One-to-One Impact of Variable-Data Presses

In the general category of digital imaging systems, color or black-and-white, some spots are hot but some still are not.

By Debora Toth, Project Editor -- graphic arts online, 1/1/2001

Vast amounts of data are being collected every day-about your purchasing habits, interests, travels, finances, even your family unit. What's being done with that data? Collected and organized, much of that information is being used to sell and market even more services and products directly to you through direct-mail pieces, catalogs, flyers, magazines, financial statements, and other means.

It makes sense that one method of printing those personalized messages involves variable-data digital presses, i.e. imaging equipment that runs directly from computer files and can print a unique copy-text and graphics-with each impression.

When digital presses first appeared on the market in 1993, manufacturers stressed their short-run, quick-makeready, and fast-turnaround features.

But since then, of course, new categories of offset presses, such as DI or direct imaging units, have been developed to make shorter run lengths feasible.

Seeking differentiation.

To set their equipment apart from short-run production, digital press makers have been pressing the variable-data features of their products, emphasizing the value of incorporating a personalized message or printing a personalized newspaper with variable data.

For all its appeal, the ability to print one-to-one marketing has its challenges. Databases, often bought from outside sources, are not always reliable, correct, or up to date. Printers serving the middleman role are often hard pressed to marry a database with the actual print job. Conflicts arise between the language of the digital press and the database format.

And then there's the pricing challenge: how much is a personalized, one-to-one direct-mail piece worth to the marketer, and how much should a printer charge?

"Variable-data digital printing is growing," says Dan Denofsky, product manager for Scitex Digital. "We agree with a kind of 'Moore's law' applied to this case: information on a person doubles every 18 months. Given that pace, we know that direct marketers want to use that data to add personalization and color to their pieces to attract attention. There will be tremendous growth opportunities in color printing, especially from designers and ad agencies, who see the capabilities. By including a personalized message, clients will see this service as a premium."

.encountering reluctance

"I think to a greater or lesser extent, variable data has always been available in some format on digital presses," says John Zarwan, a principal for State Street Consultants, Boston. "But the software has not always been there. The issue is not whether a digital press is able to produce variable-data printing; the problem is the database.

"It's one thing to print a message on a telephone bill or financial statement," Zarwan states. "It's quite another to take data, create a message and an image, and produce one-to-one marketing. Maintaining a database is difficult. Having access to good data is difficult, plus it's a difficult way to sell. Print buyers do not seem ready to use it just yet [see charts], and their customers are not clamoring for it."

While variable black-and-white printing has been around for years producing variable or segmented manuals and books, variable color printing is a much newer offering. This type of printing includes personalized calendars, greeting cards, business cards, and marketing tools.

Embryonic market

Hoping to cash in on the growth of variable-data color printing is Heidelberg, which offers the NexPress 2100. "We see the market as embryonic," says Chris Payne, chief marketing officer for NexPress. "We see a number of commercial printers that will be investing in a digital color variable-data press in the next three to four years. They are looking to complement their sheetfed and web offset presses with a digital press.

"And they want to add more value to their services, particularly at the beginning and end of a document's life. That's where variable data comes in," asserts Payne.

Growing at an annual 39% rate

Digital press sales and usage continue to grow. According to CAP Ventures, a Norwell, Mass.-based research firm, the annual number of impressions printed on production process-color digital printers is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 39%, from 5.2 billion to 27.2 billion, over the next five years. What part of this is accounted for by variable-data printing is not known.

Market leaders in the color category include Indigo, Xeikon, and Xerox.

Xerox, which has offered variable-data digital presses in both black-and-white and color, had virtually no competition before 2000. Its DocuTech monochrome machines now number about 24,000 systems (installed during a period of 10 years), according to the figures quoted at a recent seminar sponsored by the Research and Engineering Council.

But now Xerox is receiving serious competition from Heidelberg, Indigo, and Xeikon on the monochrome side. Xerox also is well positioned with its DocuColor digital printers.

"Intelligent" printing

To produce variable data, Xerox markets VIPP, a system for personalized document production that utilizes an open programming language from Xerox for describing and producing variable-data documents. VIPP, launched in 1977, has been called "intelligent printing" or "dynamic document construction" (DDC).

Nearly 6,000 VIPP licenses are in use worldwide. Shipments of the system grew nearly 40% in 2000 over the previous year, according to Xerox.

Other software programs are available to produce variable-data printing on a digital press. PrintShop Mail, a software program for both Macintosh and Windows, offers a database content selection feature to allow one-to-one marketing.

Mpower 2.0 software is a program that allows variable-data publishing, one-to-one marketing, and Web-driven document customization.

Debut of the Digimaster

Heidelberg has enjoyed very success with its monochrome Digimaster 9110 line. In fact, since the system was launched in May 1999, sales expectations have been greatly exceeded, says the company, with 1,700 Digimasters shipped worldwide.

In its digital division, Heidelberg announced, there has been significant growth in both orders received (an increase of 43.5%) and sales (a rise of 31%) of its digital presses.

Some printers are just beginning to look at variable-data printing as a service. One year ago, Thompson Printing Company installed a Digimaster 9110 in its Orlando, Fla. plant. Thompson books about $1.5 million a year supplying both services and offset printing to its customers, which include some of the major theme parks in the Orlando area. The company's 13 full-time employees include the three grown Thompson children.

