Big Picture - November/December 2014 - (Page 4)

insight An Audience of One "N bigpicture.net EDITORIAL Robin Donovan Editor-in-Chief robin.donovan@stmediagroup.com Adrienne Palmer inety percent of my customers are family-owned businesses." That's what one November/December 2014 supplier told me at Graph Expo 14, and I have to admit, I was surprised. Family businesses face, well, let's call them unique challenges: changing generational attitudes, a sense of responsibility that extends beyond the 8-5, and a personal-professional mix that can make it hard to leave work stress in the ofﬁce. But family businesses also have a particular strength of identity that corporate competitors struggle to emulate. In fact, your faceless competitors, in some cases, spend big bucks on branding consultants to deﬁ ne just what that culture may be. The struggle in maintaining your identity, whether it's personalized attention, a super-specialized staff, or the kind of honesty that sends customers to the shop down the street when necessary, is that your company's personality has to remain proﬁtable in an age when the family-owned business is fading. And it's not just Walmart or FedEx Ofﬁce that's to blame. In fact, there is likely as strong a concentration of mom-and-pops in wide-format as there ever was. What has changed is the face of the competition. Whereas you used to bid against other print shops for jobs, you're now looking at larger agencies - manufacturers who are providing custom-printed carpets, textiles, tiles; branding agencies getting into the print-and-install business; even communications ﬁ rms who create an ad campaign, then implement it themselves. And customers are ready for this. They may not know who's producing their prints, but they're ready to demand something special, something personal. If you've followed the explosion of news and trend pieces about millennials or the digital natives of generation Z, you'll know that they're used to custom everything. These new buyers are your audience of one. Individuals who expect that everything in their lives can be tweaked, customized, and stylized. The trade show loop is increasingly crowded with vendors who want to help you produce short-run packaging and promotional items. Soon enough, 3D will increase production speeds and improve color reproduction, and your ﬁeld of potential competitors will widen again. The good news is that the same people who want an iPhone case to match their Smart car wrap don't respond all that well to big, blah, corporate structures. Big or small, they want a business with a personality. Think Apple, Xbox, or Zappos - or the little hardware store around the corner you trust to cut your keys right the ﬁrst time. Be that company: the specialist your customer knows and trusts. Associate Editor adrienne.palmer@stmediagroup.com Kathleen DeZarn Art Director kathy.dezarn@stmediagroup.com Marty McGhie, Craig Miller, Beth Osborne, Jared Smith Columnists Rick Bachelder, Kathy Boydstun, Terry Corman, Scott Crosby, Brandon Gabriel, Michael Garcia, Kirk Green, Robert Kissel, Tina McLaughlin, Craig Miller, Carmen Rad, Greg Root, Jared Smith, Mark Taylor Editorial Advisory Board SALES Murray Kasmenn Senior VP/Group Publisher 770/578-2577 murray.kasmenn@stmediagroup.com Lou Arneberg Senior Market Strategist East and Midwest US, E Canada 800/654-5169 lou.arneberg@stmediagroup.com Ben Stauss Senior Market Strategist West and South US, W Canada, Europe, Asia 513/263-9363 ben.stauss@stmediagroup.com Linda Volz Production Supervisor linda.volz@stmediagroup.com Tedd Swormstedt President Steve Duccilli Senior VP of Content Christine Baloga Audience Development Director Kari Freudenberger Director, Online Media BIG PICTURE SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES 4 BY ROBIN DONOVAN, editor-in-chief BIG PICTURE (ISSN 1082-9660) is published 9 times annually (Jan/Feb, March, April, May, June/July, August, September, October, Nov/Dec) by ST Media Group International Inc., 11262 Cornell Park Dr., Cincinnati, OH 45242-1812. Telephone: (513) 421-2050, Fax: (513) 362-0317. No charge for subscriptions to qualiﬁed individuals. Annual rate for subscriptions to non-qualiﬁed individuals in the U.S.A.: $46 USD. Annual rate for subscriptions in Canada: $77 USD (includes GST & postage); all other countries: $101 (Int'l mail) payable in U.S. funds. Printed in the U.S.A. Copyright 2014, by ST Media Group International Inc. All rights reserved. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the consent of the publisher. The publisher is not responsible for product claims and representations. Periodicals Postage Paid at Cincinnati, OH and at additional mailing oﬃces. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Big Picture, P.O. Box 1060, Skokie, IL 60076. Change of address: Send old address label along with new address to Big Picture, P.O. Box 1060, Skokie, IL 60076. 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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Big Picture - November/December 2014

Big Picture - November/December 2014
Contents
Insight
Wide Angle
Upfront
Inside Output
Dynamic Signage
Planes, Trains & Automobiles
On Display
Perfect Fit
R+D
Explorer

Big Picture - November/December 2014