Thursday, February 21, 2013

Paper Manufacturers Fear Rising Costs

Paper manufacturers fear more price increases
Paper manufacturers fear pulp producers will burden them with more prices increases. However, pulp manufacturers say they could not rule out another hike in the first quarter if demand from China should increase and if the US dollar should become stronger against the euro. These are some conclusions drawn from the new report EUWID Price Watch Pulp for February.
The report also states that there were no problems with supply of pulp in February, pulp supply even increased last year in Europe. Several pulp manufacturers succeeded to beat their record last year.

2012 CEPI Paper & Board Production Falls

Preliminary Statistics 2012: Indications are that paper and board production by CEPI member countries fell by in the region of 1.7% in 2012. It is estimated that CEPI member countries produced around 92 million tonnes of paper and board in 2012, resulting from some adjustments in production capacities with closures amounting to 2 million tonnes and new capacities or upgrading of existing ones accounting for close to 1 million tonne.

Neenah Paper Reports 2012 Results

Neenah Paper Fourth Quarter and Full Year Results: Neenah Paper, Inc. (NYSE:NP) today reported earnings from continuing operations for the fourth quarter of 2012 of $0.55 per diluted common share compared with earnings of $0.47 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2011. After excluding $0.05 per share ($1.5 million pre-tax) of costs incurred in 2012 for integration of acquired fine paper brands and the early redemption of bonds, adjusted earnings per share in the fourth quarter of 2012 of $0.60 increased 28 percent compared with the prior year period.

IP & Memphis Agree on Plan

Memphis and International Paper "renew vows" with PILOT approval:
The Economic Development Growth Engine of Memphis and Shelby County approved a long-awaited payment-in-lieu-of-taxes application for International Paper Co. The approval clears the way for the company to launch its proposed $115.7 million expansion and office tower renovation at 6350 Poplar. The Memphis-based company plans to build a 235,000-square-foot, 10-story tower close to its current headquarters in East Memphis.

Future US Names President

Future US Promotes Considine to President:
Future US announced today that it has promoted chief operating officer Rachelle Considine to president. Considine [pictured] had been COO since 2011, overseeing day-to-day operations. She's helped lead the U.S. division of the British media company into a digital and mobile-first strategy.

The Atlantic, Redesigned

For the ninth time in its 155-year history, The Atlantic is getting a facelift. The magazine's March issue will mark the debut of a redesign overseen by creative director Darhil Crooks, who previously lent his design talents to Ebony and Esquire before joining The Atlantic in August.

NYT Plans to Sell Boston Globe

The New York Times announced it planned to unload The Boston Globe and its related properties, which would further strip the company of assets outside of the paper of record. As Bloomberg News reported earlier, and the Times confirmed, the company is working with Evercore Partners, an independent investment firm, to assist with the process. 
The properties in the New England Media Group that are for sale include the Globe along with the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and their respective Web sites and GlobeDirect, the Globe's direct mail marketing company.

Amazon's Changed Approach on Sales Tax

Amazon used to be against collecting taxes on sales to consumers in states where it doesn’t have a physical presence. In November it switched sides. 
And when the Marketplace Fairness Act was introduced in the House and Senate last week, Amazon was listed among its supporters.
So what happened?
Lots.  Amazon can expect to benefit from the collection of online sales taxes in at least three ways.

Direct Mail Important Tool for Insurers

There are numerous ways for consumers to research and buy insurance products, but don’t discount good old-fashioned direct mail just yet.
Today, consumers can get insurance everywhere from the web to big box retail stores like Walmart.
But perhaps because the industry is regulated so heavily and there is so much information to convey to a prospect, direct mail can be an ideal way to make that first contact and share the ins and outs of a program.

Warc Global Marketing Index Rises

The Warc Global Marketing Index, which tracks global marketing budgets, trading conditions and staffing levels, rose to 56.2 this month, up from 53.8 in January.
A GMI reading of 50.0 represents no change in global marketing conditions; a score of 60.0 indicates rapid growth; and a score below 50 marks a decline.
The Americas continues to be the most positive region, with a GMI of 59.5, up 1.5 points from January. Asia Pacific also showed growth, with a GMI of 56.2, up from 53.8 in January.

