You have probably heard by now that the 2013 Color Management Conference, December 7–10, in Phoenix is the event of the year for the latest on achieving predictable brand color. By attending this event, you will have access to the latest in cutting-edge technologies and techniques that can help you build profits.   We want to share some of the benefits you may not have heard that really make this event the icing on the cake of 2013! Here are the top 5 unique reasons why you should be in Phoenix for the Color Management Conference: #1 Real-World Color Success Stories Hear from big brand names like Kimberly-Clark, Kohl’s, and American Airlines as representatives discuss managing brand color across diverse media and when it might make sense to offload the responsibility for color management and ultimately a brand’s color integrity to a third-party organization. #2 Renowned Players Big names like Russell Brown! Sven Seger! Dr. Taz Tally! Russell Brown brings his Russell Brown Show to the Color Management Conference with, The Russell Brown Show: Live! You don’t want to miss this Emmy-award winner go on the journey through the history of Adobe Photoshop while providing tips and tricks for Photoshop users of any skill level. Sven Seger, Chief Creative Officer, North America, FutureBrand, takes attendees on a ride discussing the rebranding of the iconic logo for American Airlines. “Finding ways to modernize the brand, while tying its iconic heritage to its human qualities, was a challenging process,” says Seger. You don’t want to miss this though-provoking session.  And don’t miss the pre-conference session with  Dr. Taz Tally, who’s unique in his own right! He’s a world-renowned photographer, author, consultant, and instructor. This adventure seeker lives life to the fullest in Alaska, often traveling to ski in Utah and whale watch in Hawaii. Discover more adventure with Dr. Tally in his pre-conference photography shoot against a dazzling desert backdrop. #3 Information for All This conference’s three tracks—for designers and brand managers, print production folks, and standards experts (affectionately known as color “geeks”)— focus on specific needs in the color workflow. But did you know attendees can choose sessions from any of these tracks? So if you’re in production, feel free to jump on the Geek Track and learn about the latest ISO 12647 and 15339 standards updates. You’re a brand manager? Join a Production session on new proofing tech. It’s a virtual buffet of knowledge, so why not look at the Session Descriptions and create your own perfect conference for maximum ROI! #4 Hands-On Labs With the nine labs being presented at the Color Management Conference, attendees will get a hands-on experience with the latest in technology and techniques any...

The industry’s “Profit Leaders” represent firms in the top 25% of profitability. So what’s their secret? What are they doing that the other 75% are not? They’re using Printing Industries of America’s Ratios reports to benchmark their business, learning where they can improve efficiency and productivity. And the result is higher profits. Here’s how you can do the same with the 2013–2014 Ratios. Ask Strategic Questions The new 2013–2014 Ratios, whichshows that printing industry profits are finally increasing,collates key market data to pinpoint strategic business areas to focus on. Profit leaders use the reports as an efficient way to benchmark and get a pulse on important areas of operations, like profitability and sales factors, cost drivers, and expenses. How can your company use Ratios to find areas for improvement? Take a look at your numbers and compare them to the industry average and profit leaders. Get a better and faster understanding of where they are and where they should be! Here are some examples of the right questions the Ratios helps identify to assess your operations: What are your factory and administrative expenses and how do they compare to your competitors? Does your percentage of payroll and materials expenses match industry averages? How do your sales per employee compare to profit leaders? Is your average employee wage competitive within the industry? (Get a peek at some of the latest Ratios results here!) See the Big Picture Profit leaders understand the financial position of their business within the market. The Ratios reports provide a compilation of in-depth financial data from hundreds of our industry’s profit leaders. This data is generated from a yearly industry-wide survey of more than 500 Printing Industries of America member and non-member printing firms conducted by our Economic and Market Research department. Each of the 16 volumes focuses on a specific industry segment, spanning every major industry sector. All this data amounts to a complete look at the industry—where we are, where we’re going, market trends, and much more. It provides management both a microscopic view of the top business priorities, and then expands that view to reveal how your company’s performance fits in with the profit leaders and the rest of the industry firms. Hot Off the Press! We’ve just released the 2013–2014 Ratios. Learn more about Printing Industries of America’s Ratios program and browse all 16 volumes available at...

