Ad-Agency Print Buying Strategies

Achieving a successful ad campaign begins with a great strategy and a great design, but the entire project isn't worth the paper it's printed on if the print vendor chosen for the job is unable to meet these three criteria—reliable service, flexibility and, most important, quality.The print portion of the cost of any marketing campaign ranges from 25 percent to as much as 30 percent of the job. But it is often the most important element, culminating in the finished print product that the targeted audience sees. And the print quality is often the determining factor in a campaign's success or failure. "Ad agencies are going to look for somebody they can depend on, so that what is produced is their vision and their client's vision of what that piece is supposed to be," says Jon Singer, VP of sales and marketing of Banta Corp.'s direct marketing and catalog group. "So they're going to be very, very careful as to what print vendors they choose."One of the first challenges an agency must contend with is finding a printer with a good reputation and reliable customer service. That might seem obvious, but it's sometimes overlooked, especially when dealing with a printer for the first time. It only takes one misstep to ruin the campaign and your relationship with your client.Therefore it's important for print buyers to stay informed and know the vendors who are capable of handling any type of request. "It's all about networking," says Victor Basile, senior VP, director of print graphic services, Publicis USA, a major advertising firm based in New York. "I need to know who's out there, and I need to be able to make smart recommendations to my clients. When I'm briefed on a project, I need to be able to call on a source I can trust, and that can get the job done within budget."Building a list of printers your agency can refer to when a special request lands in your lap, gives you an edge over your competition. But it could take years to create a file of worthy printers, and you may still fall short of meeting some requests."One of [our] challenges is finding a good two- or three-color printer using Pantone colors," says Bill Urbana, art director with Mimi Guillaume et Cie, an ad agency in Greenlawn, N.Y., that creates ad campaigns for consumer products. "We have some clients that say, 'Oh, no. I don't want a four-color thing. I want Pantone pink, such and such a number' … and we have a hard time finding a printer that can do that."To handle such requests from his clients, Urbana refers to his thick Rolodex of vendors, which took the 20-year-old agency 10 years to compile, to find the right printer for the project. But if you are unable to find a printer in your network who can handle an unusual request, make sure you research outside your network as well, before informing your client that the job can't be done."I don't want my client to come back to me and say, 'Look at our competitor. They took a very similar product and tipped it into a magazine. How come you couldn't do that?' " Basile says.DEPENDABILITY, FLEXIBILITY, QUALITYFinding a printer to handle the panoply of changes on a given project is an important advantage for an agency to have. It gives the agency the confidence and ability to acquire new business and solidify current relationships. "When you're looking at a program, and you have a customer who's calling up with late changes, etc., you want a printer that can react quickly to those needs," Singer says. Organizing your address book by "preferred printer" gives you the ability to find within that group the printer with the capabilities and press time to complete the job. Urbana, for instance, ranks his printers by those the agency contacts most frequently, and considers these printers first. His B list acts as a backup in cases where the agency's A-1 printers can't meet the budget and/or the schedule. Basile says when he's briefed on a specialized campaign, such as a lenticular poster, often there isn't time to shop the project around. By accessing his list of qualified printers, he finds the best fit for the job. "I keep … [vendor] information in my Palm, and I can do a search and sort by different capabilities—prepress, printing, web—anyone in that database is someone I would consider using."Having this database comes in handy particularly when Basile gets into a project that requires bidding it out to several vendors. "I want to make sure I'm putting down three vendors that can absolutely do the project. The bids should come from vendors that I trust."MAKING A HARD DEADLINEAnother important attribute a printer should have is an ability to meet the until-recently-unheard-of turnaround times clients demand. The advent of digital printing has given birth to the one-day turn, and some clients are beginning to push for shorter turns on sheetfed and web projects."With the short digital runs, we're looking at a one- to two-day turn on a direct mail or collateral project," says Tom West, manager of production services, Trilix Marketing Group, in Urbandale, Iowa. "But we still get pushed on larger quantities, bigger sheetfed runs. Seven to 10 working days used to be pretty common. Now that's been pretty much cut in half as far as your client's expectations as to how quickly that stuff can be produced."That kind of 'on-demand' thinking has become more the rule than the exception, but West says building up a small roster of vendors that will work with him on those timetables gives him options he wouldn't have otherwise. The challenge, West says, is finding the one printer on your roster that can offer the lowest price and make the deadline. "There are those instances when the deadline is too tight for one vendor, and we have to go back to our client and say, 'Here are the choices right now. We can still fit it under your budget, but can we have two extra days?' "For the best results, West says, find out how pressing your client's need is, and let them decide how to spend their money, keeping in mind that there is no negotiating on quality. "We try to get [our clients] all those things—the best price and the turnaround they need—but we wouldn't use any vendor that couldn't give us quality, regardless of the deadline and budget issues."You're also more likely to make deadline if you find a printer that keeps the job within its network."You don't want to wait five extra days because the printer is sending it to another location to print the text pages," says Basile. "Potentially, you could have your job printed in five different facilities and have less control."THE PAPER MARKETCommunicating effectively to a mass or targeted audience requires the freshest, most competitive offer in the marketplace, and waiting until the last moment to finalize details of an offer will lead to a more successful campaign, Singer says. But one shouldn't follow that rule when it comes to paper or press time, for all could be lost. During a tight paper market, Singer says, the best results begin by planning longer lead times. Print buyers outside of the ad agency world can often substitute a #3 sheet for a #2 in a crunch, but agencies deal with customers who expect pieces to look a certain way and are often locked into a specific type of paper, Singer says. He adds that the inability to ensure availability of a specific paper, now that the market for paper is tightening, makes it difficult to guarantee the turnaround you need. To guard against that, Singer advises agencies to alert their customers at the beginning of a campaign to plan ahead to meet promotion windows. "If you don't have any flexibility on the paper you need [for your campaign], and with press times filling up, especially as we get into the heavier season, ad agencies and their clients are going to have to plan longer lead times."If you find yourself in that bind, look at other options for paper. Find a printer or paper supplier that has the capacity to offer a wide range of papers from a variety of manufacturers, so it can offer alternatives to the sheet originally specified."In most cases, I tell the vendor what I want," West says, "and they'll come back to me and say, 'Here's an option B that saves money. It's pretty much the same sheet,' and we'll go back to the creative team to see if that's an option or not. If all their marketing materials are on an 80 lb. white gloss, they're not real particular [as to whose] 80 lb. white gloss it is."Finally, look at the financial wherewithal and performance of a prospective printer. If the vendor is financially strong, their focus will be on the project at hand and not on paying their creditors or meeting their payroll, Singer says. "You can get a low price from a printer that's desperate to remain in business, but [going with that printer] may jeopardize your overall program and relationship."When compiling your little black book of print vendors, keep these print-buying strategies in mind to strengthen the bond with your clients. These strategies could be the difference between a successful campaign and one that falls flat.- Warren Chiara

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Ad-Agency Print Buying Strategies

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