Lagardère Active Launches Unified Digital Platform

Lagardère Active, the owner of the Elle brand, has created a new digital platform to promote the Elle International Network, including a website, mobile site, Facebook page and Twitter account. These combined digital tools connect with the websites, mobile sites, applications, pages and accounts of the 43 international editions of Elle and also promote Elle's media and events worldwide.
By sharing international and local news, promoting global and regional initiatives and highlighting the operations of the different editions, the new Elle platform aims to drive traffic locally and to further develop its global audience.

Stability Returning to Print Industry

Stability Returning to North American Print Industry: Although the NPES recent announcement of U.S. Printing Equipment shipments (www.piworld.com, November 2012) indicates a continued retraction in machinery purchases, this does not do justice to what we, at Howard Graphic Equipment, are noticing.
For the year 2013, we look for further realignment of the printing industry with many printers still eager to amalgamate or be purchased by more aggressive firms that have changed their structures and are aggressively looking for more sales.

Circulation & The Risks of Niche Strategies

Magazine Circulation Illustrates Risks of Niche Strategies for Printers (Dr. Joe):
We’ve all heard the phrase “print will always survive” or “print will always be there,” but I always wonder exactly what is meant by that. I have no doubt that print as a medium will always be available in some form or some format. I think that is irrefutable. Some in the industry take these phrases as comforting thoughts. I believe that they are at best benign and at worst meaningless. The real question is what volume and nature will the demand for that medium take. Print volume is a function of size, sides, page count, run length, and frequency. Those are all determined by the nature of the content and the audience size. The prime mover of all of these aspects is the original idea.

PIA Value of Print Initiative

The Value of Print: A PIA Initiative: In this video blog I discuss a recent Printing Industries of America (PIA) initiative on the value of print. See www.printing.org/valueofprint for more on this program, which includes a flip book and a mobile application.

"Why Print Works" Campaign

Velocity Print Solutions launches Top 12 Reasons Why Print Works Campaign: Velocity Print Solutions has launched a year long campaign to promote the value and benefits of utilizing print in business marketing campaigns. The theme of Print…It keeps on working will feature monthly reasons of why print is a valuable tool in increasing ROI, sales growth and brand exposure and also helpful guides for its customers.

Why Print?

To Print, or not to Print? That is the Question: 
Why print?
First and foremost, consumer preference leans towards the printed piece. In Epsilon’s consumer preference survey, direct mail was the channel of choice for health information, insurance information, and financial services statements. 62% of Americans enjoyed checking the mailbox daily. Print technology is simply making the printed piece even more engaging, and consumers also expressed that printed mail is easier to reference at a later date. Digital Print technology has evolved in such a way to take statements and personalize them to levels never before thought possible. Utility statements can show individualized usage charts and suggestions based on energy consumption. 401k mailing and insurance statements can pair with information databases to show full color representations of distribution and growth, as well as market trends. These personalization options will continue to shift consumer preference towards print, and any business can outsource the data storage, printing and mailing responsibilities to a qualified provider.

USPS Essential to $1.3 Trillion Industry

Quad Urges Congress to Act Swiftly to Restore Financial Stability to U.S. Postal Service:
Quad/Graphics Chairman, President and CEO Joel Quadracci urges Congress to move swiftly to put the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) on a path to sustainability, noting that the $65 billion Postal Service is at the core of a $1.3 trillion mailing industry that provides family-supporting jobs for 8.4 million Americans, nearly 200,000 of whom live and work in Wisconsin.

