranchisebrands.com.

As we reported last year, Alliance Franchise Brands also has a dual-branded program in place where Allegra and Image360 brands are merged into one business, with Image360 being the network’s sign & display graphics premier brand.

“When we originally rolled this out, we saw it as two separate business models under one roof,” Cushing said. “We spent the better part of last year

The original goal was to have 80 of these dual

more in the pipeline.

“Independents are also interested in getting into the display graphics business,” he said, “adding an Image360 to their independent shop, and that is another option. Plus, Allegra centers that are doing an increasing volume of signage but outsourcing to an Image360 or other display graphics shop, may also want to look into dual branding their centers as their volumes grow.”

Speaking of outsourcing, it accounts for 23% of systemwide revenues.

“Outsourcing has always been part of our strategy,” Cushing said, “allowing our centers to shed overhead, making it a variable might create simple signage but outsource things like building signage to an Image360 or independents. It involves a pretty routine build-versus-buy decision-making process. Apparel is 100% outsourced, and many of our centers have eliminated offset printing, replacing it with a combination of digital printing and outsourcing.”

Offset printing still represents 23% of network revenues, with digital printing representing 22%, including both color and black and white output.

Finishing and mailing accounts for 11% of revenues.

Alliance Franchise Brands continues to build out its WorkStream technology package. Technology is a centerpiece of the company’s longterm vision for growth. The integrated system is designed to reduce the time associated with estimating, order entry and production activities through automation, shifting the focus to client services.

“We are now getting to the tipping point where there are enough different center sizes that have embraced

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some aspect of WorkStream, and it has borne fruit for their businesses,” Cushing said. “As a result, others are sitting up and taking notice. A WorkStream implementation can shave 10 to 15 minutes off of each order in labor savings. The automent for centers. graphic arts curriculum. Plus, customers are being

cies makes them more competitive. WorkStream is Allegra does offer an aggressive training “We have a Center Leadership Development put in place and focused discipline to drive sales,”

have a succession plan in place. Also, making sure the

In terms of challenges, increasing center producoping capabilities of sales personnel rank as the

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MANAGEMENT

Print Franchise Review

do the things our new owners are doing, so that indicates we are on the right track.”

In a net new center, equipment includes a reasonable color production machine, Xerox V180 or Ricoh 7210, that delivers good quality at 80 to 90 ppm with

recurring sales.

get that second order, there is a strong likelihood

products and services. The centers also have an with respect to metrics but also gives headquarters with a work table that complements it.

Core package and are trained on 20 to 30 start-up go-to-market products – basic training on what stock to load in which tray, and applications that enable that run through the shop quickly. spending more time on the business than in the busiclosures to less than eight. quarters, giving them real-time access to center said. “We hope to be able to open at least 17 new enables them to better support centers. get as close to 400 centers in the U.S. as we can.” ownership, MBE Worldwide, recently raised $120

tomer retention, cross-selling and dealing with price

strategy is still to be the worldwide player in print and marketing, and now shipping with the launch in

trust, selling and closing phases providing structure, process, tools and oversight. Our CRM system tracks and guides them through the sales process with

print, marketing and shipping services, a product or

them see how well they are doing and what areas

sales training program, which will also be rolled out

12

need those services; that could be a partnership or acquisition opportunity. We are also looking at labels

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For more information, visit PrintingNews.com/10003405

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MANAGEMENT

Print Franchise Review

and packaging – basically anything a small or midsized enterprise needs for their print, marketing and shipping services.”

Within the current framework, the fastest growing application is signs and display graphics.

And variable data will be a big focus to drive color digital print volumes. Outsourcing comprises about 25% of revenues, the largest component of which is offset printing, since the network has very few offset presses left, accounting for $3 to $4 million last year.

“Some centers don’t have the capability to print on rigid substrates or to do complex installations,” Farris said. “So that also accounts for some of the outsourcing.”

Farris is bullish about AlphaGraphics’ future.

“We recently did a survey of owners,” he said, in the brand and the value of their investments. That speaks highly about the strategies we have in place and our roadmap for the future.”

selling franchises. It took me a while to get up to speed on franchising from the franchisor perspective, and I have been working with the International Franchise Association to make sure we are ready to offer something that will be of value to our owners.

I don’t want to sell franchises unless I have a good to sell those franchises.”

In the remaining franchises, there are four owners that have been in the system for more than 40 years.

“The industry has changed dramatically over that time,” he said. “We need to get them up to speed on where technology has gone and how it can be useful to them. There were a number of years where technology was not adopted in the right manner in the network. For example, we still had a lot of places with offset presses that were not profitable. We looked at all the centers to determine what MIS they had, what their social media strategy was, what print technology was in place, and

Fortusis Since Curtis Cheney acquired the ICED brands in late 2017, he and his team have been working to stabilize the franchise, which declined from 59 centers in 2018 to 38 in 2019, under the brands Kwik Kopy, Franklin’s and The Ink Well. Cheney understands the franchise business from a franchisee perspective, having been the general manager at the network’s largest center in Salt Lake City for nearly a decade.

“We divested ourselves of the American Wholesale Thermography brand,” he said, “and we let go a lot of underperforming centers so we could focus on building a good foundation for the brand. The good thing is the average sales per center were up from about $400,000 in 2018 to $450,000 in 2019.”

Systemwide sales for 2019 came in at $14,536,069, down from $24,500,000 the previous year.

When Cheney took over the network, he saw a lot of opportunities that were not being capitalized on in ways he thought appropriate. be going forward,” he said, “and get all of the necessary infrastructure in place so we could start

14

mix. We want our franchisees to be strong evangelists for the network, advocating that we have the knowledge about how to move commercial print forward. We have completed our FDD, and I think we now have an offering that is attractive.”

In terms of a systemwide MIS, Cheney said that was not a requirement in the past, but all new centers will be required to use the network’s MIS, Printer’s Plan. Currently, 10 centers have this MIS in place, up from two at the beginning of 2019.

Cheney said the network will start actively recruiting new franchisees in the third quarter of 2020.

“Most of our centers are sub-$1 million in revenue, and in our model, there is a low capital investment, so it makes it easy to enter the business.”

Using its Salt Lake City location as a test bed, Fortusis is exploring various technologies that can be added to the system to make it more competitive.

“We put in a dye sub printer and Direct-toGarment (DTG) capability there,” Cheney said, “to see how they would do. And they are doing pretty well. DTG has taken off for them. It doesn’t a lot of people in the front door with that, and it

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For more information, visit PrintingNews.com/10277990 This is a sample of Offset Opa a que Whi standard PF7 prin te 100 lb. and feat ted in four-color uring a BC1 process on card slit on the left Finch pocket.

113244 PF7-1 Out side

MANAGEMENT

Print Franchise Review

complements other services. Another is tonerbased foiling. Those machines cost less than $5,000, and you can do small runs of foil as added value.”

Average sales per shop for 2019 were $459,036.

Cheney said, however, that taking the smaller shops out of the formula, the average shop revenue is $600,000 to $700,000.

“That’s the model we like,” he said. “They can do the one-offs, the Christmas presents, the small projects a lot of our competitors don’t want to focus on.

“The great thing about reinventing the business is that with my current franchisees bringing in money every month, we can reinvest right back to them to build a system that will work for everyone.”

In terms of recruiting new franchisees, Cheney is looking to millennials, an age group that has the ambition and excitement for something new.

“It really doesn’t take a lot of capital to get in,” he said. “We want someone that really wants to grow.

We don’t anticipate them holding on to the localaunching pad for them to grow and develop themselves and pass the investment they have created to someone else.”

The Fortusis model will be based on a 10-year transferrable agreement.

“I want them to get in, grow the business, have the excitement and not feel locked in.”

For current owners, Fortusis has created a number of new programs, including a new program started last November that owners need to accomplish over the next year.

“There is a new training program every month,” Cheney said. “When they complete the program, they will be invited to our incentive trip, a Royal Caribbean cruise to a private island in the Bahamas.”

Franchise Services Franchise Services continues to deliver good performance, with systemwide revenues up about 2% year over year, from $297 million in 2018, to $302 million in 2019. The number of centers has declined to 322 in 2019 from 330 the previous year.

The network’s highest producing shop brought in $13.6 million in revenues, up from $11 million last

16

“We feel good overall about the year,” said President Richard Lowe. “We were a little shy of our objectives for the year, but our January was up 5% -- we hope that’s a trend. It’s not like the old days for any of the networks where we could expect 10%+ year-over-year growth. These days, it’s a bit like a ‘Tale of Two Cities,’ with the folks in the network focusing on what we need to do moving forward doing well.”

While some networks focused on weeding out lower performing centers in 2018 and 2019, that’s not the case at Franchise Services, according to Lowe.

“We want to help every one of them,” he said.

“It’s a mature business and a lot of our owners who started in the business in their 40s and 50s are now in their 70s, at the end of their business lives. So 8% to 10% of our centers are up for resale as these folks move on to their next chapter. We have actually sold several recently at good multiples. They are salable if you are running a good business.”

One of the growth opportunities for the network is wide format. with a goal of signs comprising 25% of the business, and we were at 19% in 2019, so good progress toward that goal,” Lowe said. “Some of our centers are doing more than $1 million in signs. We are always on the look-out for products and services that are not going to be replaced by something digital. I think signs could be 50% of our business at some point in time.”

The other effort in the network is to develop more repeat customers, being proactive in developing programs rather than one-off projects.

“Labels and signs are areas where we are working on this,” Lowe said. “Almost all of our centers have sold labels from the beginning, but mostly in reactive mode. With all of the things that need labels today, we are working to be more proactive with customers.”

Labels represented only 3% of revenues in 2019, with plenty of room to grow. Packaging is more complicated, having a different sales cycle and different contacts within the customer account.

“We believe there is opportunity there, though,”

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he said. “We have always been the small business support people. However, the equipment investment for packaging is high, so we will see how that develops.” mailing, which comprised 15% of revenues in 2019.

