Kodak has a long history of innovation. It's at the core of everything we do. So it's no surprise that at Print 09, Kodak is bringing innovation to the trade show floor. We're reinventing the trade show experience and it's all about you - the customer.



We're going to give you a personalized experience tailored to your individual needs. We'll provide an entirely new demonstration of how Kodak solutions enable new applications and deliver more value - helping you increase production efficiency and return on marketing investment (ROMI), and ultimately grow your business.

As Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor of What They Think, said in a recent article, "this is something you will not want to miss."

Our new approach to trade shows reflects Kodak's strong commitment to be the best partner to help you grow your business. If you are interested in what you see, the next step is to schedule a one-on-one visit with our team and yours for a more in-depth discussion about your business needs and how Kodak can customize the right solution for you.

What's more, if you're unable to attend the show, this approach allows us to bring the Kodak Print 09 experience to you virtually. Our K-Zone sessions will be streamed live over the Internet at http://www.kodak.com/go/print09 and will also be available online after the show.



The K-Zone is a live talk show set where customers, industry experts, print and marketing service professionals, and Kodak leaders will share insights, expertise and practical advice you can use to grow your business.

The K-Zone kicks off on Friday, September 11, at 11:00 a.m. CST with "What's Print Got to Do with It," a panel featuring Kodak Chairman and CEO Antonio Perez; Shelly Lazarus, Chairman, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide; Linda Sawyer, Chief Executive Officer, Deutsch Inc.; and Howard Mittman, Publisher, WIRED magazine. Here, we will take the conversation beyond "speeds and feeds" and hear how these global brands view and use print in the communications mix. You can see the full K-Zone schedule here.

The bottom line? Kodak's booth is about what's important to you and your business. It's about you AND Kodak at Print 09. We look forward to seeing you.

People love nice business cards...

Some startups, long before they get the funding to do the next big thing online - get a card done.

A business card is arguably the single most important marketing tool a startup or an established business has in its arsenal. It's the first thing you offer to a new client. It's the first impression, it's the only thing in your pocket at a networking event besides your camera, phone and wallet.

Sure, websites are supporting material...but most people don't leave your booth or event looking at a screen - you need to do something unique and discreet.

Ever take your business on a roadshow only to realize you have so many products and so little room to transport your supporting material that you have to pare down the list?

With seminars being an expensive adventure its important that all your products are represented well. To reduce the expense of shipping, handling and managing volumes its worth considering an alternate method.

A few years ago, in preparation for an extensive roadshow in New Zealand and various shows in Australia we took stock of all the brochures we had on hand, looked at the cost of shipping and handling and considered taking a small sampling of only the key products. Airlines charge quite a bit for extra weight.

The concern was missed opportunities and the price of sacrifice.

But - we have the Kodak Nexpress Digital Production Press.

We don't need to reduce our inventory of titles, we simply need to reduce the volume and size - no compromise!

Here is what we did...

We took our existing business card template, designed a basic acrylic desktop stand and added a set of 'postcard styled racks' for the major shows to hold the complete set.

In all, we designed 90 cards, each had a single image on the front



and highlighted 4 or 5 benefits, functions or features of the technology. The back of the cards had a variable watermark and a basic design with contact details to reach the marketing team and a www unique landing page - at the time, only advertised on these cards. The cards were not designed to replace existing collateral - they were designed to tease.

The time to design 90 cards was about a month, we used existing images, copy and added an amusing slogan to get folks to pay attention. For software we livened it up a little and had some fun.

In all we did a print run of 85,000 cards and by years end we had given out an estimated 65,000. Perhaps a bit eager on the first run - after all, it is short run variable data!

The cards could be stored in traditional business card boxes making it easy to stack-n-ship. We took only as many as needed - but every product was represented.



The desktop stands are made of white and clear acrylic, the Kodak logo is vinyl adhesive making the costs low and the potential to modify easy. They stack like lawn chairs meaning you can take 3 of these in a large suitcase and about 12000 cards without paying extra at the airport.

This means we were able to have marketing material for 21 products and with the help of the unique landing page, we were able to capture responses long after the show, knowing they were from the feature cards. You could probably redesign this basic stand to include a Kodak digital frame...wireless...hmmm.



The postcard racks were a different story, again, perhaps a bit ambitious at the start, however they were built quite well and 3 years later still show up in the demo centre in Australia. They also have space for 8 A4 sized brochures.

We took this one step further after the roadshow...

Most companies offer some sort of thank you/give away product at a stand. What we did was take a nice business card holder with the Kodak logo engraved on it and insert 15 feature cards in each in advance of roadshow dates or events. A bit of work, but a great learning tool for new staff and even existing customers to understand the extent of our huge product portfolio... and a unique form of demand generation to boot!



