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A Digital Domain
Computers continue to revolutionize all manner of communications concerns
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Business New Haven
5/4/1999
By: Susan Banfield
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It is a generally accepted truism that when advertising agencies start to look healthier, it's a sign the economy as a whole is picking up.
And that is certainly the state of affairs in Connecticut today. The economy is healthier, and as a result advertising agencies are doing better. The advertising and marketing budgets that were the first things to be trimmed when times got tight are now being pumped up anew.
Evidence of this industry upswing can be seen in the increase in the number of awards being conferred this year by the Advertising Club of Connecticut. There is no predetermined number of awards; they are given as merited, according to Lawrence Marks, president of MCS Advertising in Hartford and chairperson of the awards show. This year there will be 96 awards, compared to 81 last year - which was considered a banner year.
How these new advertising dollars are being spent varies tremendously, depending on the different marketing strategies of different industries and companies. One trend that is evident across the board, however, is that the use of print media is down somewhat, and the use of the Internet and, to a degree, broadcast media are up.
One reason for this is that consumers are reading newspapers less and getting more of their news from radio and TV. Cable TV especially is becoming a smart investment for advertisers, since it is easy to target very specific markets using cable.
But a more obvious reason for this change is simply the phenomenal growth of the Internet. Today, although the Internet is still an uncharted frontier, most companies feel that some sort of Web presence is a necessity.
As a result, most advertising agencies in the state are involved in Web site design and other commercial uses of the Internet to at least an extent. Many agencies are doing this entirely in-house, as well, according to Alan Hutchings, president of Barbeau-Hutchings Advertising in Milford. Those who do so realize, as Hutchings says, that “This is a very dynamic area, and to keep up you have to be involved on a daily basis.”
However, a sizable number of firms do not handle the technical development of Web sites and the like directly, preferring not to take on responsibility for the considerable technical expertise that is required in to do so. Some larger firms have actually bought Web design firms, and smaller agencies may outsource this work to such firms.
“In most cases a marketing company has already developed a strategy before they come to us,” says Jared Schmitt, a partner in Innovative Internet Marketing Solutions, which designs Web sites and handles other aspects of a client's Internet presence.
One indication of the increase in commercial use of the Web is the tremendous growth Web design companies are experiencing. Innovative Internet Marketing Solutions, for example, recently doubled its sales, and this year expects revenues actually to exceed that growth.
While a Web site is the most common commercial use of the Internet, a number of other uses are fast gaining prominence. One that is growing apace is electronic commerce. As consumers become more confident of the security of the Internet, more and more companies are setting up their Web sites so that users can browse for goods, use an electronic “shopping cart” to make purchases, and then leave their billing and shipping information. Electronic commerce is even making a dent in the business-to-business marketplace, according to Wil Bradford, president of Bradford Advertising in New Haven.
Other growing uses of electronic media include interactive disk presentations, or electronic brochures. These are used both as mailers and for presentations to clients or stockholders. According to studies, says Hutchings, electronic brochures get a 40- to 50-percent response rate, as opposed to a 0.5 to 1.5 percent response rate for direct mail.
Despite the increased use of the Internet and other electronic media, the printing industry around the state has also picked up, and is almost completely recovered from the recession of 1989-91, when the industry lost about one third of its volume. Although there have been few new shops among the 700 or so around the state, neither have there been many foldings recently.
Printing is one of Connecticut's older industries. The local professional association, the Printing Industry of Connecticut Inc. (PIC), for example, traces its origins to the 1880s. The industry has seen tremendous changes over the decades: the switch from letterpress to offset, the demise of typesetting and the introduction of desktop publishing. Currently, it too is being deeply affected by the growth of computerization.
Computers have led to huge changes in how work is done in print shops. Not long ago clients brought in designs on mechanicals. A negative was made from the mechanical, which was then “stripped up” and transposed to a metal or paper plate by another photographic process, and this plate was in turn mounted on a press and readied for printing.
Today, close to 90 percent of clients bring in work on disks or send it to the printer electronically. Often, computers can output film (the negative) directly from a disk, eliminating the need for a camera shot. Some computerized processors output it already in position for platemaking, greatly reducing strippers' work. In some shops, it is even possible to go directly from disk to plate.
The latest technology is a fully computerized machine that goes from electronic file directly to the plate cylinder, bypassing even the plate stage. These more advanced technologies, especially the latter, are found primarily in larger shops; smaller printers still use negatives and plates. Still, these are changes that are coming.
Color separations, traditionally an involved, three-hour process that was handled by independent service bureaus, have become vastly easier due to improvements in scanners. Now separations can be done in a fraction of an hour. Increasingly, print shops are installing their own scanners, and service bureaus are losing volume.
So far, despite the increased use of computers in their business, printers are seldom involved in producing images for the Web. This is because the language involved is very different from the Quark or Pagemaker used in desktop publishing, says Leigh Dannenberg of Graphic Image in Milford. Some programs are beginning to appear that can translate between the two; but, says Dannenberg, it is still a “queasy move.”
Still, this is surely something to watch for in the future, as computers continue to revolutionize the communications field.
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