Problems with Mobile Marketing ROI

Survey: Marketers face mobile ROI, staffing challenges: Demonstrating mobile marketing's ROI is a top concern among companies planning to grow their marketing programs, according to a survey from Forrester Research and Aquent, a staffing company for the marketing industry.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

NewPage Cutting Workforce

NewPage Corp., which owns the paper mill in Wisconsin Rapids and plants in two other central Wisconsin cities, announced Tuesday that it was cutting about 300 jobs nationwide due to declining sales, or about 5 percent of its workforce.
Cliff Bowers, a spokesman for NewPage in Wisconsin Rapids, said the mill there employs about 1,050 workers but it was not immediately known how many jobs would be lost.
"There will be job cuts at every mill. I didn't say 5 percent," he said.

Hackman Capital Buys Catalyst Snowflake Mill

Hackman Capital Partners, LLC, a privately-held, asset-based investment firm based in Los Angeles, confirmed today the successful acquisition of Catalyst Paper's shuttered paper mill and certain other assets located in Snowflake, Arizona. Catalyst Paper, western North America's largest producer of mechanical printing paper, closed the Snowflake facility in September. Catalyst's assets were sold at auction in New York City on December 17, 2012, as part of restructuring proceedings in a Chapter 15 bankruptcy matter filed in Delaware. The assets sold at auction to the Hackman-led consortium consisted primarily of the paper mill improvements and personal property and 19,000 acres of real property. In a separate transaction through the auction, the Snowflake Community Foundation acquired the Apache Railroad Company and its 45 miles of track, which serve an important economic development purpose for the entire Snowflake community.

India Next Growth Market for Forest Products

www.risiinfo.com/ 
India's wood fiber deficit is forecast to more than double between 2011 and 2021, placing increased emphasis on imports, according to a study released today by RISI, the leading information provider for the global forest products industry. 2013 India's Forest Products Industry Outlook examines India's development as the world's next substantial wood fiber import market after China.

Office Depot and Office Max Merge

Office Depot Inc. and Office Max Inc. have agreed to merge in a $1.17 billion stock transfer, the companies announced Wednesday, ending nearly two hours of confusion about whether a deal had been reached.
Officials at Naperville-based OfficeMax and Office Depot declined to say who would lead the combined company nor where it would be located when the "merger of equals" is completed, likely by the end of the year.

10 Consumer Trends for 2013

10 crucial consumer trends 2013: The institute "trendwatching.com“ has predicted 10 trends for the year 2013 which include interesting approaches for the design of packaging: sustainability will be an essential for the supply chain, while transparency, authenticity and globalisation will present packaging design with new challenges.
1. Presumers & Custowners
2. Emerging Markets2
3. Mobile Moments
4. New Life Inside
5. Appscriptions
6. Celebrating Heritage
7. Data "Myning"
8. Back to Local Manufacturing
9. Total Transparency
10. Demanding Brands

AMI Reports Q3 Results

American Media, Inc.’s 2013 fiscal third quarter showed mixed results, according to recent company financials. Revenues dropped three percent in the quarter to $85 million. During its fiscal nine months ending December 31, 2012, revenue fell by eight percent, or $24 million, to $262 million.

BoSacks on Publishing Revolution

If you can just step back for a moment and look, not as an active member but rather as a voyeur, you will see that we, too, are not at liberty to be inactive participants in our industry and its future.  There are some publishers who are timidly seeking an easy way through the technologic turmoil, and there are those that are active participants in the future.
What makes this timely for me is the news last week about Time Inc. negotiating to sell off some of their large titles. I see this move as “being a very active participant in our future.” Time Inc. has always been a smart company that has seen and acted on the future before any other publisher. There are numerous actions that they have taken years before the rest of the industry followed.  And there is a forward thinking angle that many have missed in the guess work of their current action.

LinkedIn: A Sleeping Giant of Publishing

Over the last four months, LinkedIn, always living in the shadow of the sexier social platforms, has quietly built out a publishing platform. It is now a publisher in its own right, under former Fortune editor Dan Roth, with LinkedIn Today feeding aggregated articles from more than 1 million publications to LinkedIn’s 200 million users based on their preferences. It complemented that with an original publishing effort around “influencers,” recruiting a who’s who of business like Richard Branson, T. Boone Pickens and Ari Emanuel, and about 250 others.

