Getting Labeled: Printing revenues rise 10.7 percent.

Marketers continued energetic pushes to attract attention at the store-shelf level last year – and that was news specialty printers took all the way to the bank.

Whether it was on-pack gamepieces or in-pack coupons, self-liquidating stickers or cross-promotional decals, brands employed the nation’s printers in a variety of ways. The last year of the century proved a solid one for specialty printers. As a collective, their sales rose 10.7 percent to $6.2 billion in 1999, up from $5.6 billion in 1998, according to Printing Industries of America in Alexandria, VA.

The gain outpaced the growth of the total U.S. printing market, which last year reached $155.7 billion, up 4.1 percent from 1998. Meanwhile, advertiser spending on direct mail rose 6.3 percent to $42.2 billion in 1999, up from $39.7 billion, according to the Direct Marketing Association, New York City.

Much of the growth in the specialty printing sector was fueled by an increase in games and sweepstakes promotions. Brands of all shapes and sizes gave consumers the chance to win big – nearly 73 percent of U.S. companies run sweepstakes, according to testimony before a 1999 attorneys general panel on sweepstakes – and in the process, they’re making winners out of printers.

SWEEPING RESULTS

Games and sweepstakes are becoming more sophisticated than ever before. Prize pools are larger and the offers often change by brand in multi-brand campaigns. Marketers are looking for innovative and unique promotions that push the creativity envelope, says Leonard Zuk, promotion manager at CCL Label, Rosemont, IL. Mall-based hat retailer Lids last fall broke a promotion that handed customers a gamepiece with their receipts. Users had to log onto lids.com and hold the piece up to their monitors to see if they’d won.

PepsiCo, Purchase, NY, this summer is teaming with Santa Clara, CA-based Yahoo on an effort being dubbed Pepsi Stuff.com. The under-the-cap promo will offer access to online rewards and discounts via 1.5 billion single-serve bottles of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Pepsi One, Mountain Dew, Diet Mountain Dew, and Wild Cherry Pepsi. Consumers will collect points under caps of 20-ounce and one-liter bottles and redeem the points online at a co-branded Pepsi/Yahoo Web site. Pepsi Stuff.com will also hold auctions of rare items from Pepsi and promotional partners. TLP, Inc., Dallas, handles.

PACKING A WALLOP

Growth in the specialty printing segment is also being driven by a surge in on-pack, cross-promotional offers. Packaged goods manufacturers are leveraging product portfolios and offering discounts on related – and sometimes unrelated – product purchases. Supermarkets are getting in on the action, using on-pack offers to push private-label goods. Chains are also recruiting specialty printers for use in offers launched to generate traffic for special store sections such as the deli, fish market, and pharmacy.

Grocery retailers are allowing more signage in their stores, says Joe Hartz, sales manager with iPOP in Norwalk, CT. “All in all, there is a lot of activity going on,” Hartz says.

Specialty printers have responded to the demand for greater innovation and creativity with investments in their own operations. Many are developing new inks that contain scents, glow-in-the-dark elements, or glitter. Others are upgrading their infrastructures with new automation and optimization that one day may offer true turn-key implementation. (Currently, winning gamecards still have to be manually seeded).

Others, like CCL Label, are experimenting with on-pack sampling that in the not-so-distant future could offer, for example, a sealed sample packet of chocolate sauce on the exterior of a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. “We’re looking to take what we do and turn it into more of an integrated marketing to ol,” says Zuk.

Bank on it.

– Spending on specialty printing rose 10.7percent to $6.2 billion.

– Spending on direct mail rose 6.3 percent to $42.2 billion.

– Growth in specialty printing was fueled by increased use of games and sweepstakes.

– A surge in on-pack cross-promotional offers also contributed to growth.