TRANSCRIPTION
Thank you very much for joining me. It’s really good to see a crowd in here, which is great news. Oh, got to be careful, where I move. Oh okay, I’ll come down here, even better. Right. I’m going to talk to you a little about our world, our changing world. In fact, you’re perfect because you’re an example of what’s happening to our world, which is great news for me.

My name is Frazer Chesterman and I am co-founder of a business that runs events and I’m running a show in Amsterdam called Pure Digital, which I’ll tell you a little bit about. But I am here to talk a little bit around inspiration. And hopefully you’ll all be inspired before you go for your lunch. I run several events and I have run events for a few years. I run a big show, you may have heard about previously in the past, called [inaudible 00:00:48]. And now my new one, is this one here, which will be in Amsterdam.

What we do is we always look for, I guess niches, new opportunities. Because actually what’s interesting about printing, is that it’s quite commoditized. Now hopefully you’ll know what I mean by that. What I mean is, that the printer there, and the printer there, and the printer there, all do the same thing. They all do the same thing, pretty much. So actually, what’s the difference between the printers there, and the printers there and the printers there? There isn’t much. Typically, then what happens is we end up in a price war, because print is quite commoditized. So, in any environment where that occurs, where you get things that are not very different in an open market, price becomes the issue. So, what we look for is adding value. Adding value. And hopefully solving problems.

Now I was thinking, you’re a Twitter kind of world aren’t you, you guys? So, I was thinking what is it that we would say about the print world in a short statement? And I would say, print volume’s falling, analog publishing falling, some digital growth, packaging’s good, is up, there’s some big regional differences and you guys, you don’t really like print. You like Twitter and tweeting and social media. So actually that’s a struggle for the print industry here. And you, if there’s a future. Now I guess most of you are what I would perceive as the creative type of people. And what I want to do is I want us, as an industry to try and connect to people like you. The creatives. Because actually, digital print, which is the technology that’s around here, only represents quite a small part of the print industry, three percent. Because actually print, if I asked you what you thought of print, you’d think, “Oh it’s old-fashioned, it’s boring, it’s functional”. But actually digital print is fast, flexible and very, very creative. You’ll see some of it here.

When we talked to designers and said to them, “What do you think about print?” They said, “We certainly don’t attend printing shows because that’s boring, it’s got lots of machines that are very boring”. But they do like to be inspired. Creative types like to be inspired. And they want help and they want expertise. And they want to certainly be competitive. And offer something different, original and quick. And they like to respond to consumer-needs, hopefully you’ll know what I mean by that. They want to learn like you guys. So, our mission is to help educate the creative market on what you can do creatively with digital print. Because actually doing that, educating these guys, will mean there’s more business for these guys and these guys, which is good news. So today, my little session is about showing you how to adapt to the things that are occurring outside us, the big issues, the big challenges. And to get out there and excite the creatives.

Now I want to ask you a question, because I’ve done a lot of talking here. Who of you would like to be successful? Just raise your hands. Come on. Come on. Come on. Who would like to be successful? Yes. That’s what I’d like to hear. We all want to be successful. I think there’s two types of successful people in this world. They are the lucky ones, who think they’re very clever. Have you ever met those successful people, who go “Yeah, I’m very successful. I’m very successful”. You go, no, you’ve been very lucky. And then there’s the clever ones who truly are clever, who realize they’ve been lucky. Because to be successful, you do need a bit of luck.

So can we make our own luck? I think we can. We can, if we were running a business, if you guys were running your business, you’d be looking at markets, you’d be looking at potential growth, and you’d be looking for new ideas and inspiration. But, I’m going to tell you today, we have to think differently. You guys have to think differently. You’re here, which is great, because you’re here to learn. But we have to think differently. Because if you do what you’ve always done … Does anyone know this statement? Do what you’ve always done? Does anyone know this? Possibly the same in Belgium? France? Flemish? You get what you always got. Do you understand this? Yeah. Cool. Do you understand this? If you do what you’ve always done, like clean your teeth this way, you’ll only ever clean your teeth this way.

