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ONE OF the most common forms of outdoor advertising is the billboard: a concept which remains a popular way of attracting attention. However, it is people with ever more ingenious ideas who stand to gain the most from the superwide format market.
Take Aston Villa football club. In a bid to promote the new season's shirts they commissioned a 75m2 banner with pictures of Aston Villa Football Club's fans. It was printed using an HP Scitex XL1500 Printer by Fosco Hayes & Hurdley, Birmingham.
This may seem a little over the top but it has done the trick: now dubbed ‘the world's biggest team photo'. The basic concept was that any fan purchasing a shirt via Villa's website or official club shops could have a picture taken wearing it for inclusion in the photo. Individual images of over 1,500 fans were then montaged (with pictures of the Villa team) to form a long image resembling a giant school photo with twelve tiers of fans.
Working with Aston Villa Football Club's senior marketing executive, Daniel Meredith, Fosco had the job of printing the 25 by 3m banner. It carried out the work on its two new super-wide format HP Scitex XL1500 3m Printers.
Fosco's managing director, David Nicholas, said: "We installed the printers in September and the banner was one of the first jobs we produced on them. There were a number of challenges to the job, the first being that the fans had to be able to recognise themselves, and since the banner is mounted at ground level, image quality had to be able to stand that level of examination."
The banner stretches along the edge of Villa Park's North car park entrance, which presented another challenge.
David explained: "It's a very windy site. We printed the job on a mesh banner material so that it could withstand the wind. Image durability was also a consideration as the banner is scheduled to remain on display for the entire season, so in addition to wind, it has to resist weather and direct sunlight."
This is just one area where superwide format digital printing has proved a cut above the rest. With a wide range of machines available, customers can now realise their ideas: however bizarre they may seem.
Making a choice
With this in mind, the next step is to choose the right machine for the job. With such a huge range on the market this isn't an easy choice. In theory, it should be a case of analysing future jobs and choosing a machine to suit: but here lies the first problem. Superwide format printing opens up so many new avenues of opportunity it is difficult to anticipate what you will be doing in 12 months. Thus it can pay to choose a supplier offering a range of machines.
The latest addition to HP's portfolio, the Scitex TJ8350 Printer, was unveiled at Visual Communication Italy in November. Based on the TJ8300, the TJ8350 is designed to deliver a combination of high throughput, cost-effective production and quality output for a variety of wide-format indoor and outdoor applications.
This latest addition strengthens HP's market position, with other machines including the FB950 for quality POP/POS, tradeshow and event signage, plus the XP2300: the first 3.2m UV roll-to-roll press designed specifically for outdoor signage.
HP's vice president and general manager, Large Format Printing Business, Imaging and Printing Group, Santiago Morera, said: "With HP's latest graphics solutions we are further demonstrating our leadership position as the one-stop-shop for all large format printing equipment and helping our customers extend their application range and grow their business. These printers represent the state of the art in innovative large to superwide format inkjet technology and serve the diverse needs of the sign and display printing communities."
Solvent, aqueous and UV
One company to look out for in 2009 is Toronto-based Gandinnovations which offers a range of solvent, aqueous and UV technologies.
Now The Paper Company has secured the right to distribute the range, all ten models are now available in the UK. The portfolio includes 3.3m and 5.1m wide solvent roll-to-roll, UV roll-to-roll, aqueous fabric roll-to-roll, plus UV flatbed models. Machines are available with a range of RIPs including Onyx PosterShop, Wasatch SoftRIP and Caldera.
PaperCo's digital and technical solutions manager, Phil Tomlinson, said: "Gandinnovations' grand format machines are renowned for their excellent build quality, precision and reliability and represent an excellent opportunity for PaperCo to develop its burgeoning digital inkjet business. Since PaperCo took the decision to diversify into the inkjet sector, in March 2007, we have witnessed exceptionally strong sales. The addition of the Gandinnovations' range gives us the ability to extend our presence in the high volume, grand format sector and provide printers with leading technologies that can produce large, stunning POP and POS graphics."
New quality standard
Durst's Drupa launch of its Rho 320R UV inkjet printer established a new quality standard for industrial roll-to-roll printing. The company's Quadro Array printhead technology and new print carriage concept (including a magnetic linear drive system) are two of the 320R's important features.
Another innovation is the machine's environmentally friendly, low odour Rho Roll Ink which is formulated to offer a wide colour gamut and high colour density. Durst states it allows economic printing of offset quality (particularly for large format indoor applications) and opens the gates for demanding, profitable applications such as lightbox displays, illuminated posters, window graphics, POP displays and advertising textiles.
Not just printers
One thing to remember about this industry is it isn't just about machines: just as important for achieving perfection are the substrates you feed into the machine.
Avery Dennison Graphics and Reflective Products' digital media product manager, Frank Jonker, said: "For large-sized projects, super-wide-format has streamlined and simplified conversion, and encouraged real growth in new markets for self-adhesive graphics.
"Wall coverings in all forms are flourishing, both promotional and decorative, and these are markets where we have a current development focus for our Avery Graphics-brand films. This, of course, is an aspect of personalisation: a field where there is tremendous dynamism today. Personalised car wraps, retail and domestic interior décor, and other 'one off' applications where large-sized graphics are needed are certainly being well served by the high-quality capabilities of today's superwide format printers.
"The continuous technological developments within the superwide format industry will definitely open up more applications areas in the near future. For this reason we are very optimistic about the future prospects of digital printing in the world of full-colour graphics."
And finally
It would be fair to say that the superwide format market is seeing a growth spurt. Promotional budgets may have been cut but the benefits of this type of advertising are proving their worth. So whatever happens over the next twelve months in the economy one thing which you can be certain of is that your customers will want their products to stand out from the rest. And that is where you come in because where other forms of promotion may have been used in the past, superwide is taking over and it is definitely here to stay.
www.hp.com
www.paperco.co.uk
www.gandinnovations.com
www.durst-online.co.uk
www.averygraphics.com
How many of your customers have asked about the carbon footprint of your printing service?