Franchise Services spends a lot of time listening to its franchisees as it develops plans for the future.

“We have 11 different board groups that consist of seven or eight franchisees who get together, create business plans and then meet once or twice a year to present progress against their plan to the rest of the group. It’s our best-rated support program by far, and it holds them accountable to their peers.”

Lowe participates in two of those groups.

“One of our groups is all women,” he said. “And they are all growing, pursuing all of these opportunities. Their sign businesses are outrageously good, and several are getting into short-run packaging.”

Like many of the other networks, Franchise Services encourages centers to outsource some of their work.

“Our philosophy has been that you should manufacture the things that have the highest value for your customer and then buy out the things you can get readily with high quality and a measure of control and speed,” Lowe said. “Then we don’t have the risk of having the equipment or people to run it in areas that are better served by a partner.”

Outsourcing accounted for 16% of systemwide revenue in 2019. Offset printing is one example of this. Lowe said that there are very few offset presses in the system, with franchisees turning to partners like 4Over for this work. Franchise Services centers also sell a tremendous amount of apparel, which is primarily outsourced to partners as well.

“With 20, 30 or 40 orders coming from a customer per day, you need to get them out with fewer touches,” Lowe said. “We have a committee working on this, consisting of some franchisees, key headquarters staff members and some vendor change this 10 years ago and it didn’t go that well.

We had the idea of trying to solve everything with

different, so it is hard to get one piece of software approach, breaking down elements of the manufacturing process from order entry to shipping and best optimize or automate each one. Then we will educate our franchisees, and we expect it will make a big difference for them.”

Lowe expects to start rolling out these best practices in the third quarter of 2020.

This year marks 30 years Lowe has been in the business, and he is still excited about it.

“We have more products and services than we have ever had before,” he said. “If you want to be successful, you can be. It is a very mature market in one sense, but a totally new business in another.

We need to do a better job of communicating to people that are considering working in our space what a cool industry it is – it’s not an old, tired business at all. We deal in the idea business and we use a lot of technology. It might end up as a sign or a piece of printed paper, but it started as a problem someone had that we can solve for them. There are still challenges in getting to the center of the future and we have to navigate a lot of change, but we are prepared to do that.”

Minuteman Press is the largest print shop franchise system in terms of international footprint, number of centers and systemwide revenue. With locations in the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom, the network generated $462,981,369 in revenue in 2019, slightly down from the previous year’s results at $468,676,500. The number of shops increased to 967 in 2019, from 956 in 2018. The network’s two largest shops generate in excess of $7 million annually.

“A lot of our franchisees came into the network in 2008 and 2009 from the 50+ age group,” Minuteman Press President Nick Titus said. “They were too young to retire then but are now looking to do so. Others who have been in the network for years are also retiring. With a strong economy,

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MANAGEMENT

Print Franchise Review

we have seen an increase in interest from people looking at getting into our business, but they want to continue making what they are making now; they have a lower tolerance for risk than in the past.

Sometimes we have centers on the market that meet that need, and sometimes we don’t.”

To help existing franchisees continue to grow, and to attract new talent to the network, Minuteman has developed perhaps the most diverse in-house offerings of all of the networks, including promotional products (some produced with dye sublimation) and direct to garment (DTG), both print and embroidery.

“Investment in embroidery machines can be large,” Titus said, “and employee training can be dif-

good visibility and to attract Read More… new talent to the network.

Find article at We work to build Minuteman PrintingNews. com/21122536 Press brand awareness and what we offer. The industry understands this, but the general public doesn’t.

They think ink on paper, but we can put an image on just about anything. Getting that message out to

some don’t. Our philosophy is to never say no to a job. Whether we do it in-house or outsource to a vendor, the customer doesn’t care. They just want their job done right. So we encourage our franchisees to take work in that can be outsourced. Then when the volume builds up enough in that area, it might make sense to bring in a piece of equipment or add an employee to bring the work in-house rather than farm it out.”

Some centers are using an Epson printer for DTG. “It produces a very nice quality with images that last well,” Titus said.

Another area of focus is educating owners about mailing and USPS offerings.

“Getting the owners more involved in mailing and understanding it has resulted in good returns for those who have taken the jump,” Titus said. “If you can provide mailing, you are likely going to be printing the orders as well. The more educated our owners are on mailing and how to save customers money on postage, they will get more print orders as well. So promotional products, apparel and mailing have been our top three areas of focus.”

Minuteman does its own recruiting using lead generation techniques rather than using brokers.

“Our lead generation portals have been effective in helping our owners sell their businesses,” Titus said. “To support that, we have a full-time public relations person and a copywriter on staff pushing success stories out both to give our owners

our proprietary software and some of the more

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Minuteman Press also places a heavy focus on training in 28 different regions throughout the company. Each has a Vice President, and marketing or technical staff helping owners on the local level.

“We train those people to train the owners,” Titus said. “We have a support department in our

“Every one of our owners has different strengths and weaknesses, backgrounds and experience,” Titus said. “It comes down to an individual level working with owners, training and assisting them.

That’s part of the reason we see each store growing differently. It’s not a cookie cutter formula. We help each individual owner grow their business to their own comfort level.”

Minuteman’s proprietary infrastructure software, called FLEX, does everything from marketing “Everything runs through FLEX,” Titus said.

“We’ve always built, managed and maintained our own software going back to the late 1980s. We have six full-time people that build, manage and support the system for our owners.”

Titus’ excitement about the business comes through in conversation with him.

“I don’t think we have ever been able to do as much volume in as little space and with the least amount of equipment and employees,” he said.

pushing out offset presses. Now it’s pretty much all digital. To see that change has been incredible.

I don’t think our business has ever been better. It’s gotten so much easier, more cost-effective, and it’s fun to talk about it!” ●

WhatTheyThink - Printing News | April 2020

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DIGITAL & INKJET

CERAMICS PRINTING

GOES DIGITAL

By Cary Sherburne

F

or a little more than a decade, I lived in a 200-year-old house in Portsmouth, N.H., a town that

year Sherburne family history.

I had a vision of a hand-painted mural on the staircase wall that would follow that history from the family’s arrival in

be captured and printed on ceramic tiles and other materials to be used as decoration Unfortunately, I was a little ahead of the times; it was possible, but not easy, to do that work back then. The handpainted mural, sure; but custom That’s so not true today!

produced on an EFI

ence on the city over the years.

But I didn’t want to stop there. I

Digital Dominates at the High End -

But since then, beset by demand for more customization, smaller lot sizes and faster cycle times, ceramic tile manufacturers have to address these market dynamics. These systems typically use UV-curable or eco-solvent inks, and more eco-friendly watertheir way into the market. As

produced.

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digital printing. Very small lot sizes (even a quantity of one) are feasible, more colors and more complex designs can be produced, and product arrives in the market much faster. Plus, digital printing reduces the overall environmental footprint of the manufacturing process, including reduction in waste and production costs and elimination of toxic chemicals associated with the screen printing process, etc. Also, since screen printing is a contact process, it textured tiles, and it leaves a white border around the edges because it cannot print right up to the edges.

Ceramics and porcelain stoneware have become increasingly popular with architects and interior designers, and the ability to easily customize designs will spur further growth in digital ceramic printing with these audiences, particularly as they work with highend facilities. Digital printing of ceramic tile is gaining increasing popularity around the globe.

This includes European countries such as Spain and Italy, where production is almost exclusively digital, according to a publication produced by printhead manufacturer Xaar. Other regions experiencing a high conversion to digital include India, Brazil and China.

In this process, tiles are formed, glazed, passed through inkjet printing stations, and then somewhat complicated and the

The Cretaprint Hybrid currently uses eco-solvent inks or more environmentally friendly water-based inks and glazes.

investment to enter the market is high. High-end digital ceramic printing equipment on the market includes: ● EFI Cretaprint ● Hope Jet from Hope Ceramics Machinery ● Italian manufacturer Intesa-Sacmi ● Keda Clean Energy’s DPG line of digital ceramic manufacturing solutions ● KERAjet of Spain, one introduce digital printing for ceramic tile in 1999 ● Meijia Ceramics Equipment Company, located in China’s ceramics capital, Foshan City ● TechnoFerrari of Italy with its VivaJet line But there are also ceramic printing opportunities that involve a much smaller investment than these multi-milliondollar systems.

for the Rest of Us The good news is that it can be easy and affordable to enter the market for short to midsized runs of decorated ceramic products. The most common method of printing on ceramics in this market segment is heat transfer dye sublimation.

This is accomplished by digitally printing the desired image onto heat transfer paper, taping that paper to the object being decorated, and applying heat using a heat press. In the case of drinkmugs, specialized heat presses are available to produce a single mug at a time using pre-manufactured blanks. can produce multiple mugs at one time are also available.

Sticking with mugs for the moment, notice the white space around the handle.

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DIGITAL & INKJET

Heat Press for Mug Decoration

Examining the equipment, you can see why that needs to happen.

That’s where another process comes into play. All-over imprinting can be accomplished using a product called

Custom Mug Printed Using SubliShrinkCondé Systems

that can be placed over a mug or other that are looking to add dimensional piece after taping the heat a new revenue stream, transfer paper on the object. Objects these value-add items can can be decorated one by one using a increase both the overall heat gun; or more productively, several order value and customer objects can be placed in a convecsatisfaction. tion oven for the heat transfer process.

For example, if you This can produce a design covering the are producing brochures entire piece. As a nice add-on to custom or signs for an event or Printed on 6x6" gloss white ceramic tile mugs you may be producing for a cliproduct launch, offering flooded with black ent’s special event or for gifting, customa small quantity of quickized packaging can also be produced using dye subcan be a big win. For consumers, the ability to printing technologies. produce small runs of customized ceramic products Ceramic printing is not limited to mugs, of – mugs, tiles, coasters and more – with imagery celcourse. Using the processes described above, just ebrating birthdays, anniversaries or other special about any ceramic blank can be decorated with very events is also a big hit. high-quality images. For printing or sign companies Rob Barnett at AlphaGraphics in Suwanee, Ga.,

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Much of this is produced using

Cashing in on Ceramics

has taken advantage of these opportunities using his

Read More‌ Find article at PrintingNews. com/21119400

â—?