The industry’s “Profit Leaders” represent firms in the top 25% of profitability. So what’s their secret? What are they doing that the other 75% are not? They’re using Printing Industries of America’s Ratios reports to benchmark their business, learning where they can improve efficiency and productivity. And the result is higher profits. Here’s how you can do the same with the 2013–2014 Ratios. Ask Strategic Questions The new 2013–2014 Ratios, whichshows that printing industry profits are finally increasing,collates key market data to pinpoint strategic business areas to focus on. Profit leaders use the reports as an efficient way to benchmark and get a pulse on important areas of operations, like profitability and sales factors, cost drivers, and expenses. How can your company use Ratios to find areas for improvement? Take a look at your numbers and compare them to the industry average and profit leaders. Get a better and faster understanding of where they are and where they should be! Here are some examples of the right questions the Ratios helps identify to assess your operations: What are your factory and administrative expenses and how do they compare to your competitors? Does your percentage of payroll and materials expenses match industry averages? How do your sales per employee compare to profit leaders? Is your average employee wage competitive within the industry? (Get a peek at some of the latest Ratios results here!) See the Big Picture Profit leaders understand the financial position of their business within the market. The Ratios reports provide a compilation of in-depth financial data from hundreds of our industry’s profit leaders. This data is generated from a yearly industry-wide survey of more than 500 Printing Industries of America member and non-member printing firms conducted by our Economic and Market Research department. Each of the 16 volumes focuses on a specific industry segment, spanning every major industry sector. All this data amounts to a complete look at the industry—where we are, where we’re going, market trends, and much more. It provides management both a microscopic view of the top business priorities, and then expands that view to reveal how your company’s performance fits in with the profit leaders and the rest of the industry firms. Hot Off the Press! We’ve just released the 2013–2014 Ratios. Learn more about Printing Industries of America’s Ratios program and browse all 16 volumes available at...

The industry’s “Profit Leaders” represent firms in the top 25% of profitability. So what’s their secret? What are they doing that the other 75% are not? They’re using Printing Industries of America’s Ratios reports to benchmark their business, learning where they can improve efficiency and productivity. And the result is higher profits. Here’s how you can do the same with the 2013–2014 Ratios. Ask Strategic Questions The new 2013–2014 Ratios, whichshows that printing industry profits are finally increasing,collates key market data to pinpoint strategic business areas to focus on. Profit leaders use the reports as an efficient way to benchmark and get a pulse on important areas of operations, like profitability and sales factors, cost drivers, and expenses. How can your company use Ratios to find areas for improvement? Take a look at your numbers and compare them to the industry average and profit leaders. Get a better and faster understanding of where they are and where they should be! Here are some examples of the right questions the Ratios helps identify to assess your operations: What are your factory and administrative expenses and how do they compare to your competitors? Does your percentage of payroll and materials expenses match industry averages? How do your sales per employee compare to profit leaders? Is your average employee wage competitive within the industry? (Get a peek at some of the latest Ratios results here!) See the Big Picture Profit leaders understand the financial position of their business within the market. The Ratios reports provide a compilation of in-depth financial data from hundreds of our industry’s profit leaders. This data is generated from a yearly industry-wide survey of more than 500 Printing Industries of America member and non-member printing firms conducted by our Economic and Market Research department. Each of the 16 volumes focuses on a specific industry segment, spanning every major industry sector. All this data amounts to a complete look at the industry—where we are, where we’re going, market trends, and much more. It provides management both a microscopic view of the top business priorities, and then expands that view to reveal how your company’s performance fits in with the profit leaders and the rest of the industry firms. Hot Off the Press! We’ve just released the 2013–2014 Ratios. Learn more about Printing Industries of America’s Ratios program and browse all 16 volumes available at...

How can you be sure your product packaging is communicating the right message? If you’re like most companies, you may be looking at it from the wrong perspective.  Here, Jamie Capozzi, Founder and President, Theory Associates, and speaker at the 2013 LPIA Conference, December 7–9, explains how to look at your products to see them as your potential customers do. There are two ways we have found that most companies review and judge product packaging, the right way and the wrong way. The right way would mean developing it with the actual stores in mind. The wrong way is how everyone else on planet does it … in their offices. A typical packaging review is held in a board room with soft lighting while sitting in cozy chairs. They sit back and hold the package comfortably in their hand and calmly take in the entire piece. Most of the time the key decision makers are surrounded by their highly trusted team of advisers who collectively know every nook and cranny of the product from its conception all the way up to this reviewing moment. The group will hypothesize about the customer’s interpretation of the packaging, but to be honest, this group is way too close to this project to be very objective about how people shop and the factors that play into their decision-making process. This is the wrong way to do it. So, what is the right way? How can you be sure your packaging design will work in a store if the first time it’s ever seen the inside of one was the day it was placed there? By the time it reaches the store, years of R&D, expensive tooling and manufacturing cost, the expense of sales, PR, and marketing, not to mention how much it costs for fulfillment and shipping, have already been applied. Now, we realize it’s not very cost-effective to build a retail environment in most offices, and doing field studies with an entire team is hardly efficient. I like to share a method we use to overcome this obstacle and help manage the transition from your office to the retail floor: The concept is very simple. Your product packaging has to “speak” differently from a few different vantage points in the retail selling process. And by selling process, I simply mean from the moment the customer walks through the door until they walk out with your product. How does your product packaging communicate from across the showroom floor to what it communicates as part of a wall full of product and finally when it’s in the customer’s eager hand? If you think of your packaging as a communication tool that has different stages...