EKTAB, the printing company, produces weekly newspapers, periodicals, direct mail and high quality magazines, some with coated covers, inner sections on stock with very high brightness (ISO 96), sometimes even with sections of four to eight pages on coated stock.

“Our idea is that the high-quality products with glossy covers give us the opportunity to act in a different segment and also in a much higher price scale then normal coldset products.” But one must be aware of the fact that the demands, both in overall quality and in consistency of quality, are also very much higher.

The Berliner format is an advantage because half Berliner can easily be trimmed to A4 size. “In this format, we find that heatset and gravure printers are our main competitors,” Mr. Brännlund says. “With our quality we are somewhere in the middle between coldset and heatset, but the production cost is less than for heatset.” Those jobs give them a better payback compared to coldset since the price is 1.5 to 2 times higher.

Short delivery and lead times are of high importance, he says. But he also sees a need to get involved in the sales process much earlier, when the product concept is first discussed. For this, he suggests producing many different samples that can be used when talking to customers. The printers should become consultants to their clients.

In his view, the biggest challenge is to find new customers and to learn how to approach them in the best way.

Mr. Brännlund shows a variety of print samples in different formats with different paper grades that attract a lot of attention among conference participants. One product may contain several sections of coldset and glossy parts, or include parts printed on a very white paper or very heavy paper.

The company's Müller Martini mailroom – which is equipped with buffer storage, rewinding, collating and trimming – plays an important part in this production.

Concluding his presentation, Mr. Brännlund says: “I am not too optimistic about circulation figures; they may decline further. However, the market wants print!”