Cary Sherburne is a well-known author,

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SOFTWARE & WORKFLOW

ELEVATING FOUNDATIONAL PRINT SOFTWARE DECISIONS

By Jennifer Matt

W

hat print

The purchasing decisions.

decisions.

We have it all wrong. Do you know what the most strategic Print MIS decisions you make are? They are down in the weeds of how you calculate costs of labor and machines.

These calculations are what do you know what we do with these decisions? We push them down the food chain—even outside our organization to the professional services teams that are implementing the software.

Estimating is a formula. The software provides you the inputs to build your print business’ unique formula. You provide the inputs. If you do a terrible job of it, the math comes out wrong, not because of the software but

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because of the decisions you made about the inputs.

We elevate decisions that have little impact. OMG— what do you mean, print software purchasing decisions have little impact? Isn’t the product you decide to buy the most important decision you make about software? I don’t think so. Every product out there that has a sizable install base has both successful and failed implementations.

What does this mean to you?

You could probably be successful with several different solutions.

So picking one leading Print MIS over another might not make that big of a difference. (Can you tell I don’t sell Print MIS software?) Delegating all the downstream decisions about how the product is implemented to a really busy individual or a really non-detailed individual—or just an individual who doesn’t care or can’t think strategically—is where the real trouble is made.

I don’t know why this happens or why we continue to make the same mistake of elevating nonstrategic decisions and delegating really important ones to people who don’t appreciate the strategic nature of the project.

???

I like when the trouble gets so hot that strategic thinkers/leaders start digging into the details of the downstream decisions. Their blood pressure typically goes up because from their “strategic perspective” the downstream decisions that were made make no sense.

For instance, everyone is complaining about the Print MIS job jacket. Upon review, the team was told it could be customized, but nobody took the time to give their feedback so they went live with the out-ofthe-box job jacket that makes absolutely no sense for their business. I think I’ve seen this one 25 times now. How does this rise back up in the food chain?

“There’s something wrong with the software!” executive yells at vendor. Vendor tries to explain they offered to customize the job jacket but nobody and around we go, circling faster, expending lots of energy, getting nowhere fast.

The implementation of print software is a strategic undertaking. It takes a combination of software, strategic thinkers who understand the printer’s business, and software experts who

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understand the software.

Then I’ll add in the really hard part: the two ingredients that involve humans (people at the printer, experts from the vendor/ consultants) need to listen and learn from each other (easier said than done). The printer’s people need to learn enough about the software; the vendor’s people need to learn enough about the print business so there can be a collaborative solution as to how to best implement this software at this printer. There is no static recipe to follow. There are hundreds of decisions to make; all of those decisions “feel” tedious and low level but the collection of these hundreds of decisions is what makes the software work for this particular print business.

Your strategic thinkers are busy. You say, “I can’t put one of my best people on the implementation of the Print MIS. They have to be out generating revenue, solving customer’s challenges, making me money!”

So true. So realistic. The strategic thinkers are in high demand. When you use the strategic thinkers in the implementation of the Print MIS, they implement strategically. So some of “their strategic thinking” gets implemented into a software solution that runs 24/7—even when they aren’t in the plant! Those who put the most strategic thinking into their Print MIS require the least strategic input to get jobs out the door everyday. ●

writes, speaks, and consults with printers worldwide who realize their

Read More…

Find article at PrintingNews. com/21120815

For more information, visit Printingnews.com/10004777

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LABELS & PACKAGING

Labels are hot!

LABELS ARE HOT!

EMBELLISHMENT IS Expand your business with these technology advancements.

By Pat McGrew

L

abels are big business. From simple stick-on tracking labels with barcodes to complex, textured labels that make products dazzling and touchable, the label printing industry is growing across all technologies in the ecosystem.

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Flexo, hybrid and pure digital printing have expanded their scopes and evolved their value propositions as the global demand for short-run, variable labels has exploded.

Vendors across the halls showed off a range of label options. Tau by Durst made it easy for attendees to see a variety of options and take samples home.

WhatTheyThink - Printing News | April 2020

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If you are experienced with nities to expand with hybrid or pure digital options continue to grow. Pure digital printers have opportunities to expand with digital label printing solutions that become more interesting in each innovation cycle. To understand the opportunity for your ing your options.

The aptly named Labelmen brought an innovative RFID label solution that embeds the RFID in the stock.

reputation of being a mature technology. Innovations in inkjet printing of labels and a growing range of inkjet-ready label stocks are expanding the types of label work moving to

Flexo Flexo label printing is the traditional analog technology that to transfer ink to label stock at high speed. Like all analog -

press special is the system that surrounds the printing. Flexo systems for label printing may of the process. These systems also handle the converting of the die-cutting and waste removal.

as well.

Read More…

Hybrid

Find article at PrintingNews. com/21119083

Hybrid label printing grew out of early efforts to provide varienvironment. In the early verhang digital technology on their stations into their digital print system to build solutions capable of adding variable content inline during the print run. The goal was to bring the rich capabilities of ties of digital together to create

Digital

in the market?

The printing technology alone will not be enough. That brings us to the opportunities that shape the future.

At the most recent Label Expo in Brussels and at the inaugural Printing United in innovations were on display for every part of the label printmatter what technology you use or more of these options. ● Variable Embellishing Embellishing labels with

Digital label printing is what you would expect. Toner and inkjet solutions on the market

systems have been commercialized and are in wide use today because they address a need for

capacities and capability sets.

Everything from desktop devices common in warehousing to truck-size devices with all the capabilities of their

and variable. For some compa-

There is business for all these technologies in the future of

where they had an artist

market long enough to earn the

LSP differentiate themselves

and then print a set of labels

but one of the most personal demonstrations using embellishing at LabelExpo

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LABELS & MANAGEMENT with the sketch as part of a label. This was an important demonstration because it involved the innovations included in HP’s ElectroInk Silver to produce a range of metallic colors.

Two paths to digital embellishment were operating on the stand: HP Indigo GEM was used to place the foil, spot varnish and other embellishments in a single pass, and for print-over-foil, the demonstration featured the HP Indigo 6900 Digital Press with the KURZ DM-Jetliner inline.

The Kurz stand had a duplicate of the production line running a different, but also variable, demo.

Why this is important:

Labels are hot!

In the competitive world of label printing, differentiation will be an essential element of business growth.

Whether you use HP’s solutions from MGI and tions or other providers, the goal is to add capabilities to provide memorable visual appeal to the prodfor short-run, variable and long-run static labels.

What’s the catch? Selling these solutions takes some rethinking on the part of the sales team. These aren’t “take an order” sales. These sales typically require a bit of art, a bit of science and a bit of theatre to help the

buyers understand what they can gain. Prepare in advance so your sales team is ready to sell what you can do! ● Industrial Embellishing This is a growing area that you must investigate.

Industrial Embellishing covers the growing area of Near Field Communications (NFC), RFID labels, labels that include audio accessibility from a barcode, augmented reality, labels that change colors due to heat or cold, and labels imbued with GPS technology to turn labels into tracking

Printed on the HP GEM, this foil embellished label is a variable data product!

Images were captured by an artist and inserted into the label master.

As each set of labels emerged, HP posted samples on a board by the press.

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beacons. And don’t forget the anti-counterfeiting solutions.

Some of these solutions

Pat McGrew has more than three decades as an

but over time expect to see more of the technology printed inline with the content. If you serve industime to start researching the technology.

Why this is important: Differentiation is the story that. Laying in the capabilities to create unique customer experiences using these technologies should attract brands with an eye for innovation. Imagine a label that opens an AR experience that can change over time.

Inside the retailer it might explain the product benethe experience may change to instructions for use. All these industrial embellishments have the potential to change how customers they buy.

It is important to remember that innovations can be intimidating. Help your sales team prepare by as technology is reviewed and be prepared to help

and prospective customers.

The future has amazing possibilities. â—?

For more information, visit Printingnews.com/10005202

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DIGITAL & INKJET

The security market

BANK

IT'S IN THE

Keep document and brand packaging secure.

I

By Joann Whitcher

t may be the digital era, but ensuring the security of printed documents and brand packaging is still a major concern for governments, businesses and the individual consumer. Banknotes, passports, identity cards, lottery tickets, tax revenue stamps, labels, driving licenses and even McDonald’s game chips are all subject to counterfeit activity.

While the use of online banking and digital payments is growing, the global security printing market size is also poised to grow – by $8.45 billion during

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2019-2023, according to a new report by Technavio. It is projected to progress at a CAGR of over 5% during the forecast period. One of the main drivers is the growth in tourism, leading to a demand for passports and visas, as well as birth Blockchain, PayPal, Apple Wallet notwithstanding, banknotes are still very much in use – especially in developing countries. According to research from Smithers, banknote printing accounts for 35.8% of total value in the global security print market, itself valued at $27.2 billion in 2017. “The Future of Global Security Printing to 2022” forecasts a healthy growth rate of 4.8% per annum to generate a total value of $34.3 billion in 2022.

Both inks and paper for the security market are also projected to grow, according to “The Security Paper Market” research report. According to Data Bridge Market Research, the global security paper market is set to witness a substantial CAGR of 5.75% in the forecast period of 2019-2026.

The global security ink market is expected to be valued at approximately $700 million in 2019 and is projected to witness a CAGR of 4% over the forecast period 2020-2029, according to Market Research, Inc. in its “Security Ink Market – Global Industry Analysis, Market Size, Opportunities and Forecast, 2020-2029.”