A New King of Magazines Emerges

In 1922, the same year Henry Luce and Briton Hadden founded Time magazine in New York City, Edwin Thomas Meredith MDP +1.43% launched a title called Fruit, Garden and Home in Des Moines, Iowa. 
Two years later, the magazine changed its name to Better Homes and Gardens, today one of the biggest-selling titles in the U.S. and a core product of Meredith Corp., the Iowa-based TV and magazine firm still controlled by the Meredith family. It is now poised to merge with most of the glamorous Time Inc. publishing empire that Mr. Luce built into international fame.

Behind RDA’s Chapter 11 Filing

Behind RDA’s Chapter 11 Filing:
RDA Holding has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time in four years.
The move to convert $465 million in debt to equity comes after the company considered a "wide range of alternatives" however, according to a statement from Robert Guth, president and CEO of RDA.
http://www.printweek.com/news/1171678/Printers-hit-Readers-Digest-files-Chapter-11-again/
The move comes less than four years after the last time RDA filed for Chapter 11 protection, in August of 2009, and leading commercial printers Williams Lea, RR Donnelley and Quad/Graphics are again among the top unsecured creditors.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Resolute Workers Refuse Pension Cuts

Resolute Forest Products’ workers in Ontario and Quebec stand firm on refusing pension cuts:
Workers at Resolute Forest Products mills in Ontario and Quebec today demanded that Quebec’s pension regulator, the Régie Des rentes, and the company reach an agreement to resolve the solvency deficit in the pension plan without any cuts to benefits.
“The company and the Régie must work out a plan in the coming weeks to solve the funding problem for the pension plan. Our members sent a strong message today that we will not agree to any cuts in pension benefits,” said Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union President Dave Coles.

Resolute & Fort Frances Reach Tax Agreement

Fort Frances and Resolute Forest Products reach tax appeal agreement:
The Town of Fort Frances and Resolute Forest Products has reached an agreement to resolve the outstanding assessment appeal complaints over Resolute’s mill.
Resolute had been seeking reductions of about 58%.
Instead, the property assessment will be reduced by about 25% for the years 2009-2012.
As a result, the town will have to pay Resolute a $1.763 million tax refund rather than the possible $4.098 million had Resolute been successful in their assessment appeal.

Sappi NA Invests in Future Workers

http://www.usm.maine.edu/publicaffairs/sappi-fine-paper-invests-100000-usms-stem-initiative
Sappi Fine Paper North America, a leading global paper company, has pledged $100,000 over the course of four years to support the University of Southern Maine Pioneers Program, the first college-level STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) program for high-achieving students in Maine.
“We anticipate having nearly thirty percent of our workforce retire in the next 5 years and so there is a huge demand for STEM-related jobs,” says Donna Cassese, Managing Director of Sappi’s Westbrook Mill.

Finish Paper & Board Production Falls in 2012

http://www.forestindustries.fi/juurinyt2/tiedotteet/Pages/TheFinnishforestindustry2012Europeaneconomiccrisisdepressesproduction%E2%80%93economicgrowthmustbeboostednothinder.aspx
In total, Finland produced 10.7 million tonnes of paper and paperboard in 2012; this is 5.6% less than in 2011. The fall in production volumes was due especially to the economic downturn in the main market areas of Europe, production capacity cuts and a fall in demand for graphic paper grades. Graphic papers, i.e. printing, writing and newsprint grades, account for about two-thirds of the Finnish paper industry's overall production.  

RDA Holding Files Bankruptcy Protection...Again

RDA Holding Co.—parent of Reader's Digest Association and the 90-year-old Reader's Digest—filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection over the Presidents Day holiday weekend.
The announcement by CEO (since Sept. 2011) Robert Guth came just days before the third anniversary (Feb. 22) of RDA's first emergence from Chapter 11.Then, under 2007-2011 CEO Mary Berner, the company had restructured its debt from  $2.2 billion to $525 million. (A casualty was much of the pensions going to retirees working under contract.

