Come New Year, and you are greeted with a genre of usual questions like ‘Did you get your new year calendar?’ Getting hold of a new calendar has been the primary concern of people when a New Year starts.
Calendars serve different purpose for each individual. Some use it to take notes, mark appointments or as a daily reference to follow up commitments and tasks. Many companies consider it as part of their propaganda to enhance communication between their customers and as a commercial and marketing tool. For some, collecting calendars is a hobby just like collecting coins and postage stamps.
Fertile Season
For printing and advertising companies, printing calendars is a seasonal business, which usually starts with the beginning of a new calendar year or on the commencement of the Hijri year. During this period, competition escalates between printing and advertising companies in order to meet the needs of this large market, which comprises of government institutions, banks, universities, educational institutions etc.
So far there is no statistics or studies that have information about the value of calendar market in the Middle East. But it is estimated that business worth billions of dollars are done every year in this segment. Saudi Arabia tops the list in Middle East, with an average market of about US$ 300 million, according to market reports.
Recently, printing and advertising companies faced many challenges and obstacles due to the global recession. High price of paper and printing materials have reduced the demand of calendars. Fewer budgets for advertising and escalating growth of digital promotional tools were also the reason for the decline of the calendar market.
These challenges prompted many printing and advertising companies to come up with innovative ideas that would attract customers. Innovative designs, picturesque images and personalization features were introduced to maintain the pace of growth in this sector.
Calendars were printed on various substrates including leather and wood, and came with matt or sometimes glossy finish. ME Printer is investigating whether these changes have brought back the interest to the calendar market. We have tried to find an answer by zeroing in on the opinion of some major printing and advertising companies in the Middle East.
Demand still continues
There are varied forms of calendars printed every day. The average quantity of calendars that are ordered by companies usually range between 10,000 to 100,000 copies, especially for companies that have a large customer base. Some companies go commercial and put up the calendars for sale.
Farook A Rahimutulla, President of Farook International Stationery believes that the calendar and organizer market has maintained its growth rate over the years. He says that there hasn’t been any impact in the performance despite challenges and the changing circumstances in the region.
Farook confirmed that the rate of demand by customers on calendars and the company’s products have remained stable for a number of reasons, “Our growth rates have been stable because of the print quality that we offer, and the synchronization in our production and distribution facility. We serve various clients in more than 92 countries and all these years we have been able to maintain our price levels despite the competition.”
Farook adds that the demand for printed calendars still exists and that the company has recorded a positive rise in demand by delivering one million copies to its various clients. He added that 30 to 40% of the clients were from the Arab and African markets such as Mauritania, Tunisia, Morocco, Ethiopia and Ghana.
The company completes its printing process through its fleet of offset printing machines, which is located at its plant in Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai. They use Heidelberg Speed Master 4 colour machine, a GTO and the recently installed Heidelberg SM 52 4 colour machine.
Talking about the different types of calendars printed at the facility, Farooq said, “We print different types of calendars in various sizes and dimensions. We do calendars in English, Arabic, French, and Russian as well as some regional African languages such as Amharic of Ethiopia.”
He added, “The size of calendars printed range from A5 to A4 or even in smaller pocket editions. We also print organizers that help the client in assigning appointments and tasks to the calendar.”
Detailing about the trends in the market, he said, “Generally speaking there are two prevailing trends in the market. The first category prefers high end material and they focus on quality of printing, its finishing and the quality of consumables used in production. The second category of customers is those who require more than 10,000 copies and they mainly focus in quantity at an affordable price.”
Farook denied the idea that digital revolution is killing traditional print market. However he stated that new generation devices can pose a challenge depending upon the development in a country. He said that African countries still record the highest growth rate for calendars while there is a decline in demand in European markets.
He said, “In short-term there are no negative effects on the market but that does not make us turn a blind eye on the looming threats. We are aware of the influence of modern digital devices and are thinking of creating a package of products such as digital calendars and organizers to keep pace with the changing world.”
Farook added that the company is preparing for the coming season, and are working round the clock to meet the December 31 deadline. He pointed out that pressure mounts during the months of October, November and December when some customers make last minute changes in their artwork.”
Battle of presence
The new challenge for printers is to maintain the vitality of printed materials, amidst the threats posed by digital technology. Here, digital printing plays a vital role in meeting customer requirements, as offset presses have failed to a large extent to meet them. With demand for short run and print on demand jobs on the rise, digital printing has gained entry into the market place.
Perhaps, personalized calendars was a revolution in calendar printing market. Research has shown that adding a person’s name to a printed matter raises the response level by up to 44% and if you add colour to the name of the person, the response increases by up to 135%.
Sulaiman al Robaian, CEO of Al Robaian advertising, a leading advertising company in Saudi Arabia confirmed that digital printing has played an integral role in meeting calendar demands of customers, especially for printing small to medium quantities.
Sulaiman said that digital printing has strengthened the potential of the company in providing high quality products as well as in producing innovative ideas that attracted a wide spectrum of customers. Al Robaian uses a Xerox 7002 digital printing machine and a Konica Minolta C8000, which were installed last year. They deliver customized calendars to individuals as well as companies.
Sulaiman added, “If we compare our results with last year, we can say that there isn’t much decline in our business. On the contrary, we have recorded a slight growth in some new categories of calendars.”
He added that the average rate of calendars printed this year grossed 30,000 copies, with 150 calendars more or less.
Suleiman said, “Out of our experience in the market, we see that people use printed calendars along with digital calendars and digital applications on smart phones in a complementary way. In short term we do not expect any changes in the market, perhaps in the long term we may see some, though we don’t expect it to become a tangible reality.”