Generally speaking, there is an extremely wide variety of security solutions in the print industry, said Brandon

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Wells of Microtrace. Solutions are available and used that range from simple appearance of security to a mid-range that provides some security but could be counterfeited or fooled to high security solutions.

When working with a brand to determine their level of need, printers need to know what level of security their client is looking for. The decision needs to be made early on by the brand about what they are truly trying to achieve - do they need and want security for protection and quality control for their brand and product? Or do they simply want an illusion of security to satisfy consumer or industry demand? The answer to that simple, distinguishing question will led them to the proper solution for their application.

Often in this industry, we see a few missteps taken by brands, Wells said.

“Most notably, the research and implementation of a security solution is pushed down into their supply chain,” he said.

Goals are typically not aligned in this scenario. Supply chain vendors look to add a solution that is simple to implement that they can add a mark-up to. The goals at this level are not to protect the brand in the best way possible.

A simple illusion of security is implemented and brands no longer believe they have an issue with counterfeiting.

Counterfeiting doesn’t disappear. Many systems in the market can be duplicated or fooled.

Market news Microtrace, one of the leading players in the printed security market, offers a range of security options, from high

security labels that feature its Spectral Taggant ink to novelty inks such as UV/ IR that change color when exposed to UV light or a laser pen’s IR light.

CSIR-National Physical Laboratory’s bi-luminescent security ink glows in red and green colors when illuminated by two different excitation sources at 254 nanometers (nm) and 365 nm, respectively. The formulation is used to check the authenticity of passports, government documents, tamper evident labels, identity cards, etc.

Within the packaging arena, advances

in inkjet technology have expanded the amount of available security inks. Visible naked eye, and can only been seen under an ultraviolet or black light, which causes Chicago-based Nosco, which specializes in printed packaging for the health and pharmaceutical industries, has a dedicated production line featuring an HP Indigo WS6600 digital press. The company uses HP Indigo ElectroInk Invisible Yellow,

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DIGITAL & INKJET

INKJET DISRUPTORS

By Elizabeth Gooding

Y

ou can’t devote much time to reading print related media these days without being inundated by the word I had been studiously avoiding the word, despite the lack of satisfying synonyms, until I ran across an excellent article by Rita Gunther McGrath in the

Read More…

Find article at PrintingNews. com/21121147

In “The New Disruptors,” McGrath describes a shift in the role of disrupters. Traditionally, disrupters have been companies that enter on the fringes of an incumbent’s business with a product or service that is cheaper and more convenient, but without the same level of quality or features as the incumbent’s

offer. The new disrupters, by contrast, may enter the incumbent’s market with products that offer the trifecta of cheaper, more convenient and high quality. While the article focuses on the impact of digital (meaning online) the shift also applies to digital inkjet.

The transaction printing segment experienced classic disruption a decade ago from production inkjet products that entered the market slowly and focused on cost reduction and convenience. The color quality wasn’t comparable with full color toner or with the offset shells that inkjet displaced, but the cost and convecerns. Inkjet OEMs continued to innovate, and eventually dominate the transaction printing market, while advancing quality to enable entry into parallel markets.

This paved the way for disruption 2.0. both the OEMs and their print-forpay customers. This second round has created new competitors for transaction print-for-pay organizations.

Surviving Inkjet Driven The market leaders in the transaction printing space have invested heavily ciency of “white paper factories” drove down costs and rewarded companies that could maximize the volumes on their presses. The push to optimize volume on these hungry presses led to corporate acquisitions, both large and small, and a great deal of market consolidation. Let’s

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face it, in a printing segment where overall volumes are slowly shrinking, the only way to add volume is to take it from someone else.

By the close of 2018, 25% of worldwide transaction printing organizations had invested in inkjet, according to research from I.T. Strategies. The more startling statistic is that the 25% of companies with inkjet controlled more than half of the total transaction page volume, leaving the remaining 75% to try to scrabble for less than half of the volume.

In the past two to three years, OEMs have introduced production inkjet presses priced to be attainable for low volume transaction printers. Entry level solutions can help smaller printing companies get into the inkjet game and reduce costs, but they

Companies with rigid, single-product inkjet work face a range of new competitors. Transaction printers without inkjet presses will struggle to survive.

As OEMs improved color quality and broad-

into direct mail and, more recently, into commercial print and graphic arts. While these companies may not seem like natural competitors to transaction printers, inkjet is driving them to expand their boundaries.

Like the transaction print market, direct mailers with inkjet are hungry for more volume. As a group, they have cannibalized the majority of digital toner work and are slowly chipping away at offset high-productivity, roll-fed devices used by larger volumes. Looking back competitors in the market. to 2018, I.T. Strategies Without further innovaestimated that the 15% tion, these small compa 25% of companies with inkjet of direct mail companies are simply treading controlled more than half of the total nies with inkjet conwater.

While many transactransaction page volume, leaving the trolled 40% of overall tion companies might conremaining 75% to try to scrabble for page volumes. At that time, offset printers still sider the investment in an less than half of the volume. produced more than inkjet press to be innovathalf the page volume. ing, it’s not. If your comSo, while toner volume petition can buy the same has been squeezed to less than 10%, offset is much press, the press alone does not provide competitive harder to displace. This has direct mailers looking at advantage. Innovation can be found at companies new applications like bills, statements and notices. that have built streamlined internal and customerDirect mailers who have experience with letter mail and data-driven campaigns already have a ing and reduce manual touch points. Unfortunately, foot in the door to transaction print. Research conmany PSPs initially invest in inkjet presses without ducted by Inkjet Insight in 2019 showed that direct mailers with production inkjet are diversifying their product and service offerings. Of the 120 compaautomation of letter mail; the so-called automated document factory. This is extremely effective for only 21% generated 80% or more of their revenues driving down costs, but can introduce barriers to from direct mail and 30% attributed at least half of future innovation. their revenue to application segments other than Also, since cost management has been the major direct mail. Only 4% of these direct mailers indidriver for transaction printers, these companies cated that they were 100% dedicated to producing usually don’t invest in presses with the highest posdirect mail after investing in inkjet. sible color quality. “Business color” was good enough for most customers, particularly if cost saving bene-

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WATCH LIST

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Frank Looks Out to 2020

Brilliant Ink

AllPrint Graphics with EFI Pro 32r, roll-to-roll LED printer

Takes Place in Orlando

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MANAGEMENT

Franchise Families

THE SECRET WEAPON TO

PRINT AND SIGN

FRANCHISE SUCCESS There's safety in the stability of a franchise.

O

wning a company that’s a member of a franchise family is providing more and more people across North America with the opportunity to start and run their own business – supported by an operating model that has already been proven to work by the parent franchisor. As a fran-

chisee, you proudly wear your franchisor’s from on-going business, operations and marketing support.

Countless jobs are created and supported by franchises, reducing unemployment rates and supporting the national

36

GDP through billions of dollars in products and services, payroll and jobs. Local econojobs, tax dollars and community involvement. Franchises offer stability for owners and consistency for consumers, who recognize and value the brand’s quality. franchise is its brand – from an easily recognizable name and logo – to its menu of products and/or services.

In 2016, franchises in the U.S. brought in $868.1 billion, 29% higher than the decade before, with franchise revenues sitting at $675 billion. As of 2019, 7.6 million jobs had been created and 13.3 million jobs were supported by franchises. In 2019, franchises supported nearly 8.4 million direct jobs, $787.5 billion of economic output for the U.S. economy and represented 3% of the total GDP. Franchise growth is expected to increase in 2020 by 1.5%. That’s a total of to 785,316 businesses, 232 thousand new jobs and 8.67 million total employees.

According to the International Franchise Association, 60% of new jobs are created by small businesses like franchises – 45.5% of franchise-created jobs are in the quick-service restaurant sector. Every state has at least 6% of its non-farm workforce employed by a franchise with 33 states at 10% or higher. Jobs in the franchise industry are the

franchise brands are created annually.

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“The franchise industry is responsible for creating tens of thousands of opportunities for small business ownership across the country and millions of jobs for Americans,” said IFA President and CEO Robert Cresanti.

Half of all new businesses fail within -

part of the customer acquisition process.

years. Parent companies support franchisees with online ordering options, food

Constant technological change has

independent corporations. With their parent’s bench strength, they can ramp up and technology solutions, and integrating usable technology in-store like touchscreen ordering, QR code scanners and

include packaging, embellishments, direct

automation and data-mining solutions lurching to the forefront of many industries. The print and sign industry in particular, has seen more industry shifts happenturies before. Today’s print and sign franof products with more speed, higher

Print and Sign Franchise owners are portals, powered by robust web-to-print software, are feeding a hungry consumer Print and sign buyers are looking for ence by transforming their digital world into

ing by shorter turn-around times, shorter -

Shopify and Nike are using physical stores, merchandise branding and “pop-ups” to These “phygital” approaches enable brands offered in-house. today’s print and business buyers. Print and print industry is the increasing need to keep customers engaged through communication

embraced as an integral part of the customer acquisition process. In addition to

lion-dollar-plus buyers.

The franchise industries with the most

to their customers, print and sign franchises sition strategies that include direct mail,

embracing print and sign as an integral

36-37_63_Secret Weapon.indd 37

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3/18/20 9:23 PM

EVENTS

XEIKON 2020: NEW PRODUCTS

IN EVERY SUPPORTED MARKET SEGMENT

By Cary Sherburne

O

n March 30th, Xeikon conducted a live news broadcast for the trade media and analyst community to share a wide range of news about what was to be its presence at drupa 2020, now re-scheduled for April 2021. Filip Weymans, Xeikon’s Vice President of Marketing, spoke exclusively with WhatTheyThink and Printing News to provide deeper insight into how the company worked to develop all of the new products they are bringing to the show, how being part of Flint Group has helped them advance their corporate strategy, what their plans are in light of the postponement of drupa.

