Quick Printing

The On Demand show is running this week in Philadelphia. Considering the state of the economy, I doubt any attendance records will be broken. That said, I can’t go along with those folks who are predicting the demise of printing trade shows as viable enterprises.

Right now we have three major shows in our industry — Graph Expo/Print, Graphics of the Americas, and On Demand. I’ve heard some say that GOA is more of a show for South America, but that’s another story for another time. In the franchise arena, the bigger trade shows are bundled with franchisees’ conferences. Franchise Services (PIP, Sir Speedy, Signal Graphics), AlphaGraphics, Allegra, and Minuteman are the main ones.

Granted, there used to be a lot more. NAQP had its own show. There were more franchise shows before consolidation in that industry segment. Also, there were the Charlotte Show and the Gutenberg Show, which have gone by the wayside along with other regional efforts that were no longer sustainable.
I do think that perhaps existing print trade shows may shrink as vendors buy less space and bring less equipment, but the shows that exist today will still be around for some time. The change I look for is for vendors to augment their trade show presence with demo centers and road shows. Meanwhile, trade shows will find non-traditional ways to augment their offerings and target their audiences. Like printing itself, I think rumors of the death of the trade show have been exaggerated.

The heads of three major printing franchise systems and PIA have been in discussions with HP about MarketSplash, the Web-to-print offering that is seen as competing with printers. Thus far there hasn’t been any resolution, but meetings are scheduled at On Demand and at HP headquarters. “The intent of this dialog with HP is to request they reconsider the positioning of MarketSplash before more damage is done to the HP name as they attempt to make further penetration into the print-for-pay market,” according to a letter sent by Allegra CEO Carl Gerhardt, AlphaGraphics CEO Kevin Cushing, and Franchise Services president Rich Lowe.

It remains to be seen if this effort will force HP to make any changes to MarketSplash. Back in 2007, Kodak rolled out a similar deal with its Creative Network, which lasted less than six months before they pulled the plug. The flap over the Kinko’s click-through button on Adobe Acrobat Reader prompted its removal. Will HP scrap MarketSplash? I have my doubts, but there may be some modification to come.

One touch of irony – some MarketSplash orders are routed to Staples, which uses mostly Xerox equipment.

What’s MarketSplash? It’s Hewlett Packard’s Web-to-print service aimed at end users; in other words, aimed at those small businesses who are potential customers for quick printers.

Their website notes: “MarketSplash by HP provides all the small business marketing materials, products, and design services you need in a single, easy-to-use interface. Our brand marketing solution includes award-winning design templates, professional business cards, standout websites, traffic-driven direct mail postcards, and many more marketing products.”

So here we have another case of a printing industry vendor selling directly to potential customers of that industry. Adding insult to injury, some print jobs are routed to Staples for output. Thus far there hasn’t been any great outcry such as that which greeted Adobe’s click-through agreement with Kinko’s. That puzzles me. Maybe folks don’t think this is as big a deal as the Adobe fiasco, but I’d expect at least some protests from within the industry. Stay tuned.

I have to say I was very pleased when the On Demand show moved back to Philadelphia from Boston. Don’t get me wrong, I like Boston just fine, but I prefer Philadelphia for one reason—the Reading Terminal Market is right across the street from the convention center.

While trade shows offer great opportunities to learn about the latest printing technologies, they seldom offer much in the way of decent food. Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonalds are not my idea of good eats. Neither are gummy pretzels and overpriced pasta.

However, good eats can be found at the Reading Terminal Market which houses some 80 merchants who offer lots of food choices, not to mention specialty groceries, baked goods, and produce. If you’re planning to attend On Demand, check out www.readingterminalmarket.org to see what goodies can be found there when you take a break from the show. Learning is important, but so is eating well.

See you in Philadelphia.

Do you own an iPhone? If so, there’s a cool feature on the Quick Printing website that can keep you connected to all the latest information no matter where you are. On the QP homepage, scroll all the way down to the bottom and you’ll find three buttons. The first one lets you sign up for QP’s RSS news feeds. The second one is +My Yahoo, which lets you add QP to your Yahoo homepage. And the third one is +Add to Google, which adds QP to your Google homepage.

When you land on the QP website, there’s so much to see that you can easily get distracted before you make it all the way to the bottom of the page, so I just thought I’d let you know. Cool, huh?