InfoTrends: Top 10 Print Trends

At a Canon Oce webinar on January 23, InfoTrends Group Director Barbara Pellow presented “2013 Top 10 Trends for the Printing Industry.”
1. Digital Color is King. 
2. Digital Wide Format Goes Mainstream. 
3. Inkjet Accelerates Migration from Offset to Digital. 
4. Enhanced Substrates Drive Digital. 
5. Web-to-Print Manages Marketing Supply Chains. 
6. Content Reigns.
7. Hyper-Personalization Drives Digital Print. references. 
9. Mobile Marketing Changes Communications.
10. Direct Mail and Social Media Converge. 

OfficeMax/Office Depot Reportedly in Merger Talks

Shares in Naperville-based OfficeMax Inc. soared 14 percent Tuesday morning on a report it is in advanced merger talks with Office Depot Inc. 
And Office Depot shares were up 25 percent after the Wall Street Journal reported the two companies were in advanced discussions, citing person familiar with the negotiations, with a deal possible as early as this week.
Currently, the deal is expected to be structured as a stock-for-stock transaction, the person said.

Perils of "Native" Advertising

Atlantic Magazine Crosses the Line (Advertising):
The Atlantic, the 157-year-old magazine, got into hot water recently when they placed a online story about the Church of Scientology on the publication’s website. The article on the controversial church talked in very positive terms about the successes of the past year in their efforts to expand.
Although the story was marked with a yellow banner that identified it as sponsored content, it could easily appear at first glance as any other article on Atlantic’s site. The article is the latest example of a concept called Native advertising, which many consider a disruptive technology that allows content written by advertisers to be displayed like the articles written by the staff. This crosses the traditional “church versus state” model used in journalism to separate advertising content from editorial content.
The story went viral on Twitter resulting in criticisms over both the church and the publisher the Atlantic’s use of Native advertising. As a result the Atlantic removed the article and replaced it with a notice saying that the company had, “temporarily suspended this advertising campaign pending a review of our policies that govern sponsor content and subsequent comment threads.”

Yellow Pages Reduces Directory Size

http://www.ypg.com/en/newsroom/602-yellow-pages-group-alters-print-directory-sizing-in-favour-of-more-compact-forma
Yellow Pages Group (YPG), a leading multimedia and marketing solutions company, is reducing its traditional 9” x 11” Yellow Pages™ directory to a handier 7” x 9” format as part of an ongoing upgrade of its print products. The change will take place on a rolling basis across Canada. As the company continues its transformation to a digital marketing solutions and services provider, it has been actively streamlining and modifying its print product segment based on feedback around usage and format.

Can Meredith Become Luxury Publisher?

http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/can-sensible-meredith-become-luxury-publisher-14736
Could Time Warner's loss be Condé Nast’s gain?

Reports that the media giant is looking to combine its women's magazines with Meredith Corp.’s make some sense: Time Inc.’s lifestyle titles like Real Simple and Cooking Light could combine with Meredith’s own heartland magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens to make a women’s magazine powerhouse. One sticks out like a sore thumb, though, and that’s InStyle.

2012 Radio Revenue Up 1.0%

Radio revenue up 1.0% last year: New York—Radio revenue totaled $16.5 billion last year, up 1.0% over 2011, according to a report by the Radio Advertising Bureau.
The top advertising category in radio last year was automotive, which grew 29%. Advertising for TV, communications and restaurants grew 18% last year, and advertising by financial institutions rose 17%. 

Friday, February 15, 2013

PPRC Members Lobby Congress

http://www.paperage.com/2013news/02_15_2013pprc_washington.html
American workers employed in the U.S. forest products industry this week visited Washington, D.C. Their goal? Educate members of Congress and administration officials on the impact of legislative and regulatory decisions both on the environment, and on the families and communities that depend on forest products manufacturing for their livelihood.

IP Seeks $57 Million Tax Break

International Paper seeks $57 million tax break; would generate $225 million in new tax revenue:
International Paper will seek $56.9 million in tax breaks over the next 15 years on Wednesday.
In return, the company commits to retain 2,274 high-paying jobs in Memphis, add 101 new ones and invest $115.7 million, including construction of a fourth office tower at its East Memphis corporate headquarters.