Regarding drupa, Xeikon’s Corporate Communications Manager, Danny Mertens, stated, “On the one hand, we regret that drupa cannot be held this year. The event is the heartbeat of the printing industry, and everyone has been preparing for it for some time now. On the other hand, we are relieved that the decision was not left in doubt for too long. Given the circumstances, we also think it is the right decision for all stakeholders. At Xeikon, we are already making plans for a pacemaker to keep the industry’s heart rate up in 2020. In the autumn, we expect to unveil a number of initiatives, the industry to more innovations we have planned for this year.”

First, a brief look at the new product announcements Xeikon is planning for drupa 2020, by market segment.

Packaging Over the last several years, packaging has represented a growing share of Xeikon revenues, and is over 50% now, with share continuing to climb.

Key drupa announcements in the packaging sector include:

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● Cheetah 2.0 technology, a new dry toner platform for top speeds and a range of durable applications that addresses the need for food safety compliance for the more than 45% of label printers who work with food, wine and beer applications. For printers looking for UV inkjet solutions addressing durable markets of industrial, health & beauty and premium beers, the Panther line of presses with DuraCure technology will be presented, eliminating the need for varnishing or lamination and including inline embellishment. ● For those looking for ease of entry, Xeikon is program ad making them available through an initiative called “Taking Your First Steps into Digital,” targeting those looking to invest available for the Graphic Arts segment. ●

-

ible packaging construction (print and laminate), is Zero afterCure, 100% solvent free by combining a Cheetah dry toner industrial press and thermal lamination delivering a laminate bonding strength to address the stand-up pouch market ● Xeikon plans to introduce a digital direct-tocorrugated single-pass press to the North year. The target is to complement the postfaster turnaround and economical performance for both short and medium runs.

Graphic Arts The big announcement here is a brand-new platform, SIRIUS, which increases the productivity between 50% to 100% over previous generation toner-based presses in this market. It has the

WhatTheyThink - Wide-Format&Signage | April 2020

ability to maintain high speeds for thick and heavy substrates, printing at up to 30 meters/minute. The

Flexography ing a fully automated and fully integrated plate pro-

sign of the conditioning unit to ensure substrate

● unit has been designed to offer the highest

grammages and for standard offset papers. Third, -

-

● modules of the full Catena+ solution.

-

The Strategic View PN: PN: FW: The most important thing you have to recFW:

into many more markets as an advisor for graphic arts, labels, technology-agnostic advisor in the digital transformation that print manufacturing pro-

PN:

Read More…

Find article at PrintingNews. com/21119308

a much bigger role in the digital transformation for -

FW: fusing processes and conditioning of substrates.

-

necessarily into digital printing itself, but they have -

oped a print station that could run at up to 30 increasingly positioned as the partner, helping them lay out the best route to get there. ●

39

WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE

Sign Franchise Review

2020

ANNUAL SIGN

FRANCHISE REVIEW Current sign demographics help predict the future.

By Richard Romano

H

ow and what the franchises are doing can be a useful barometer for understanding how the industry at large is doing—whether it be print franchises (see Cary Sherburne’s complementary feature on page 8) or the sign and display franchises. Are they growing and expanding their centers? Is revenue increasing? How are they growing? What products and services are they expanding into? What challenges are they facing and how are they confronting them?

The sign and display franchises included in this year’s review are: ● Alliance Franchise Brands (Signs By Tomorrow and Signs Now) ● FASTSIGNS International ● Signarama (part of United Franchise Group) ● SpeedPro

engaged in creating and designing public display advertising campaign materials, such as printed, painted or electronic displays; and/or placing such displays on indoor or outdoor billboards and panels, or on or within transit vehicles or facilities, shopping malls, retail (in-store) displays and other display structures or sites.

According to the latest County Business Patterns, in 2017 (the most recent year for which the Census Bureau has data), there were 5,727 Sign Manufacturing establishments, an increase of +1.4% from 2016, and 2,640 Display/Outdoor Advertising Establishments, an increase of +3.3% from 2016.

How do the sign franchises compare?

The State of the Sign Franchise If we look at sign franchise demographics, we

Industry Background The U.S. Census Bureau has two different classi● NAICS 339950 Sign Manufacturing: This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing signs and related displays of all materials (except printing paper and paperboard signs, notices, displays). ● This industry comprises establishments priThis industry comprises establishments primarily

40

in overall establishments. Indeed, if we compare this year’s survey results to last year’s, the number of total centers declined -1.6% from 2018 to 2019, and system-wide sales declined -11%. some franchises recorded a net decline in centers; as we’ll see later in this article, employment is a big challenge for these businesses, and that doesn’t exclude personnel at the top. Owner retirement has led to attrition in some centers, which the franchises are

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combating by seeking to recruit new owners from outside the printing or conventional sign industry.

SpeedPro in particular draws its owners from outside the graphic arts industry.

“Our system has really been built over time by attracting former executives in management, whether they be senior or middle management, and they just kind of get tired of the rat race, tired of travel, and tired of the politics, and these are individuals that don’t have prior printing experience of any kind,” said Larry Oberly, President and CEO of SpeedPro. “I would say our network is made up of over 90% of owners in that category.”

Another reason is increased competition in the marketplace. For the past half decade or more, an increasing number of commercial print businesses have been expanding into wide-format printing, encroaching on the sign franchises’ territory. There are a lot more players in the market than there used to be, which drives down prices, among other effects.

Alliance Franchise Brands is unique as a franchise in that they have both sign and print franchises, and thus there is the opportunity for dual-branded franchises. As of this writing, there are 33 dualbranded centers In the network

with more In the pipeline.

“We believe we’re going be on track for our original goal of 80 dual-branded centers over the next Graphics Division of Alliance Franchise Brands. “Our ing. We’re able to provide support on both sides of the business. With their existing client bases, they’re able to cross-sell and therefore generate more revenue per client because they have more things to offer them. Our members are adopting that a little faster than we thought.”

There is also some degree of overlap in demographic data, as non-franchise sign businesses

Total shops in system in 2019

Shops in North America in 2019

Average sales per shop in 2019

System-wide sales in 2019

Highest revenue shop in 2019

Alliance Franchise Brands (Signs By Tomorrow, Signs Now, Image 360)

303

299

$608,000

$182,000,000

$2,550,000

FASTSIGNS

726

678

$825,051

$540,000,000

$8,000,000+

Signarama (part of United Franchise Group)

700

405

$1,197,990

$312,766,952

$7,017,582

SpeedPro

180

180

$612,252

$74,219,102

$2,976,778

1,909

1,562

$2,635,293

$926,986,054

$12,544,360

TOTALS

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE

Sign Franchise Review

convert to a franchise.

FASTSIGNS, for example, has a successful conversion program through which an established sign business rebrands itself as a FASTSIGNS center.

Signarama—a member of the United Franchise Group— also has a robust conversion program, and also co-brands with other franchises in the United Franchise Group, such as Fully Promoted, which offers promotional products. SpeedPro has just launched its own conversion program last year.

Sign Franchise Summary Data-

franchisees to create a positive work environment so their people are more likely to stay, and we’re just working on providing the tools and training for our franchisees to help them solve it as best as they can.”

vices and products, and assisting centers with sales survey in the Sign Franchise Fast Facts section of this article.)

help take up some of this slack as well, and will be key to a successful print business—let alone a franchise—in the future.

Finding Employees

Franchisee Recruitment

Finding employees in all parts of the business— sales and production—was cited as challenge by all the sign franchises.

The employee search challenge even extends to recruiting new franchise owners. All the franchises use a variety of recruitment channels, including franchise brokers as well as their own internal channels. Allied Franchise Brands reported a net contraction in the number of centers due to

entire workforce is facing,” Ray Palmer of Alliance Franchise Brands said. “With unemployment so low, For a long time, we were a stepping stone for cally for graphic designers coming out of school and tional school, especially on the production side. But there’s not that many of them.”

FASTSIGNS also cites a labor shortage as a sig“I think that the labor shortage is not a FASTSIGNS problem, it’s a U.S. business problem,” said Catherine Monson, president and CEO of FASTSIGNS International. “We’re teaching our

42

put a number of new centers in, and what we’re seeing now makes us pretty optimistic about future growth,” said Palmer.

How is FASTSIGNS recruiting new franchijust had another record year and continue to add new countries. Part of that is our brand is preeminent.” This is FASTSIGNS’ 35th anniversary, so for a limited time (until April 30th), they are offering a $35,000 franchise fee rather than the typical $49,750.

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New Services Textile printing in all its myriad forms are on the franchises’ collective radar, and many centers are already doing a substantial amount of soft signage.

In the FASTSIGNS system in particular, 80–90% of FASTSIGNS centers are selling fabric-based signage, especially backlit signage and silicone-edge graphics (SEG).

“Our franchisees sell a lot of that,” Monson said. “There’s a percentage of our franchisees that have the dye-sublimation equipment in-house and then we have many great outsource vendors.”

One application area that has been seeing a lot of interest is environmen-

their products by understanding how to approach certain vertical markets.

“We are starting a new set of initiatives that is related to tackling a particular industry and all of the sales and marketing strategies behind that,” said Oberly. “We’re building out sales and marketing kits that include actual case studies, we leverage an industry expert that is in that space, and that

signage and décor intersect.

“We’re doing a lot of environmental space signage,” Palmer said. “It’s not so ing and those kinds of things are certainly part of the overall solution, but we’re seeing a lot of opportunity in these areas.”

“We also do a lot of what we might call interior decor,” Monson said. “As an example, dry-erase boards that have printed graphics underneath the dry-erase surface.”

One of the major challenges with sign and display graphics is in the area of pricing. SpeedPro studios (as their units are called) in particular try to leverage best practices with pricing issues, and corporate has sought to help the studios in that regard.

“We give our owners the freedom to price either by cost-plus or market-based pricing, but we are putting together for them a set of price ranges,” said SpeedPro’s Larry Oberly.

These ranges are gleaned by taking advantage of the hive mind of the entire system.