For an Awards show, we had 500 guests seated. In advance of their arrival, we took 500 card holders, inserted 15 cards each and added two 'wild cards' for prize draws. We placed them on the seats, so when they arrived they picked them up and took a look at the contents prior to the start of the festivities. That's 7500 cards in one evening...and two Kodak cameras! People were happy, impressed and talkative after the event. We simply could not have been as effective with A4 material, a website or a TVC.

Now try it with Kodak Dimensional Ink!

What did we learn?

• A company that uses competitive products does not want to be seen at a tradeshow with a handful of your brochures? This solves the problem.
• After a 1-on-1 presentation, Product demonstrators hand an elegant business card holder with their own card and several product feature cards.
• 300-350gsm paper and 20 cards per A3 sheet equaled one set per holder printed and cut on a single page - made insertion and collating easy.
• leads were generated for products that would have otherwise not have made the trip.
• people discovered we had more products than they originally thought.
• you can add exclusive offers on the back, hand them out at shows.

The cost? The card holders were less than A$1.75 each. The printing was no different than your typical business card run. (how much do u spent per unit on give aways?)

Have a seminar with 100 invited guests? Do some variable data short run printing and spend $200 on the card holders. Less expensive then an A4 run and you can utilize custom URLS to keep the content fresh.

Think about it...how much $ did your last banner ad cost to design and post?

These days lots of people are saying print needs to think outside the box.

...Its time to print a new box.

Just 6 weeks or so after the first visit to South America and Colombia I find myself back in the beautiful country with interesting and beautiful people. It is a visit that opens up my eyes even further to the changes and potential that this will become a power house for packaging, and particularly flexible packaging in the future. To reinforce the warning that the US&C risks falling behind countries like Colombia when we start to come out of recession, the first orders for Flexcel NX Systems in Colombia were taken, all into printers, both narrow and wide web. Combining the newest equipment with the best in plate technology will allow these printers to easily move forward and reinforce their positions as suppliers to the biggest brand owners.

One of the examples of where the newest press combines with the newest press, was a print trial on an OMET XFLEX. The XFLEX won the FFTA Technical Innovation Award last year, as did the Flexcel NX System this year. This is the first time I have seen these two industry leading innovations for Flexo together, and I have to say it was a beauty to behold. The speed to color, ease to change anilox rolls, print cylinders between jobs, ink tray loading unloading, minimal web path during the job, auto registration all worked simply and perfectly. The printer actually setup the first job twice, to prove to the prepress manager, and just to confirm that the press and plates combination really was so fast coming to commercially acceptable print together.



The picture in this Blog comes from a visit to the old Spanish capital in Colombia, and we have titled it "The 3 Tom's Looking For Dr John", where I shot a panoramic, and Tom accidentally managed to move into every shot, looking a different direction each time! It is a little freaky in some ways, but an interesting shot, automatically produced using a Kodak Easyshare M1093IS. The other lesson from that trip is distance as the crow flies is not important, how big a mountain you have to go up and down the side of controls travel time, and the degree of headache at the other end!

Colombia seems to be the country in South America with the highest penetration of traditional digital flexo plates, high percentage of Comexi wide web presses, and a smaller percentage of gravure to flexo.

Chile on the other hand was very different. From the flight from hell overnight Sunday with all the families returning from vacations, to arriving at the hotel to go to bed in the dark, and the getting out of bed at noon for the first appointment, to opening the curtains to see for the first time the snow covered Andes mountains seemingly a few blocks away, that was a real WOW sight to wake to!

The Flexo industry in Chile was different, far fewer CTP for Flexo, about 20% of Colombia, much more analog, very good analog, more Italian presses than anything, and a higher percentage of gravure than in Colombia. But here again a market ready to transition, Chile is a big exporter, so their packaging appears on our shelves all of the time, and they will continue to grow this trend. Here converting Flexo is really also going after gravure conversion, so the densities that can be produced with as few colors as possible is important.

As I visit super markets in other countries, that gets really interesting trying to explain you are "just looking" with a loop when you don't speak Spanish, it is clear that there are some significant market differences too. Quantities are smaller, many weekly instead of monthly purchases as in US, more flexible packaging, stronger brighter colors, more competition for sales. You come to the conclusion that the packaging in Latin America is at least as good and in most cases better than the majority in the US today. This too will help understand how they can become a threat to the US producers.

The next issue of the blog will come from Argentina and Uruguay, and my verdict to date on the beef, and who for Latin America reins supreme!