A Revolution in Print?

Four-decade veterans of the printing industry rarely speak in superlatives, which means that when David Little, sales manager for Graphic Impressions, Inc. (GI), Charlotte, NC, proclaims this about a new technology -- “Oh golly, is it a game changer” – colleagues around the country should pay attention.

For GI’s top management, it is nothing less than a revolution.

Mobile technology and the instant gratification presented by online interactions and transactions will continue to grow rapidly, which is why a technology called Clickable Paper, offered through Ricoh Americas Corp., offers to pump new life into an industry that has faced major challenges in recent years.

“We have all noticed that the printing industry has suffered through some pretty severe doldrums in the last couple of years,” said Little. It is a situation he expects to be changing soon. Graphic Impressions, which was founded in 1977, specializes in short-run color and has annual revenue of about $4 million, was selected by Ricoh to be one of 20 firms in August 2013 to help in the initial roll out. GI began offering it to clients last spring.

“We spoke with the people who were using it in England,” Little recalled, “and they were having limited success because Ricoh had not released the analytics to go with it.” The analytics have since been released.

Powerful Solution

Clickable Paper promises to be a powerful interactive print solution, providing immediate one-touch access to multiple online resources such as photos, video/multimedia, websites, e-commerce portals, and social networks. Users can conduct highly interactive, cross-media campaigns that yield rapid results. The tool is applicable to any kind of printed media such as newspapers, magazines, direct mail, books, brochures, and posters.

The underlying technology comes from Ricoh Visual Search and was developed at Ricoh Innovations Corp., a Silicon Valley-based subsidiary of Ricoh Company, Ltd. According to the company, the cloud-based system:

• Connects print to multichannel media using image recognition software
• Creates a new revenue opportunity via a cloud-based marketing service that is easy to implement and use
• Works without marking, editing, or reformatting source materials
• Overcomes the limitations of QR codes
• Includes iOS and Android mobile apps that are free to download and use
• Allows users to drive brand awareness  
• Enables app users to interact immediately via social media
• Offers data analytics to improve campaign responses and ROI  

Initially demonstrated at drupa 2012 in Dusseldorf, Germany, Clickable Paper is considered a low-risk strategy because it is grounded in familiar marketing territory -- campaigns, cloud services, and print. It has three elements: authoring makes a piece of Clickable Paper enabled. The cloud server stores and manages documents and links. Smartphone and tablet users download the app, which displays the rich-media results.

Clickable Paper also frees users from the constraints of two-dimensional QR Quick Response) codes, which take up space, typically link to simple web and email addresses, and can be unsightly. It doesn’t require visible marks of any kind on printed materials, so printers needn’t design around a barcode that detracts from document appearance.

Early Results

GI’s management is still rolling out the product and preparing for its first major mailing but has already begun to see results. What’s needed for continuing expansion, Little reported, are exposure and education.

“I have been working the phones myself,” he noted, “spreading the information among my clients, magazines and other people because you need to create a buzz. This is something that as it becomes adopted, and it will be, will enhance all of us in the industry.”

Little makes the case for the application. “Ricoh has done all the work, so there isn’t any huge up-front expense of having to go out and create an application that will do this.” It is also highly user-friendly, he added. “A person with an iPhone or an Android can walk up to a booth at a trade show and, boom, start scanning. The information transfers anywhere you want to go. You can carry your entire marketing program on your business card.”

Interestingly, Little believes that a true appreciation of the technology’s potential lies, at least to some degree, in the eye of the beholder. “When we get in front of a young person they see it right away. When we get in front of certain other people, they don’t see it, they don’t understand it.”

If Ricoh’s technology can fulfill the kind of promise that Little and his colleagues see in it, more printers will begin working hard to make certain that they understand it. Some already have in Europe, where the technology is available as a for-sale product. While it is not yet available in North America stay tuned for a timetable to be released this year, a Ricoh spokesperson said, perhaps as soon as the spring (Q2).