“They’re giving us an idea of the type of pricing that they’re using to win certain projects. We’re trying to SpeedPro has also been heavily active in launching new initiatives to help its studios better market

will give us the guidance on how we talk to and how we engage individuals in that vertical. We continue and products that our owners really want to serve.”

“We provide sales management training for our franchisees, and we provide very robust sales training on a consultative selling,” Monson said. “How do you sell comprehensive solutions? We provide that to the employees of our franchisees who are outside sales professionals. When we launched our outside sales initiative in January of 2010, we had less than a dozen outside sales people in the network. We’re approaching 600 outside salespeople in the FASTSIGNS network today.”

As of this writing (mid-March), an unforeseen bug in the system (as it were) could potentially roil the economy, but regardless of what long-term damage COVID-19 has on the U.S. and/or world economy, the sign franchises are bullish on 2020 and beyond.

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Sign Franchise Review

We also asked our respondents what new capabilities they are considering and what some of their challenges and opportunities are. These are summarized for each franchise network below.

Alliance Franchise Brands As mentioned above, Alliance Franchise Brands has both print and sign franchises with the dualbranding option between Allegra and Image360.

There Is undoubtedly also a lot of cross-pollination between the two businesses. In terms of new applications, the company Is already producing hard signage and doing Installations, producing vehicle and building wraps and considering ways to Increase volumes In soft signage and digital art printing. Key challenges for the network Include capabilities of sales and production personnel.

National economic conditions, cost of employee also challenges the organization Is experiencing.

Among those we Interviewed, this was the only one that highlighted the need to migrate customer service, sales and business functions to the cloud.

In terms of potential, exploring new opportunities for signs and graphics, as well as services around environmental signage, Interior graphics and art

FASTSIGNS has been aggressive In expanding Is product offerings over the past 18 to 24 months, vehicle and building wraps, and digital or electronic signage. As with most of the companies we Interviewed, challenges Include Increasing the capabilities of sales and production personnel, man-

that, we will have continued Read More‌ growth both domestically and Find article at internationally; we will be adding PrintingNews. com/21121892 40+ domestic locations this year, which are franchises already sold and in the pipeline to open. As part of our growth, we continue to seek great partners for our conversion program and our co-brand initiatives in 2020. If you are in the signage and visual graphics business or a related business, joining the FASTSIGNS brand will

Signarama to add or Increase a variety of products they offer over the next 12 to 18 monts, Including soft signage, sign construction, wraps for vehicles and buildings and digital art printing. As a sign of growing overlap between print and sign franchises, Signarama Is also looking to add commercial printing and promotional products to the mix In that timeframe. Finding qualia challenge for the network, as does the growing cost In terms of opportunities for 2020, the biggest opportunities for the network will be in data integration and new equipment.

Soft signage Is also a target for SpeedPro, but the network plans to continue to outsource hard signage and sign construction. SpeedPro centers are already producing digital textile print for applications other than soft signage and vehicle wraps, but will continue to outsource building wraps, digital art printing, commercial printing and promotional products. professionals and dealing with Increasing employee

Industry undergoing rapid technological evolution as this one Is, keeping up with technological changes Is also a challenge.

But there are opportunities as well, including continued expansion in more advanced products and solutions as the sophistication of customers and prospects continues to rise. Monson adds, “Beyond

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Include adding more textile/fabric printing capabilities, automating production, partnering with other print providers, adding digital printing equipment, acquiring another company, customized, personalized or variable-data printing jobs and adding more wide-format printing capabilities. â—?

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3/19/20 10:10 AM

PROFORMA While it is not a print shop franchise like the others we are covering here, Proforma is a print distributor franchise. This network generates about $600 million in largest distributor accounting for $40 million of that. The

looking to make their business more successful or are printing sales reps seeking to turn their successful career into their own business.

“The biggest things we need to train on is our tech-

printing and promotional product solutions, online tech-

and either organizations are becoming great sellers or great manufacturers,” Founder Greg Muzzillo said.

and sales up 20% after one on the platform.”

Proforma does, however, have a new account developthe full line of products the organization offers through

motional products, uniforms, wearables (branded versus

single-source suppliers. We help them do that. We con-

“We do get great pricing and service from our preferred suppliers,” Muzzillo said, “but sometimes people have a reason for wanting to use their own suppliers, and

Webinars “The State of the Print & Sign Franchises” On April 22 at 1 pm EST, WhatTheyThink’s latest installment of its monthly LunchNLearn webinar series will offer the results of the annual Printing News/Wide Format & Signage Print & Sign Franchise Review.

What you’ll learn: • The current state of the print and sign franchises— number of centers, revenue, top performing centers, etc.

• The new products, services, and other opportunities the franchises are adding or considering • The top challenges the franchises are facing, and how they are addressing them • The overall outlook for 2020 and beyond

http://whattheythink.com/webinars/220/ 45

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3/19/20 10:11 AM

WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE

Wrapping Service

ROCKIN’ THE BOAT Applied graphics bring dazzle to the high seas.

By Richard Romano

D

Our focus is on delivering a top-tier wrapping service to top-tier clients.

uring the First World War, the British Navy developed a ship-decorating technique called “dazzle.”

Comprising complex patterns of geometric shapes in contrasting colors, the goal of dazzle—which was later adopted by the U.S. Navy—was to

enemy vessels to accurately target a Royal Navy ship, or even gauge what direction the ship was moving.

Flash forward 100 years or so, and a new kind of “dazzle” has hit the high seas: a gold vinyl-wrapped yacht.

Over the years, I have written about print service providers that specialize in car wraps, truck wraps, bus and train graphics, even speedboat graphics.

UK-based LuxWrap specializes in a graphics.

“Our focus is on delivering a top-tier wrapping service to top-tier clients,” said a LuxWrap spokesperson.

Like just about every graphics provider, LuxWrap has to be able to offer cult enough for everyday graphics projects, but becomes even more of a challenge when they have to wrap a big boat.

As an example, LuxWrap once wrapped a 60-meter hull in 6.5 days—in the water.

LuxWrap was recently approached

by Bellami to decorate a company yacht as part of a marketing promotion for the high-end hair extension brand. Designwise, the project was pretty straightforward: the brandowner knew what they

The chrome vinyl—not the easiest material to work with—needed to be installed from rafts in the water.

(Photo courtesy of LuxWrap)

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WhatTheyThink - Wide-Format&Signage | April 2020

3/18/20 9:16 PM

The Bellami yacht brings a new kind of dazzle to the high seas.

(Photo courtesy of LuxWrap)

wanted in terms of the overall look and after that, there was a bit of back and forth to select the correct material: a gold chrome vinyl.

That was the easy part.

Logistics and installation proved to be the most challenging parts of the project, and some of the issues that arose are tered by everyday vehicle wrappers. was going to be wrapped changed (few of us ever get the chance to ask “what yacht shall we use?”), and the date and tion changed repeatedly. A major challenge for LuxWrap— which only worsened as the installation

As any vehicle wrapper can tell you, there are seemingly a million little details to take into consideration. (Photo courtesy of LuxWrap)

46-49_Rock The Boat.indd 47

date kept being pushed back—was obtaining enough substrate. Ultimately, LuxWrap said, they had to buy the vinyl from 15 suppliers in 10 countries and, because of what ended up being a very a tight deadline, all needed to be sent by express courier.

The boat itself became a bit of a moving target. The installers ran into a snafu getting access to the shipyard where the yacht was docked, and then the boat itself was moved down the

Auric Goldfinger would be proud to own this yacht after LuxWrap’s meticulously detailed installation. (Photo courtesy of LuxWrap)

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE

Wrapping Service

SCENES FROM THE INSTALLATION

Additionally, you can watch video of the project at

.

All images courtesy LuxWrap, www.luxwrap.com.

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3/18/20 9:17 PM

itself can be a bear to work with, being coast, requiring the installation team to commute an extra 100km.

Once they could get started, one particular challenge vividly illustrates that this is not a market that a company can casually or nonchalantly tap into: namely, the challenge of installing full chrome cherry pickers. This is where LuxWrap’s extensive experience with yacht graphics was of the utmost value.

Still, issues always crop up: at one point during the installation, they found that the color of one roll of material didn’t match the rest, so they had to re-do a section of the hull; they lost a day due to rain; and then chrome vinyl

kinds of vinyls. (It should also be said that chrome vinyl is not really designed— or even recommended—to be used for applications like this. Fortunately, the yacht wrap was intended only for a limited time marketing campaign, not a long-term hull color-change.)

Despite all the challenges, the result speaks for itself. LuxWrap believes the Bellami yacht is the largest single chrome vinyl installation yet attempted.

At the time, it was also the largest yacht ever wrapped fully in the water—until LuxWrap wrapped a bigger one a month later. See more projects at luxwrap.com.

Completely dazzling. ●

Read More…

Find article at PrintingNews. com/21119459

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If you missed it at ISA, see it in action at one of our demo centers.

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For more information, visit Printingnews.com/12303499 49

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE

Wide Format & Signage/FASTSIGNS Awards

FLYING HIGH WITH NEW

MAGGIE MCFLY’S LOCATION FASTSIGNS of Saratoga Springs wins the Grand Prize at the Wide Format & Signage/FASTSIGNS Awards.

By Richard Romano

S

aratoga Springs, N.Y., is typically known for horse racing (and relentless construction), but FASTSIGNS of Saratoga Springs worked with an aviation theme for a recent project—one which won the six-year-old franchise the Grand Prize at the Wide Format & Signage/FASTSIGNS Awards, held during the annual FASTSIGNS International Convention in Phoenix, Ariz., Jan. 15–18, 2020.

Thirty miles south of Saratoga, just outside Albany, is Crossgates Mall, the Capital District’s premier shopping center. Craft eatery and bar Maggie McFly’s was opening its ninth location at Crossgates—

State—and tapped FASTSIGNS of Saratoga Springs to create the interior and exterior signage, including backlit acrylic

FASTSIGNS of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., created interior and exterior signage for Maggie McFly’s ninth location at Albany’s Crossgates Mall.