If you want to do something different, bigger, more exciting, you have to step out of your comfort zone. And I’m going to make you do that now. So, stand up. All of you. Stand up. And I want the back two rows to go out where that gentleman is there, and I want everyone else to turn around and watch what happens. Right, the back two rows you guys come out here. You guys are the audience now. Okay? Come and hang with me out here. Come on, hang out here. Come on. Okay. Just hang around. That’s enough. That’s good enough. That’s perfect.

Now, you’ve virtually done it for me already but I’d like you to make a circle together as a group. Make a circle together, now you watch. A circle, not a semi-circle, a complete circle, do we have circles in Belgium? Do we? Sometimes. Very good. That’s not bad is it? Okay. You were quite good at this. When you understood what I was saying. Now I’d like you to do a square. Okay? A square. A square? Yeah, very good. They’re getting quite good at this aren’t they? They’re pretty good. Now I think as you’re so bloody good now, I’d like you in one minute as a group okay, to make a star. Okay? A star. You have one minute. Starting now. Now. Come on. Come on. Good star. A star. Do you know what I mean by star? You know what I mean by star? Good. That is not a star is it? That is just a mess. Yeah? Okay. Come on, Guys, a star. Come on, work a bit harder. Are you in the gang? Yeah?

Yes.

Okay. You’re the point. She was good. She was doing a point there. Come on, where are you, are you a point? Come on, is that it? Are you happy as a group that that’s you star?

No.

Do you want to do any shaping up? You got 10 seconds left, 10 seconds left. Come on guys, come on, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Finish. Give them a round of applause. Come and sit down, guys, come and sit down. You’re the audience, you watched what happened. I’m going to ask you the questions. Sorry, I didn’t mean to bump you there. Okay, come and sit down, very good. Gonna be honest with you, what did you think? Do you think that was a good star?

No.

No. I gotta be honest with you, it wasn’t the worst star that I’ve ever seen. Now you’re all from Belgium, correct? The best ever in the world was Mexico. All men, I just said can you do a star, they just all held hands and just formed a fantastic star leaning back and it was the best I’ve ever seen. So anyway. First thing, the circle. What happened? What happened with the circle? What was going on with the circle? It was really easy, wasn’t it? When you ask people to stand out there, they kind of formed a circle, you already formed half a circle, that’s the way you behave. You kind of gone into a circle format, get people to do a square, a little bit more tricky. What was the difference with the star? What happened? What did you hear, what did you see? Tell me.

They didn’t know the points.

They didn’t know the points. Okay. Anything else? Tell me, tell me, tell me? Did you see them talking to each other?

No.

Well they did. They did. They did talk to each other. Did you talk to each other? Was there a bit of leadership? Where has he gone? That man over there, where has he gone? There was a leader somewhere. There. Did you not see the leader? He was telling you where to go. So had to talk to each other, you had to communicate with each other, you had to think a little bit, you had to kind of test out ideas. I put you under a bit of pressure which was time, so you had to think a bit differently. Even though it wasn’t the best star, it was quite a good star. And you worked quite quickly. That was good. Now the point I am making here is that if you want to do something more difficult, like a star, you have to work at it. If you want a different outcome from the circle, you have to do things differently, you have to think differently. You have to work together. That involves leadership, conversation, trust, discussion, thought. That’s about doing things that are difficult. And that’s what we are going to talk about today. Because, the world that we live in, the world you guys live in, means that the new reality is you’re going to have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Can any of you do that by the way? That’s not me.

Okay, I’m going to talk to you about the big trends, because it is worth us knowing what you face in the world as the big trends. Number one changes in consumer behavior. Anyone in the audience alive in the 1980s? Just put your hands up, yeah. Not many of you. Back in the 80s, the 70s, the 60s, the 50s, we, when we were alive in those days, used to buy this way, we used to buy with our brain. We used to buy on the base of physical need, about practicality, about comfort, about common sense. You guys, the modern people in the world, buy like this, about experience, about personal identity, about esteem, about what it means for you, about experience. That means that when you’re selling to young people, and to us now, ’cause we’ve changed our behavior, you need to think differently about the way you address the market. This is the world you live in, individual self-expression, the growth of the craft business, rise of localization, dislike of mass-production, dislike and resent of the establishment, do we see that in America at all? Yeah? So the world has changed and the world is always going to change, quicker now.

