During the month of October and into early November this little coffee shop chain (Starbucks, perhaps you have heard of them?) gave away FIFTY MILLION songs from Apple’s iTunes. In this author’s opinion the distribution of digitally delivered songs seems to be a new media promotion.
What’s the catch? Well, for you readers out there who work for printing companies….all but ONE of your companies DID NOT print the FIFTY MILLION song cards that Starbucks distributed. That’s right 50,000,000 little song cards in approximately forty versions and each one having a unique download code printed by what appears to be ink jet on the back.
The growth of new media does not signal the death of print. Instead it signals the need for printing companies that wish to survive to change with the times. Is your company capable of printing 50,000,000 song cards each one with a unique code on the back? Even our weekly news magazines are producing more and more versions to allow for targeted advertising (yes, by the way the 50,000,000 song cards are advertising pieces for both Startbucks and ITunes as well as the musical artist featured each day).
Just some food for thought on a cold and cloudy mid-western Friday.
One of my early adopter customers – when I worked for Agfa as product marketing manager of Apogee Create – is indeed in that space, and probably did print these cards.
His name is Phil Emery, and the company name is CPI Card Group
http://www.cpicardgroup.com/
This is a VERY tricky business – most credit cards have like 16 layers laminated (security and anti-counter fitting issues) and is NOT a simple business to simply jump into. It requires Northrup Grumman type security, deep background checks for employees…