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Exterior lettering required experimenting with different vinyls as the original specified material changed color heinously under different lighting conditions. FASTSIGNS also worked with an outside vendor to help produce the custom 14-foot-diameter illuminated ring on the building.

channel letters with copper-colored vinyl, as well as ADA signs for the restrooms, frosted vinyl on the front door that matched the painted logo on the exterior of the building, interior artwork with French cleats and acrylic surfaces, and, on the exterior, a 14-foot illuminated ring on the outside of the building, along with a 110-foot sign band that wraps the exterior. Four sets of reverse halo signs promote Maggie McFly’s catchphrase: “LOCAL, CRAFT, EATERY AND BAR”—all with matching painted copper.

Early in the process, the FASTSIGNS team, working with materials spec’d by the project’s architect, discovered that the vinyl that covered

WhatTheyThink - Wide-Format&Signage | April 2020

3/19/20 10:14 AM

From left to right: Joe Gardner, FastSigns Center Manager; Eric Vessels, WhatTheyThink; Rick Bult, FastSigns Owner; Catherine Monson, CEO FastSigns & Kelley Holmes, WhatTheyThink.

the LED-lit translucent acrylic channel letters had a tendency to change color under different kinds of lighting. A speMaggie McFly’s branding, but at night, the letters changed color.

“We had asked them, ‘Do you really want this vinyl on these channel letters, because it’s a weird color that, when it gets illuminated, it changes dramatically,’” said Rick Bult, owner of FASTSIGNS of Saratoga Springs.

“This was a metallic copper that when it was illuminated, it went to kind of a manila folder shade of yellow, not even remotely close to copper. It looked great during the day, but looked terrible at night.”

The architect had said that they had the same issue at a previous installation the year before, but hadn’t come up with a solution.

“We started playing around with different vinyls, different acrylics, different polycarbonates,” Bult said.

They created four options, lit them and ultimately chose one that kept the same color characteristics regardless of lighting.

“We found a cast wrapping vinyl that you’d use on a vehicle

that was thin enough to let light through and didn’t change color a whole lot from day to night.”

The architect was impressed.

“He said, ‘We don’t know how you did it, but it looks great.’ At that point he said, ‘We’ve got some interior artwork. Do you want to work on that too?’ We said sure.”

This interior artwork consisted of a number of images, but no real indication of what to do with them.

“I sent him some samples of what I thought would look good, and I said we can do it with a hidden French cleat so you don’t see any hardware at all.”

They liked the idea—and in fact plan to reuse it for the next Maggie McFly’s location currently under construction in Connecticut.

“They’ve even expanded on the artwork,” Bult said. “They liked it that much that they just sort of went to town with that effect.”

The same architect is designing the new location—and, thanks to the success of the Crossgates installation, FASTSIGNS of Saratoga Springs will also be

installing its signage as well.

The installation time for the whole project was, on net, about seven working days staggered over a two-month period.

“You’re juggling with a lot of other general contractors that are all still there,” Bult said.

“People doing tile work, painting, doing electrical work.”

FASTSIGNS of Saratoga Springs got the Maggie McFly’s same way it gets a lot of signage work for new constructions: via a lead-generation service called CDC News (www.cdcnews. com), which monitors all the building permits being issued and going through planning board meetings. It then sends out daily updates of any construction projects planned for a given geographic area. You can pick your geographic radius, and even have results sorted by keysignage or display graphics.

“You put in keywords that you’re looking for,” Bult said. “So can pick basically anything you

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WIDE-FORMAT & SIGNAGE

Wide Format & Signage/FASTSIGNS Awards

were missing deadlines,” Bult said. “We purchased the machine that ended up costing us $500 a month on a lease. It dramatically turns the tables

Interior artwork consisted of a variety of images mounted to the wall using a French cleat.

want and it’ll search everything.

So every day we get a separate listing for just signage.”

The listings are then given to either Bult or Crystal Wilderman, FASTSIGNS of Saratoga Springs’ outside sales rep, who then reaches out to the contractor in charge of the project, and starts the bidding process.

“That was a lead that came through just in a random email,” Bul saidt. “I called the general contractor, said I’d like to bid on that, he said OK, and we started bidding on it.”

It was then that another sign company got irked that Bult was being allowed to bid on the project. So Bult had to prove that his shop was up to the project and could do it better than the other shop. He provided the contractor some references to similar sign projects FASTSIGNS had done around the region.

“They came to our shop, looked at them, and basically took the other sign shop off their Rolodex for saying that we

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couldn’t do something that we actually won a national award for,” he said.

For these kinds of new construction projects, most of the work is interior and/or extesignage, and an emphasis has to be placed on ADA-compliant signage. His production workhorse is a UV printer from Direct Color Systems (DCS), a device whose killer app is the ability to print Braille. He also recently bought a 24 x 40-inch laser for cutting the ADA plastic, as well as a CNC machine for doing dimensional letters, as the volume of outsourcing increased to the point where it was a logical investment.

“We were heading quickly towards $2,000 to $3,000 a month in outsourcing and we

the business where now we’re spending $500 a month as opposed to $2,500 a month, and we’re getting things done more quickly.”

His choice of software also makes the estimating process quicker and more accurate than the old system of colored dots on ledger paper.

To generate an estimate for signage projects, Bult starts with the architectural plans.

“We’ll pull the plans down and when we’re doing the use software called Stack that lets us import PDFs into an online portal,” he said. “We can go through and start clicking everything so that at the end, gives you a total count for every point, you can assign sizes to the signs, and square-inch pricing to the signs, and basically generate an estimate.”

Bult’s primary point of contact is the building

Richard Romano

WhatTheyThink - Wide-Format&Signage | April 2020

3/19/20 10:14 AM

contractor and/or architect, very rarely the end user.

And he usually gets involved even before actual construction starts, so as to get a thorough knowledge of the location, where junction boxes are going to go, and to plan out the signage. Even the signage installation itself isn’t done until toward the end of the project.

Once Bult does one project for an individual contractor, that can lead to repeat business.

“They’re bidding projects every month, and they want to have their pipeline created so that as soon as the crew’s done at one location, they’re off to the next, and a lot of the larger contractors have multiple projects going on at the same time,” he said.

Other new projects that FASTSIGNS of Saratoga Springs is working on include window graphics—everything from

the amount of heat that comes into a building.

FASTSIGNS of Saratoga Springs is in its sixth year and has grown to seven employees. Like a lot of other print businesses, Bult has had challenges

really fortunate to have a great center manager who’s been with us little over four years now.

We’ve also been very fortunate on the front end to have people come in who want to learn and grow with the business.”

Crystal Wilderman, for example, who has been with FASTSIGNS of Saratoga Springs for a little over three years, started as an administrative assistant, then progressed to coordinating production, then doing collections, and now outside sales.

“She’s grown with the company as the company has been growing,” he said.

Bult hopes to start adding more salespeople.

Winning the Grand Prize was a source of great pride for Bult and his team.

“That’s probably one of, if not the, best awards to get because it really showcases

tion staff.

“That’s probably our biggest area of turnover,” he said. “It’s people that are just willing to learn. We’re

Rest room signage comprised ADA-compliant wall signs, as well as “M” and “W” icons using the Maggie McFly’s typeface.

what you can Read More… do as a center,” Find article at he said. “It PrintingNews. motivates a lot com/21121114 of the other centers to go, ‘I don’t think I ever would have bid on that job.

It’s way beyond my capabilities.’

But when you start breaking it down piece by piece, it’s not.

Yeah, you’ve got to have a few people and you’ve just got to be able to think about what you’re doing and schedule it all out. But box into a building and it’s not a box. You need to know what hardware you’re using and what the building’s made out of. You need to have some preparation, but for the most part, they can all do that. So to get that award and to showcase what we do I think is huge kudos to us.” ●

Other signage included channel letters mounted to an acrylic surface.

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TEXTILES

FINDING HARD PROFIT IN

SOFT SIGNAGE No longer a niche, these wide-format graphics are a must-have.

I

n basic terms, a “soft sign” is printed digitally on bring advantages in ease of installation, recyclability

using a dye-sublimation ink set (for vibrant imagery), soft signage typically is printed on polyester-based or other synthetic textile sub-

Opportunities in this segment of the wide-for-

Last year, PSPs produced more than 388 million square meters of soft signage worldwide, as com-

was once a specialty niche for WF print service providers (PSPs) now is a “must-have technology” for producing more mainstream applications, according

breakdown of products/applications is as follows: ● ● ● ● ● ● (Source: IT Strategies)

merce and supplies for large-format manu-

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dye-sublimation

While soft signage may not be as much of a dif“it has become more of a ‘must’ to offer so they can compete in the same marketspace,” she said.

Tim Check, senior product manager for Professional Imaging at Epson America, Inc., agreed. capabilities becomes a “limiting factor [today]. Customers demand it,” he said. “It’s lightweight, portable and easier to set up -- with no bubbles to worry about like with Tim Check

Designers and installers are becoming more creplays, as they break from the traditional molds of hanging signs and banners.”

Let There Be (UV) Light Graphics at Mimaki USA, said that in addition to

can help to differentiate PSPs.

products are lightfast due to their resiliency to top layer and cures almost immediately. And unlike nesses are choosing sustainable and green alterand there’s no distortion.” less range of printable substrates. For the high“Most fabrics are wrinkle-resistant and reusable, making them ideal not only for short-term displays but also for repeated use in recurring marketusing dye-sublimation inks is also washable just like apparel. From a décor standpoint, the aesthetics of

including white, and can produce banners, retail displays, wallpaper and more.

“This printer is ideal for applications like the smaller, backlit display graphics we see in airports

55

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TEXTILES

Trends for 2020 and Beyond

Mike Wozny

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340i aqueous-based printer, which is

“can print on paper, fabric,

Read More…

Find article at PrintingNews. com/21121150

●

Mark Vruno, a Chicago-based business publishing professional, has reported on the global commercial print industry for more than 20 years.