We’re at crossroads. This means we’re at crossroads in terms of consumers. Consumers like things bought online. And creatives like to place advertising online rather than place it on print cause actually they believe that you guys like it. Creatives also like personalization, like to be delivering stuff that’s for you. For you. For you. For you. Personalized products. Much more personalized. We as consumers like more convenience, and more regular now. There used to be a time where we all went to big supermarkets. Now we like to go to small supermarkets. Kind of goes round in a circle. We like to add value. This, is now the best place to advertise your brand. So if any of you were in control of a marketing budget for a product in a supermarket, forget about the signs that are up here, they’re rubbish. They’re rubbish. This is the sign you want. Anyone know why? Why do you think that has become the sign everyone wants? You want to answer, I know you want to answer.

‘Cause we are always watching down.

Exactly. So you guys, and me, walk into the supermarket going like this. What did my wife tell me I needed to buy? That’s what we’re doing. And so that becomes the standout place to advertise. And then brands are recognizing that they don’t talk about the fact they’re a hotel, they talk about the fact they are an experience. They don’t talk about the fact they’re are an airline, they talk about an experience. Cause that’s what you want. And, we are really critical. And therefore, if you are a hotel or a bar or a restaurant, you need to tune in to the fact, that you guys will comment about the hotel. I hope none of you have been to this hotel. The place smells very bad. Staff have beards and long hair. Personally that puts me off. It also stinks of old fish and that will ruin your appetite. It’s overpriced for what they bring and the décor is okay but the staff comes with a roast beef or a twist beef arrogance. I honestly don’t know what twist boff arrogance is, sounds French to me. Is it? No. I think it is, but the point of this is you don’t want this if you’re a hotel, do you?

So you got to be really tuned in to the experience that you deliver if you would run a hotel. Now this is all good, all the stuff I talked about is great for printing. ‘Cause that means personalization what I talked about, that can be done by printing. Convenience, immediacy, that can be done by printing. Value, short-run, different options, that can be done by printing. Creating an experience, that can be done by printing. Do you know what this word means? Anyone know what this word means? The top thing for brand owners now is what is known as haptic. It means to touch. To feel. So what’s really interesting now is that agencies are saying, if we can get the product to feel good, that’s what they want. Haptic technology. And again, print can do that. You can print a surface that feels good. Cause it’s really important to brands. And a changing environment, and as I said hotels, all that.

So, here’s my favorite, ultimate personalized product. Anyone seen this? This is known as a selfie-chino. Has anyone done this? A selfie-chino? I like that. That is the ultimate in personalization. Obviously I don’t know who this guy is. So, aging population. I like this one, because it’s going to be about you guys. How many of you, are you 18, 19, just tell me roughly, 19? 20? 20? 21? Right? The brilliant thing for you guys is the likelihood for you, is that you will live, 50% of you, let’s take, not you guys, not you lot, but you lot, are gonna live to the age of a 100. I’ve just told you that. Don’t ring me up and say, I didn’t, I died. 50% are gonna live to the age of a 100. Your life expectancy as a group is 98. Not you Sir! You and me, we missed the boat. This is amazing, isn’t it? You will live till the age of a 100, 50% of you. Not you guys, you. That means you will have multistage lives. Very different from the lives that we led. The life that the older guys and the older ladies here led. It will be much more about this multistage. You will learn, you will work, you will learn, you will work, you will learn, you will work.

