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Hearst Corp. is one of the world's largest publishers of monthly magazines, with 20 US titles and more than 300 international editions. (The company publishes 24 magazines in the UK through a wholly owned subsidiary.) In the winter of 2010, it began developing the Hearst Personalized Advertising Platform by bringing together SCI, Cierant, ODS, and offset print production partner Brown Printing, based in Waseca, MN. The proverbial door to one-to-one print advertising had been cracked open. It is interesting to note that while the overall number of magazine subscriptions is shrinking, many consumer magazine categories with a demographically consistent readership have grown over the past decade or so. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of bridal publications increased by more than 233 percent, ethnic publications by 117 percent. Travel and regional interest periodicals also grew. Hearst is intimately aware of these statistics, along with this one: A Dynamic Logic study of advertising return on investment (ROI) found that magazines ranked first in driving purchasing intent among all media options. Magazines also were the top medium, on average, for helping drive web searches across all age groups, according to market research firm BIGresearch. Hearst knew that the potential to reach readers with high-quality, personally relevant advertising was out there, but traditional offset printing made incorporating variable data cost- and timeprohibitive. Prior digital printing technology could not cost-effectively print at the volumes needed for a national magazine. However, wider high-speed inkjet web presses have changed the game: With full-color, 100 percent variable content printed at up to 400 fpm, the HP T300 Color Inkjet Web Press can meet the quality demands of an offset-printed magazine. The T300 can also produce hundreds of thousands of personalized pieces within the publishing industry's short printing windows, says HP. The T350 model is even faster, with color speeds up to 600 fpm. Not coincidentally, HP's printing www.MyPRINTResource.com business stepped up as the guinea pig, becoming the first to advertise through the program. Science/technology monthly Popular Mechanics (circulation 1.23 million) was a natural fit. Brown began printing the now 111-year-old PM and four other Hearst titles two years ago: Food Network Magazine, Esquire, Marie Claire, and Town & Country. Inserts + Onserts = Magalogs The Hearst/HP team formed a campaign that ultimately produced customized advertisements for 300,000 subscribers in the nation's 12 largest metropolitan areas. It included personalized "onserts," printed by SCI, which harnessed the power of the HP T300. "Onserts make addressing easier," notesDoug Sexton, who heads up global publishing market development at HP. The ads featured full-color name/ address variable data printing with photography of regional landmarks, such as San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, as well as QR codes and personalized URLs that drove readers to an online sweepstakes for a chance to win an HP consumer printer. The campaign also included a 16-page, regionally customized insert printed in full color by ODS using the HP T350. Two targeted, eight-page signatures featured information about HP technology and product innovation and provided subscribers with details on where to buy products locally. It also employed QR codes and URLs to drive readers to Web landing pages that enhanced the printed content. Cierant programmed all the websites and QR codes to match each of the 300,000 individual subscribers. To integrate that and other personal information into the printed collateral, SCI and ODS used front-end solutions, including communications management software HP Exstream. "It's the computing power on the HP Inkjet Web Presses that allows this number of pages to come off the press in the right order, fully variable, [and in] fourcolor," SCI's Williams says. ODS printed the 16-page insert first: 4.8 million total pages. Two weeks later, Knowledge is Power Despite all the growth, there still is an alarming amount of inkjet ignorance. Among other challenges facing printers as they relate to these new business opportunities, customer education may be the biggest, says Aurelio Maruggi, VP and GM of HP's Inkjet High-speed Production Solutions (IHPS) division. "The primary challenge for printing service providers, as well as vendors…is educating the market about these new technologies. This applies to publishers, brand owners, and business in general," he points out. "While the early adopters rapidly embraced these technologies and are capitalizing on the benefts they bring in terms of supplychain efciency, target market communication, short-run, and quick turnaround, there is still a lot to do to create awareness at all levels." Health, ftness, and wellness publisher Rodale, Inc. is a prime example of such lack of awareness. No stranger to the magalog concept, the publisher has been producing the hybrid publications since the mid-1990s. Yet the lion's share of its direct mail promotions still are printed using conventional ofset technology. "Occasionally, we do utilize inkjet printing for personalization," Sue Sweeney, Rodale's director of print production, told me. "This is done on the stitcher. Additionally, we have used digital printing on some double postcards. However, the majority of the work is still done with traditional, four-color ofset printing." When asked if Rodale has any nearfuture plans to get even more customized content using customer data and high-speed, inkjet web print technology, "Yes, we hope to do this more," Sweeney says. "I am working on some strategies and campaigns for it now." But when pressed for details, she revealed that more inline inkjet on the stitcher was planned. Sweeney then admitted not even being aware of the hybrid imprinting possibilities available today. I explained briefy about putting inkjet heads on web ofset presses and diplomatically encouraged her to read this article, once published, to learn more about the technology. AUGUST 2013 • INKJET'S AGE 17