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TEXTILES

THE SCIENCE OF

By Debbie McKeegan

O

INK

ur technical team

digital textile print-

Process:

FABRIC PROCESSING TABLE Fabric

Linen

Dyestuff

Pre Treat

Print

Pigment

Yes

Direct

Pigment

Yes

Direct

Pigment

Yes

Direct

Pigment

Yes

Direct

Pigment

Yes

Direct

Pigment

Yes

Direct

Acid

Yes

Direct

Acid

Linen Disperse

Fixation

AfterTreatment

When this happens, the

Pigment Ink Set Wash

Yes

Direct

Wash

Yes

Direct

Wash

Yes

Direct

Wash

Yes

Direct

Wash

Yes

Direct

Wash

Yes

Direct

Wash

Yes

Direct

Dye-Sub Ink Set Process:

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Read More…

Find article at PrintingNews. com/21121156

Process:

Process:

●

Debbie McKeegan is the CEO of TexIntel.

Process:

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DIGITAL & INKJET

Until 2019, the primary inkjet presses that made their way into commercial print organizations from all sheet fed devices and not a threat to high-volume transaction print operations. As commercial printers invest in the latest continuous feed devices ning color and support offset stocks, this segment

printers who made early investments in inkjet, innovation dollars have been focused on online initiatives.

This is particularly true for the largest transtry, Broadridge and Fiserv, that lead the market in e-services for transaction-intensive businesses.

These large companies represent another threat to transaction printers, the tendency for the big to get bigger and squeeze out competitors.

the ink that enables these devices to print on gloss coated offset is more expensive than the OEM’s and Fiserv completed its acquisition of First Data devices that are targeted at the transaction printing market, commercial printers are likely to target other graphic arts segyears to extend its leadments before looking ership position and drive at bills and statesuperior value for clients.”

Until 2019, the primary inkjet ments. They also have This investment is greater presses in commercial print to climb the learning than the total revenue for curve on data manorganizations were all sheet fed devices most transaction print agement and mailing, organizations. and not a threat to high-volume but at some point they In the past, large transaction print operations. will. When they do, players would not pursue they will have supesmall volume clients, rior color and the but with streamlined potential to bundle services for customers that dedicated transaction printers can’t deliver. gaining work from smaller clients has become more As top buyers continue to express a preference for working with one-stop-shops that can handle easier for inkjet-enabled companies to take volume more services and reduce the number of vendors from print distributors, or brokers leaving comto manage, direct mailers have an inside track with panies with less cost-effective platforms out in the ability to place marketing in the proper channel, the cold. Transaction printers must innovate to eliminate duplicate mailings and control postage compete. costs. With newer, faster presses that deliver higher print quality on a wider range of media, 1.

Transaction printthese companies can become new disrupters to ers need the ability to support customers of transaction print with solutions that are more conall sizes with rapid onboarding of new work. venient, higher quality and at least cost neutral, if This may involve ingesting and merging comnot actually cheaper. posed print streams or enabling agile development of custom applications within a stan are eager to stop printing them. This means that print companies must do their best to cannibalize new job set ups and reduce dependence on print volumes with electronic delivery and payment solutions. For many of the larger transaction also include components of onboarding

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-

2.

5.

-

-

-

3.

-

-

4.

-

-

●

-

Elizabeth Gooding helps companies to streamline their business process, improve

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DIGITAL & INKJET

Read More…

Find article at PrintingNews. com/21120821

The security market

visible under UV light, and HP Indigo Security ElectroInk 523 infrared ink.

To meet customer requirements for heightened security, De La Rue, reported to be the largest security printer and papermaker in the world – although it is

shifting ink.

De La Rue is the sole printer of Bank of factured by De La Rue and printed on its Safeguard polymer substrate, the new banknotes also boast additional security lic ink. In addition, new £20 banknotes for the Royal Bank of Scotland and Clydesdale feature a holographic foil in their windows with imagery relevant to the banknotes.

Toppan Printing, a major player in the security printing arena, among others, has

Crystagram PC, the CP500 printer and the Power Perso DLE laser engraving printer. feature for the polycarbonate data pages of

tograph of the passport owner is laser ibility, while helping to prevent photograph counterfeiting from the rear side, because the graphic protects the photograph.

Crystagram PC is a hologram that can be embedded into polycarbonate

with high brightness and outstanding design.

Holograms are a popular method to keep items such as passports and ID card ufacturer of products for ID and Secure Document production, by the end of

A new generation of holograms are leveraging technology advancements to ensure security of banknotes and other the Innovation in Holographic Technology category at the Excellence in Holography

authentication elements, which allows the viewer to identify information using a smartphone light source. When observed colored information appears that follows the movement of the light. This can help document or banknote.

The Singapore University of Technology and Design has developed a new holographic security device that shows as a color image when viewed in ferent hidden holographic projections

holograms have been encrypted into a color print for enhanced optical security ment security applications.

More developments are likely with

port data pages. With Crystagram PC, graphic technology. ● ity resulting from transfer Joann Whitcher

come by facilitating fer to create a hologram

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Speedy Printing Centers and RSVP. signage, POS and more. Printers, notorious for being “cobblers with no shoes,” are convincing their customers to invest in print by showing them – with print-fueled, leadgenerating and customer-engaging marketing programs – developed and optimized by their franchisor.

With your franchise parent’s marketing support, print and sign franchise owners are capitalizing on its power to deliver engaging, customer-generating experiences.

One of the biggest challenges facing today’s print marketers and sales teams is delivering the right customer experience at that is – throughout the buyer journey.

Industry-leading franchise brands, like Allegra Marketing Print Mail and Signarama, provide access to all the resources needed to plan and execute marketing plans and projects for their customers – and themselves. These parents help with sales, marketing and public relations support, produce turn-key marketing materials and programs, and provide access to strategic planning experts, copywriters, designers, digital technology experts and media analysts. They help new owners spend their early days focused on sales and production functions by providing marketing resources for any or all the services they don’t have in-house. This encourages new franchise owners, often with little or no experience in the print industry, to consales leads and develop key accounts.

Alliance Franchise Brands LLC and its subsidiary, KK Printing Canada ULC are the franchisors of more than 600 print and sign services locations in North America. Their operating brands include Allegra Marketing Print Mail, Image360, Signs Now, Signs By Tomorrow, KKP, Insty-Prints, American

the industry has evolved, Allegra provides seven initiatives to help new printers

Read More…

Find article at PrintingNews. com/21120969

Solutions and Advanced Solutions-based Sales Training, Sales Skills on the Road Sessions, Sales Training Webinars, Sales Leadership Training Workshops, a Virtual Sales Manager for Hire Program as well as One-on-One Sales Coaching Sessions.

The Secret Weapon It’s not all wine and roses. For franchises that break loose from the pack and achieve enterprise-level annual revenues beyond $10 million a year – a space typically reserved for their commercial print cousins – capability and capacity conversations become part of the sales process.

And while training and support are provided, onboarding times vary. Six weeks is not uncommon and not much time to soak in an entire industry whose roots date back to the 1400s, when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press.

Whether you want to purchase an established franchise brand or you’re an independent print or sign business owner looking to grow your company, staying current within the industry, attending events and optimizing your underlying tant success drivers. Add in the secret weapon – marketing support – and drive an exceptional, money-making, customer experience.

As they say in the franchise world: “You’re running a business for yourself.

Not by yourself.” ●

Joanne Gore is founder of Joanne Gore

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ASSOCIATION INSIGHTS

PGSF

PGSF

The Print & Graphic Scholarship

graphic arts.

T

he Printing Industry as well as its suppliers are always looking for new, bright and eager talent for their organizations. As with many industries,

accredited institution and enrolled in a graphic arts program, or a part-time student currently working in the graphic communications industry and has the support of their management to further their education.

Every May, the selection committee reviews over 600 applications for scholarships. The selection committee is comprised of educators, leaders in from the industry and former scholarship recipients. Full instructions on how to apply and more details on the rules are on our website at PGSF.org. process by using an online scholarship application platform via Kaleidoscope.

PGSF also offers three contests for students

enticing them to enter the graphic arts and related To help attract young people to this great industry, the Print & Graphic Scholarship Foundation (PGSF) has been providing scholarships to students for over 60 years. The Foundation has coordinated the printing industry’s largest scholarship program since its inception in 1956. directed organization that dispenses technical and college scholarships and assistance to talented youth interested in graphic communication careers.

The mission of PGSF includes creating awareness of the broad range of career opportunities that are available in today’s modern and technology-driven graphic communications industry.

Individuals who are inspired to pursue post-secondary education in graphics, whether full-time or part-time while working in the industry can funds. Past and current PGSF scholarship recipients attend one and two-year technical schools, colleges and universities in virtually every state in the union. Their scholarships average $2400, but can be as high as $5000, depending on the endowment offering the funds. This past year the foundation awarded over $550,000 in scholarships and fellowships to 250 students attending over 100 institutions that are focused on the graphic arts.

submission of a technical Read More… paper focused on the gravure Find article at industry and is sponsored by PrintingNews. com/21121160 the Gravure Association of America. The second is a poster design contest to help promote the coming year’s scholarship opportunities. The third contest is a new a T-Shirt design competition asking students to showcase the careers possible in graphics, availability of scholarships through PGSF, and/or how Of course, as tuition increases, the size of our scholarships also need to increase for them to be meaningful to the students. We therefore are always looking for ways to raise new funds.

There are many ways that donors can contribute to the foundation. These include one-time donations, recurring donations and endowments from a company or individual. Endowed scholarships enable the donor to specify where and how they would like their scholarship to be awarded.

Help us make a difference and build our industry workforce for the future. ●

is the Director of Development for the Print and Graphics reached at

needs to be either a full-time attendee at an

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