By Mark Rushton, Editor, Pulp & Paper International Magazine, RISI
London’s Houses of Parliament, seat of decision making power
Well, the print and paper industries are very important for the economy of Great Britain, with both industries employing around 140,000 people in total and the event at the Houses of Parliament was actually to highlight the "changing of the guard" at the top of one of the most important trade associations in the UK, the British Printing Industry Federation (BPIF). One of the federations' many tasks is to labor over the very hard job of getting print recognized as a leading industry by those politicians who work in the corridors of power.
Rupert Middleton of the Trinity Mirror Group, one of the leading newspaper publishing and printing groups in the UK, was sworn in as the new president of the BPIF on our visit, and his appointment looks like really good news for both paper and print. Middleton is a great exponent of the printed word, and will be doing his best to fight print and paper's corner as both industries face unprecedented competition from other media, as well as having to face the downturn. In his acceptance speech Middleton said: "On the broadest scale, we all have a common partnership to convince the world as to the power and sustainability of print. 1.9 billion people around the world read a paid for newspaper everyday, which is a remarkable statistic for an industry that is supposedly on its knees. We have to counter this stream of propaganda that is coming at us from all directions; that we print messages on dead trees; that we are ineffective; that we are old fashioned and that we damage the environment. This propaganda is very pervasive, very boring and very wrong, and we all should get out there and tell the truth about print".
Rupert Middleton of the Trinity Mirror Group, the new president of the British Printing Industry Federation
A classic example of this propaganda said Middleton, was a letter recently sent out from a water company to its customers stating: "We wish to move all our customers to electronic billing, to help save the rainforests". "We need to all get involved to stop this rot and nonsense", he says.
"For my own company, Trinity Mirror, 40% of the UK's adults read a printed title each week, again, another very strange statistic for a dying industry," continues Middleton. "However we need to tell customers and potential customers of the power of print in informing, entertaining, and marketing for instance via channels such as Cepi's Print Power, the the successor to Print Sells and the BPIF will be working with them as well.
"We also need to tell the world about our environmental credentials, for instance we are joining forces with another organization as well, the Two Sides campaign, which is actively dispelling some of the myths and misnomers on the environmental front.
The end of the beginning
Middleton also had some cautiously optimistic words concerning the recession, which has hit the UK printing industry very hard with numerous amounts companies going bust or ceasing trading. He says: "There are encouraging signs at the bottom of the cycle, I think the Houses of Parliament would be a perfect place to steal a quote from Winston Churchill who said: "This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but perhaps it is the end of the beginning" of the downturn, and we are starting on a long and difficult path to recovery. The most important part of this recovery will be key partnerships with obvious bedfellows, but there may also be partnerships with strange new bedfellows." Middleton obviously referring to much needed consolidation in the printing industry, something the paper industry is, of course, in very familiar with.
Time to jump on the bandwagon?
This event in London has highlighted the fact once again that the paper and printing industries have been pretty lax in getting the message across about both sustainability and the effectiveness of the vehicle as a way of educating and marketing. But are we seeing a turn? Is it time now for all companies to jump on the jolly band wagon of campaigns such as Two Sides and Print Power?
According to a recent poll carried out by RISI posing the question: "What can the paper industry do to stop the rush of publications going online?" 50% of our readers believed that "Creating a joint PR/advertising campaign promoting the benefits of paper publications" was a good way to go, but very worryingly, 41% of readers from the industry declared that they should do nothing, because: "it is all going to go online in the end anyway".
One thing is for sure; while papermaking finds itself at the wrong end of a virtual barrage of myths, mistruths and misleading statements, often spouted by those from emerging media technologies who don't have an inkling about what goes into making paper, an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of skilled workers worldwide, will continue to suffer, even way after the downturn.
