Creative insight
Coutt’s Fawcett says he has had to take a “thick-skinned approach” to this image problem for over a decade. “If you work for a printer, clients ask what possible creative insight you can bring. The perception has been that if you’re known to your clients as a printer, you’ll be given second shot at something creative, rather then first shot.” But he concedes that opportunities from brands and retailers are improving as clients combine their print and marketing budgets. The flipside to this is that marketing companies enter the production space, generally through acquisitions. “Marketers have to move downstream and manufacturers have to move up. I think it’s more difficult for agencies to move down because they have to acquire to do that. Over the last few years, the manufacturers have done this by employing skill.” Fawcett adds.
The other risk is increased competition from print management (PM), which also has its sights locked on the creative design and marketing arena. Leading companies like Williams Lea and RR Donnelley Global Document Services have printed their single-source supplier model on end-to-end brand communication. Its generally going to be a hard sell for a printer to convince its clients, be they blue-chip or SME, that its creative services are the match of the design establishment or PM giants, so it’ little wonder that HPM and Minuteman are both past winners of BPIF/Printing World Excellence Awards in Marketing. They’re just two examples of UK printers that are putting a fresh spin on their creative approach to come up with a new definition of design.
Peter Harrison is Joint Managing Director of The Printing House Ltd of Crewe, Cheshire, UK.
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