We went to school, to work, retire, three stages. You will multi-stage. And when you get to 100, actually this is now, this is now. What’s interesting is people are living longer, all of us, and there’s a lot of money in that. There’s a lot of money in the gray euro. Older people are mentally and physically fitter than ever were before, they’re cooler, and they’re more cosmopolitan. So if your marketeers, think about the gray, we talk about the gray print pound, you talk about the gray euro. It’s a great opportunity. It’s this changing world we live in. Big trends. You guys will be much more mobile than us. You will typically spend more time on the road. So places like airports will be where you buy. It’s likely that you will shop on the go, where you do it already. Because you will be more mobile. Mobility and millennials. Urbanization. We’re gonna all become more urban. And what does that mean? Less housing. So that means houses will become smaller. And as a print opportunity, you’ll have to make the space you live in look better, look bigger.

Digitalization. It’s a very, very crowded world. We all know this. We’re all affected by the internet. We spend 10 hours, you lot, 10 hours a day, I might spend 10 hours a day on screen. You’ll be at least 15 hours a day on a screen, checking your phone every three minutes, you’ve been very good. All of you’ve been very good. But that’s typical timing. You’re exposed to over four to then thousand adverts a day, that’s just crazy isn’t it. That’s just crazy. Such a lot of clutter and confusion. So how, if you’re an advertiser, printing something, how do you get through that? In the 50s, this was the amount of advertising that was out there. This was the amount you could cope with. It was pretty much the same. Now, this is the amount of advertising that is out there, this is the amount that you can cope with. There’s a bloody big gap between the two. You need to make sure if you’re doing some advertising, it goes here. It’s in the bit that sticks. That’s important. That it’s in the bit that sticks. And you do that by creating trust, creating content.

So if you go off and become a marketeer at a craft-brewery, which all of you will do, I know. You will be thinking about producing content about craft beer that’s interesting and that will give people some value. And then they have a relationship with you, which is important. They don’t think about buying. What you become, is you become a curator of knowledge. That’s what you want in the future. And print, prints can be very sticky. It can stick. Print sticks better than social media. If you deliver a really strong message in print, it stays with you. It has a far longer lifespan, far better than social media. So how do we respond to these mega-changes? Technically, I don’t want to bore you with this, because you won’t be excited by it. Digitally print, technology, heads, improvements in droplets, it’s not that exciting. But basically, digital print technology has improved dramatically. I’m just gonna tell you that. And the advantage of that means you can do things quicker, you don’t have stock, you have freedom of design. I’m not gonna bore you with this because I can tell you guys are not that excited. But basically there are a lot of opportunities for digital print. But they’re not in the traditional printing market. They’re not in the traditional graphics market. They’re in things like 3D, functional inkjet, furnishings, laminates, flooring, wall covering, décor.

Go to the stand here, the stand that’s in here, the cannon stand, you will see what you can do with digital. Everything from posters, to flooring, to walling, that’s the future. If nothing else, take that with you, that’s the future. So how do we get the creative guys to really understand what we can do? The area that is really interesting for creative people is décor. So as I say, go to a Cannon stand, they got a lot of décor on show. I don’t want to bore you with this. There are three elements that I think we really should look at, packaging, personalized products and interior décor. You know about the share a Coke campaign, I won’t tell you too much of that, but what I wanted to share with you in the end, is this. Online, used to be everyone said online. Gotta go online. Gotta do that. If you talk to the big CEO’s, [inaudible 00:21:24] and Nike, they’re already saying they won’t be putting all their budgets into online anymore. Because actually we’re returning to, we like old-fashioned things, vintage. We’ve gone backwards a bit and this is important. We don’t always look forward, we look back sometimes.

I’m not gonna tell you this, I just want to finish with a bit about innovation. All the people here, absolutely everyone here should be innovating in their businesses. You guys should always think as innovators. You should try and come up with new ideas. All the time. Talk to each other. Discuss it. Share it. Think it. Innovation as a concept is this, creativity times risk. But what we mean by that is the willingness to adopt new ideas, to tweak and disrupt, to fail fast, to adapt and learn. Don’t fear getting things wrong. The best innovators always get things wrong. Always. They never get to being super successful without fucking it up. You have to get things wrong to become a success story. Bear that in mind. Don’t work for an organization that doesn’t allow you to do that. If the organization you work for doesn’t allow you to make mistakes, it ain’t worth working for. They’re not an innovating company. If you look at the innovators in the world, the new innovators, they typically didn’t innovate in dramatic terms. They just tweaked. They took a good idea and recombined the elements in a new way.

