Photo products
Guest Author: Richard Askam, Founder of Print Island
Every industry needs storytellers, and few tell the story of personalization better than Richard Askam. The visionary behind Print Island and a driving force behind campaigns like “Share a Coke,” Richard has helped shape how brands connect with people in more personal, meaningful ways.
As one of Mediaclip’s personalization ambassador, follow Richard on our blog as he will share his insights, ideas, and inspiration to help bridge creativity, technology, and personalization.
It’s been a long, hot, and surprisingly introspective summer in the UK. As we head into what I hope will be an equally glorious fall, it’s time to reflect on a significant but predictable change that is now becoming the new normal.
Earlier in September, I spoke with Jon Baily, CEO of Precision ProCo, one of the UK’s largest on demand-print businesses. I asked if he’d managed a summer break. His answer was quite telling: “ I’ve never been busier, in fact I had to check the calendar to make sure it was August and not December.”
That exchange said everything. Demand for personalized printed products is driving supply these days. Its no longer seasonal, it is constant. Consumers who once lay quietly on their summer sunbeds are still doing the same, but now with a smartphone strapped their hand, designing and ordering all manner of personalized things.
We’ve reached an inflexion point: the shift from B2C to C2B, where consumers, not brands, are driving the market. As a result, those print businesses that pivoted early toward print on-demand production are now winning.
For the past 10 years, I’ve talked about the power of personalization and assumed it would continue to be led by brands and manufacturers. But that era has passed. The new wave of creators, empowered by generative AI and intuitive leading software design platforms like Mediaclip are proving that personalization belongs to everyone.
Print on Demand was about production. Personalization on Demand is about connection.
The time has come to start thinking from the bottom up rather than the top down. Not long ago, big manufacturers sold their million-dollar grey boxes to printers, promising endless production possibilities. Printers, in turn, invested in SaaS-based software solutions so that they could take advantage of automation and print on demand. We all assumed this would drive the brands to create ever more exciting products for consumers to personalize.
But the reality has flipped. Today, the consumer is the creator, using intuitive, intelligent software to design their own products and send millions of personalized orders directly to printers, who are now the ones ordering more million-dollar grey boxes to keep up with demand! The outcome is the same, but the direction has completely changed: Print on Demand has been superseded by Personalization on Demand!
So, as we move into this new season, one question remains: Will our industry stay in production—or step fully into personalization?
Share