In 1993, when Jim Thompson and his wife opened the company, it offered only offset printing produced on a two-color 29" Heidelberg sheetfed press. Four years ago, Thompson added a Xerox 5090 system, installing a DocuTech 135 a year later. "This system met our needs, but it also was very expensive," recalls Thompson. "Our volume exceeded 1.5 million copies per month."

Looking at variable data

"At present, we print business forms, training manuals, flyers, and any other short-run, black-and-white work," says Thompson, "but we haven't done a lot of variable data. We expect that it will be relatively easy to print direct mail and personalized letters, or print a job offset and personalize the piece."

Thompson uses the Digimaster for jobs up to 5,000 copies. When he begins using it for variable-data jobs, he believes he will charge a nominal set-up fee to RIP the files, then charge the per-copy price at the same rate as a non-variable-data job.

Thompson says, "At first I thought we could charge a little bit of a premium, but after checking, I found that more printers are offering variable-data digital printing, which is going to keep the price down."

Twin-engine duplex

Last February, EU Services, a printing and mailing shop headquartered in Rockville, Md. specializing in direct-mail pieces, installed a Xeikon 7000 TED (twin-engine duplex) black-and-white digital printer, which replaced two older Océ machines. The firm uses the Xeikon device to print direct-mail letters or statements onto colorful preprinted shells produced on a web press.

"We've been growing," reports Chris Konkel, the firm's vice president of data processing. "While we've seen some increase in the complexity of our work, we've noticed no surge in so-called one-to-one marketing work.

"But we are seeing more 'segmented' printing, which involves processing the data first, then printing," Konkel continues. "For example, to gauge the response rate that a client might receive from a given piece, we'll print a test and control package on which we change the black-and-white printed data entirely on the fly. We could be testing a particular offering or its pricing, or the response rate for a mailer."

EU Services also operates a 40" Heidelberg sheetfed press and large-format Xerox 4635 systems that print variable data.

"The Xeikon press prints the same work as the Xerox," says Konkel. "Certain volumes lend themselves better to either sheetfed or web. But the Xeikon is so much faster than the Océ machines. The Xeikon runs at 196 feet per minute [fpm], while the Océ ran at just 110 fpm. Speed is an important component of printing variable-data material. The life cycle for direct mail is short and constantly changing."

Full-extent variable data

CardStore.com, an Emeryville, Calif.-based provider of one-to-one marketing, utilizes variable-data color and black-and-white printing to its fullest extent. The firm, established in April 1999, offers the tools and technology for businesses and individuals to create personalized marketing.

"Perhaps a company wants to send service reminders to its clients," explains Patty Gessner, senior director of marketing. "Or perhaps a business needs to send an apology card for a late shipment, or a retailer wants to send select welcome cards to new customers. All of these applications are prime candidates for our business. We provide one-to-one marketing and customer-retention tools to help our clients."

Personalization functions

To print these personalized cards and messages, CardStore.com uses an Indigo UltraStream 2000 digital press equipped with variable printing capabilities. It is embedded with unique on-demand personalization functions that allows short print runs to be custom-designed, from initial salutation to full-color design and artwork.

As an on-line, on-demand solution for personalized print communications, CardStore.com allows visitors to its Web site to personalize and send premium-quality printed cards, invitations, and announcements from their desktops.

CardStore guarantees that orders of less than 1,000 pieces will be printed and mailed the next business day. Its customer list includes Ask Jeeves, Chipshot.com, the Fairmont Hotel, Martha Stewart, RedEnvelope Gifts Online, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Sun Microsystems.

"The ability to deliver more personalized products and services is a core challenge that businesses confront today in their efforts to stay competitive," says Jinee Tao, co-founder and chief executive of CardStore.com.

Update on systems

For a complete list of digital presses offering variable data, see the March 2000 issue of GAM. Here's an update on two systems.

The NexPress 2100 digital color production press, which Heidelberg demonstrated at the Drupa 2000 exposition in Germany last spring, is designed to produce short-run color and quick-turnaround printing while also enabling one-to-one marketing, on-demand color, personalized and customized printing, and remote or Internet printing.

The machine, the result of a joint venture between Eastman Kodak Company and Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG of Germany, is scheduled to become available this summer.

In October 2000, IBM Printing Systems introduced the Infoprint Color 130 Plus. Combined with IBM's Infoprint Manager or Print Services Facility for OS/390, and a new AFP print driver, the Infoprint Color 130 Plus will enable businesses to leverage existing data used in transactional statements to produce fully variable-content pages at speeds up to 138 impressions per minute.

Sequence of events

Traditionally, digital print workflow follows a pattern of preparing an entire print job, followed by RIPping or processing the entire job, all before printing. Now, when using AFP output servers and an AFP color printer, workflow is automated to minimize operator time and improve printer utilization on high-volume applications.

The Infoprint Color 130 Plus RIPs and prints pages sequentially. Images are pre-loaded into cache memory and, once RIPped, can be stored within the printer for reuse. This process eliminates potential hours spent on RIP time.

"We think an AFP-enabled digital color press delivers uncommonly powerful benefits to marketing departments, IT departments, and digital print providers, making it feasible to print personalized full-color statements and marketing brochures with output of graphic arts quality," says Bill McCracken, general manager of IBM Printing Systems.