Marketers Shift From Traditional, But Not Direct Mail

Marketers Shift Focus From Traditional Tactics ... But Not Direct Mail: A survey finds marketers expect to decrease focus on newspapers (32%), consumer magazines (28%) and other traditional channels in 2013 --yet, direct marketing is one offline tactic that is not an area of shifting focus.
According to a survey conducted by global staffing organization Aquent and the American Marketing Association (AMA), while print is taking a hit, in general, direct marketing is not an area that many marketers plan to shift focus away from -- only 9% cite this tactic as an area of declining focus.

67% of Shoppers Use Circulars

Traditional Media Remains Key Source for U.S. Shoppers: Traditional media and channels are still very important sources of ideas on what to buy, according to the 2013 BrandSpark/Better Homes and Gardens American Shopper Study, which examines "what is on the minds of American shoppers."
Leading the pack: 67% of shoppers turn to circulars to get ideas on what to purchase on their shopping trips, making it the.  Meanwhile, almost 3 in 10 get ideas from newspaper articles, one in 5 cite TV ads, and, one in 6 note magazine ads, as sources of purchase ideas.

MediaDailyNews Mag Bag: Forbes and More

Digital audiences for magazines are growing fast, with big increases in consumption via apps and Web sites. The Web sites for two major magazines, Forbes and Cooking Light, have reported big increases in traffic in January. 
Forbes.com had a record January 2013, with 16 million unique visitors during the month according to comScore -- an increase of 26% over January 2012, and a 67% increase since it was relaunched in June 2010. According to Forbes, the Web site content -- around 400-500 original pieces of content per day, produced by around 1,000 topic experts and a core group of full-time reporters -- generates over 100,000 social actions per day.
And more...

DOJ Approves Bertelsmann/Pearson Book Merger

Media companies Bertelsmann and Pearson welcome the clearance of the planned combination of their book-publishing companies into the new, international Penguin Random House publishing group by the U.S. Department Of Justice.
The Penguin Random House merger has been given antitrust clearance by the US  Department of Justice, a move welcomed by Random House parent company Bertelsmann as well as Penguin parent Pearson.

Future's Circulation Up Across Portfolio

Future, the international specialist media group and leading digital publisher, today announced an increase in circulation across the whole of its photography portfolio, with Digital Camera taking individual market leadership for the first time, and Future becoming officially the leading photography publisher in the UK.

Lagardère Suing Vivendi

Regulatory News:   In its capacity as a Canal+ France shareholder1, Lagardère (Paris:MMB) has summoned Vivendi and Groupe Canal+ (hereinafter "the Vivendi group") to appear in the Paris commercial court on March 21, 2013, for the purposes of obtaining a restitution from the Vivendi group to Canal+ France of its cash, which amounted to close to €1.6 billion on November 30, 2012.

Gulf Separates Marketers & Consumers

Marketers Are Out of This World: Marketers should invest in channels with proven ROI instead of constantly exploring new frontiers, says ExactTarget.
Marketers' perceptions of interactive marketing may seem a little out of this world to the average consumer. According to ExactTarget's Marketers From Mars study, a report that compares marketers' views to those of consumers, marketers are becoming a “focus group of one.” Consider the following: While 61% of surveyed marketers follow at least one brand or company on Twitter, only 12% of consumers do the same. Likewise, while 86% of marketers have liked a brand on Facebook, only 58% of consumers admit to becoming a brand's Facebook fan.


Quad/Graphic's CEO Testifies in Congress

U.S. printing prices have failed to keep pace with inflation during the past 25 years, the CEO of the country’s second largest printing company told a Senate panel this week.
“During that same time period, the price of postage has continued to increase and as a result the single largest expense of printing is now the postage associated with delivering the final product,” Joel Quadracci, Chairman, President & CEO of Quad/Graphics Inc., testified Wednesday during a Senate hearing on the “Crisis Facing the U.S. Postal Service.”