Airbnb, Uber. Uber weren’t creating a new cab company, they were just thinking slightly differently about their approach. Nespresso. Anyone know the Nespresso lady? Do anyone know who the famous guy whose related to Nespresso. Who is he? Come on? George Clooney. It’s amazing how many women know that. None of the guys going, “Don’t know what you’re on about”. George Clooney. Exactly. You’re right. Well, this was a great innovation. Fantastic innovation. New product. George Clooney’s branded it. It’s great. Actually the guy who invented it was a Swiss guy called Eric Favre, in 1976. Not that exciting. Not that good looking. But the point is, good innovation can take time. And you can always get innovation wrong. The Trump-game. Are we still playing that at Christmas? I don’t think so. Who knows this brand, Colgate? What do they do? Just shout it out.

Toothpaste.

Toothpaste. Would you say the Colgate guys are sitting there together, making toothpaste and they think, “Here’s an idea, let’s create a new product. Lasagna”. That is not a good innovation, is it? So, I’m going to finish on this quiz, quiz-question to you all. Where do you think the most innovative countries are in the world? Just guess. China. Who said China? Cool. Just shout out countries. Shout out a country in the world. Anywhere. Singapore! Oh nice. Hold that thought. Ladies?

Korea.

West Korea, good one.

Belgium.

Belgium. Oh the Belgium’s are the most innovative country in the world? We will see. Ladies, Japan? Don’t know. Just name a country. Come on Sir, you know this. Netherlands? Who said Netherlands?

Lego land.

Lego land? Yeah the Danish. Number 1 in innovation is, anyone here from Switzerland? No. Sweden? You’re not far from there are you? Yeah. And number three? I like doing this with the Americans cause they’re number four, and whenever you’re with the Americans, they always go, “America. Obviously”. And you go, actually you’re not. They’re not. And Singapore. I don’t know where you got that idea from, Singapore. But they are actually in the top 10. And where are the Belgium’s? And China? China will undoubtedly become one of the greatest innovators, at the moment tend to copy things, but once they know what to do, they do it well. This will change. The reason I ask this question is these countries are all typically open, educated, fairly, fairly free, but they believe in freedom, and open-ness and discussion and they invest a lot of time and money and effort and resources into education. And that as a business, if you were running a business, that’s how you have to think if you want to be an innovating business.

I’ll finish with one final thing and this guy is quite interesting to look at. His name is Simon Sinek. He is an American guy, actually he’s a British guy, who lives in the States. He says any truly brilliant innovating business needs to understand not what they do, but why they do it. Think about that. Most companies, if I ask these guys what they do, they’ll tell me they make widgets, or they do printing. It’s not about what they do, it’s about understanding why you do it. And you understand why you do it, your team understands why you do it, your customers understand why you do it, everyone you touch in your environment understand why you do what you do.

Apple are a good example of this. You go into an Apple store, and they’re all in their gear, and they’re really excited about the products, they really get it, don’t they? Have you ever been in an Apple store? All of you must have been in an Apple store. Surely? Yeah. It’s about belief, it’s about value, it’s about understanding trust and loyalty. You cannot work for a company where you don’t trust each other. If you don’t trust each other, what happens? You won’t share knowledge will you? So, really important. For successful innovating business, you need to understand why you do what you do. And that even comes down to working as a team and finishing, I’m finishing anyway, and doing anything as a team. You need to get this bit right. Otherwise, you can’t move forward.

And I would say thank you to all of you for listening to me. I bet you are all hungry because I’m quite peckish. Hopefully you might join me if you get another trip out, in my show in Amsterdam, which is the 17th and 19th of April, it’s free. If any of you want to come to it, you can. And thank you for paying attention. Hopefully you enjoyed it.