Hi, I’m Pat McGrew. I’m here with Print Sample TV. Over the next episodes, we’re gonna bring you a series of stories about some really cool print samples. Our goal here is to showcase some of what the vendors are doing to showcase their great technology, but we also wanna put the spotlight on printers who are doing some really creative things to spotlight their businesses.

The very first episode is for Zemeta. Zemeta is a company based in Belgium that produces a lot of marketing collateral for companies like grocery stores, jean stores, insurance companies, summer camps. They do everything from custom-made newspapers all the way through to posters for banks and store chains to hang in their window. They do some of the most creative work that I’ve seen.

Now, this particular print sample that I’m so excited about is for Zeb. Zeb is a brand of jeans. They’re based in Belgium and you’ll find them in malls and in standalone stores. They do all of the casual clothes you expect. They do Super Dry and they do Mungo and they do Jack Jones. Now, their challenge as a retailer is to try and bring people into the store. Zemeta’s challenge as their print provider is to help them showcase their brand.

In this particular case, Zemeta was challenged to come up with some new marketing device and the new marketing device they came up with was a custom magazine for each member of the Zeb loyalty program. Now, the Zeb loyalty program, it had been falling on sort of slow times. People weren’t signing up. The Zemeta people had to get creative and they did.

They created a magazine that used just seven data points. They used a name, they used a gender, they used where the person lived, and just a little bit of the buying history. Did they only buy for themselves? Did they buy for a family, so different sizes? Did they buy only women’s clothes? Did they buy men’s clothes? They sifted through all that data and they came up with a profile for each member of the loyalty program. Out of that was born the magazine.

Now, this is the magazine. This was actually version two. The first version was a customized newspaper. But for the magazine, they were able to really take it another step further. They were able to do really great image quality because they’re using some really great paper. They are printing this on a high-speed inkjet web press from HP, their T400 Series printer. They’re able to do great color management to ensure that brand colors are respected, logo colors are respected, and that the detail is so fine that you can even pick out the texture on the clothing.

For a print sample, and for an actual print marketing device, those are really key. Zemeta began using this as a print sample because it showcases everything they know how to do. They can help take customer data, they can turn it into a really great story, and then they can produce the printed product. This is personalized and you’ll see that this one is for Karl. He’s listed as man of the year. If you were a woman, you were listed as the woman of the year. Notice this one’s in French, this one’s in English. One of the data points was what your native language was or what your preferred marketing language was.

Here, Karl as man of the year is offered a number of special offers. He’s offered discounts on kinds of clothes that he’s most likely to buy. We know that Karl probably has a girlfriend because there are some women’s clothes in his edition. For Sandrine, hers is in French so we know she asked for her marketing material to be sent to her in French and we know that she’s probably very stylish and that, apparently, she has a boyfriend because there are some boys’ things in here, too.

Call your attention to a couple of things. This is printed in high-speed inkjet and this is a very black background. Remember that for both purposes of this piece, both as a marketing piece, it has to meet the brand requirement of showing the brand appropriately and practically, but it also has to be a great print sample for Zemeta so it has to have really amazingly perfect print quality. It does.

I think that as we go forward and we look at more print samples, both from Zemeta and from a whole raft of other print service providers that are sending us their samples to take a look at and vendors who are sending us their samples to take a look at, what you’re going to find is that we’ll be showcasing not only pieces like this, but we’ll be showcasing pieces that show different styles of marketing and different styles of printed communication. Not just magazines or newspapers or direct mail marketing or posters, but also folding carton boxes and even a little bit of digitally printed corrugated.

We hope you’ll come back for additional episodes as we roll them out to you. I’m Pat McGrew for Print Sample TV. Thanks for stopping by.