Canon Europe shows brands how to fuel emotion with print

Print Solutions

Canon Europe is hosting two events at its Poing based Customer Experience Centre this week, showcasing all the possibilities of promotional print for brand campaigns. The first of its kind, Future Promotion Forum, will be held on 25 September, followed by Production Printing Business Days on 26 to 27 September. Together, the events will welcome some 800 visitors representing segments including publishing, direct marketing, corporate and commercial print, as well as brand communication and display graphics.

Under the theme ‘Fuel Emotion with Print’, both events will demonstrate the role of promotional print in today’s omni-channel brand campaigns and how print can effectively complement digital. Customers can explore how to derive further value from marketing campaigns by combining digital print capabilities with variable consumer data to produce dynamic, personalised and measurable brand communication. A whole spectrum of promotional print can now be customised using digital print technology and integrated within a wider brand campaign, from a targeted piece of direct mail to entice a customer in-store, point of sale to encourage purchase, through to interior décor to enhance the customer’s brand experience.

Future Promotion Forum will open with a keynote from Nick Morris, founding partner at Canvas8 London, discussing how consumer behaviours, expectations and aspirations have changed and are impacting the future of promotional communication. This will be followed by a talk from managing director at Print Power Europe, Ulbe Jelluma, looking at the use of print in the marketing mix.

Professor Dr Philippe Baecke, associate professor of marketing at Vlerick Business School, will discuss how to better target customers in an omni-channel world using smart data. Supporting this, Susan Fulczynski, process and project manager at Hamburg based fashion retailer Bonprix, will share why personalised print is a key element of the company’s customer marketing strategy. One to one communications advisor Gerhard Maertterer will then discuss how marketers can improve their conversion rates through highly personalised print communication. COO of Adnymics, Tobias Kieltsch, will close the event by talking about how to increase revenues through using data for smart communication.

Professor Dr Philippe Baecke commented, ‘Marketing is not just about creativity, it is also about getting the right message to the right audience at the right time in a format that suits them. While mass communication reaches a big audience, the content will not be relevant to each and every single one of those customers. By managing customer data and combining it with today’s innovative digital print solutions from companies like Canon, promotional print can be completely personalised to each individual customer just like online communications. Brands cannot fully leverage all the possibilities of promotional print without understanding what data they hold about their customers and how to use it appropriately. The more brands are able to personalise their customer communications, the more successful they will be at engaging on an emotional level.’

Inspiring attendees with examples of high quality applications, the event will support the launch of a new coffee table book, ‘Speed’. Printed on the Océ ProStream 1000, the book features images of British subcultures from the last two decades, including mods, rockers, cyclists, motorcycles and classic cars, taken by documentary photographer Horst Friedrichs.

Canon will also showcase tailored direct mail applications such as postcards, magazines and ‘magalogs’, as well as promotional graphics including posters and banners. All of the book’s marketing collateral, including a variety of photo and fine art applications, will be printed using Canon’s diverse portfolio of small and wide format digital print solutions.

Production Printing Business Days offers Canon customers and prospects from across EMEA the opportunity to see the latest technology innovations from Canon under one roof. The range of technologies on show this year includes the high volume continuous feed and cut sheet inkjet presses Océ ProStream 1000, ColorStream 6000 Chroma, VarioPrint i300, LabelStream 4000 serie, production and light production toner presses (imagePress C10000VP, imagePress C850/C750, Océ VarioPrint Titan 6000 series, varioprint 140) and wide format devices for flatbed and roll to roll production (Océ Arizona 1280 and 6170, Colorado 1640, ColorWave 3700, imagePrograf Pro-4000S). The workflow solutions being demonstrated include Prisma workflow suite, Quadient Inspire, Ironsides, EFI MarketDirect, Axode and Digital StoreFront (DSF).

Following the opening address by Jeppe Frandsen, executive vice president, Canon Europe, entrepreneur Richard Askam will give the keynote address, discussing the new role of print in today’s digital world.

He commented, ;Digital technologies have made an impact on nearly every industry. Brands and print service providers must understand how they can provide value to consumers through new innovations. But only collective change in the industry will help foster new, creative ideas – and the sooner the industry comes together, the sooner brands will realise the potential of print. Forward thinking brands must find innovative ways to use print as a storytelling medium for communicating and engaging with their customers. In doing so, the print industry has the opportunity to become a disruptor.’

Jeppe Frandsen, executive vice president, Canon Europe, commented: ‘With the launch of Future Promotion Forum and the continued success of Production Printing Business Days, we aim to bring print buyers from many industry segments together, including brand owners and publishers, to help turn their creative visions into reality. Canon provides the expertise and technology solutions to create high quality applications, but only by fostering dialogue between all the links in the supply chain can we fully explore the new business opportunities enabled by digital print. With a programme of visionary speakers and a rich selection of real world applications, we hope to inspire visitors to better engage target audiences by fuelling emotion with print.’