NEXPO '08

ACCUFAST Show report

Continuing the trend of shrinking trade shows, NEXPO gave us the opportunity to meet with a few newspaper execs. A few interesting things emerged from our conversations.

First, we're different. Second, production folks get what we're about quicker than advertising people and third, there's a real opportunity for papers to profit from the ACCUFAST LPx.

The ease with which production folks took to our equipment is due to the fact that we're in the ink, paper and deadline business. We're printing, and that's what the production guys do. Advertising sales folk are not ink and paper driven. They're selling space and letting the other side of the business worry about the actual creation of the product. Their question is "Why print our own when we can buy them pre-printed?" A valid question that has a simple answer - because you can make more money per thousand, offer better service and control the entire creative process when you print your own.

We actually ran into an advertising manager for a national chain of auto parts stores. He was at the show looking for new advertising techniques. He didn't have any trouble grasping our message and potential. His question was "Why aren't the newspaper folks offering this to me?" He pointed to his trouble generating store traffic in a major Midwestern city. He had 7 stores in the area and would gladly buy a coupon on the front page zoned to the zip codes around each location. His problem extends to 22 states and something like 60 papers. The LPx is ideal for generating store traffic with an easy to produce coupon stuck to the front page and redeemable at a local store. The answer I had to give him was that we're just getting started selling to papers and it's harder than it looks.

Maybe we'll see more people at the show next year, I hope so. It's a shame to come to a venue and invest a good deal of time, effort and money to put on a show for a handful of folks. We'll see.