Postal Reform, Politics, and the Search for a "Tangible Goal": A Candid Conversation with Ben Cooper of The Print Council

By Cary Sherburne, Senior WTT Editor

August 14, 2006 -- What’s been going on since Ben Cooper took over as executive director of The Print Council in January 2006? WhatTheyThink recently spoke with Ben to get the latest update.

WTT: Ben, thanks for taking the time to speak with us today. We haven’t seen a lot of news out of The Print Council of late and wanted to get an update as to what you have been up to, both with The Print Council and in other roles, if any.

BC: The Print Council is one of my clients, and the executive director role is not full-time for me, although it is a big part of what I do. Among other things, I manage the coalition that oversees lobbying on the Postal Reform Bill, as well as do work with the DMA and NAPL.

WTT: Let’s talk about your work on the Postal Reform Bill first, and then get an update on The Print Council. First, why should our readers care about the Postal Reform Bill?

BC: The U.S. Postal Service is the single biggest distributor of print in the country. If the Postal Service goes away for any reason, what happens to direct mail, financial services mail, etc.? This is a very serious issue for printing. It is amazing to me the number of printers that don’t grasp the relationship between print sales and the distribution channels.

WTT: Why should we even consider the possibility that the Postal Service would go away, or become diminished?

BC: The legal basis for having a Postal Service in the first place is the delivery of First Class mail, and the volume of First Class mail is declining practically every day. If the volumes decline enough, there may not be a justification for continuing to deliver advertising mail. If you don’t have delivery of advertising mail by the Postal Service, there are relatively few private couriers that are cost effective for delivering advertising mail. When you start eroding advertising by mail, that could shift an awful lot of advertising into electronic media, which would be devastating for the printing industry.

The industry could never make up for that loss. Yes, you would continue to have print—POS, packaging—but the magazine industry as we know it would virtually disappear, as would a lot of direct mail. I am not sure where print would pick that volume back up. I haven’t had anyone give me a good answer to that yet.

WTT: So what is the deal with the Postal Reform Bill?

BC: If it doesn’t go through there will be some very unhappy people in the printing industry. The single biggest element in this legislation for the entire mailing industry, printers included, is the establishment of a cap on postage rates tied to the consumer price index. That would mean that a class of mail could not increase by more than the CPI. The logic is to give a measure of predictability to mailing costs going forward so that companies planning to launch a new magazine title or a direct mail campaign would be able to do so with some comfort that the rate increases would not be significantly different from CPI going forward. Absent that, we see wide ranges of increases for different types of mailing.

The cap would encourage mailers and advertisers to stay in the mail stream, and it would also encourage the Postal Service to look more at its cost structure for meeting its future financial demands rather than approaching it from a rate structure perspective. The bill has passed the House and Senate, and is just waiting for the conference to resolve the differences in the House and Senate versions.

WTT: If it has passed both houses, what is the problem with the conference resolution?

BC: It has not proven as easy as we had hoped. The other party in this discussion is the White House. The Senate and the White House are in some agreement, and the House in somewhat less agreement. The major difference is over the rate cap, which, for us, is the heart of the bill. The leading Democrat on the House committee, Henry Waxman, a Democrat from California, does not believe in rate caps. He bases his point of view on the effect of rate caps on the California utilities. But, of course, utilities are different than the Postal Service, because for many mailers, the Postal Service is optional and utilities are not. Without a firm rate cap, very few mailers care whether this bill passes because there is not much in it for them without the cap.

WTT: We will keep our fingers crossed. Now let’s turn to The Print Council. What is new there?

BC: As I mentioned the last time we spoke, my activities with The Print Council have been divided into three areas as directed by the Board. One was to get us established as a legal entity. That includes filing of the proper IRS documents, filing our taxes, and a lot of boilerplate stuff the government requires, including by-laws, rules of operation, etc. This took more time than expected but is virtually complete now.

The bigger, more important thing is to determine what the tangible goal of The Print Council is. One of the things I did in the early stages is revitalize the marketing committee, which has started meeting again under the leadership of Gina Testa from Xerox. We have refocused our attention on developing, in time for Graph Expo, a marketing toolkit, a printed piece that will be something akin to a substantial pocket folder which has core marketing data that can be used by the industry to educate their customers, potential customers and media decision makers about where print fits in the marketing mix. Over time, it can include white papers and other materials such as USPS marketing information to support the argument for the effectiveness of print. We have retained RIT to collect and compile the research. This relationship also gives us access to research developed under Sloane Foundation with RIT.

WTT: Beyond this initial kit, what do you have planned in terms of deliverables?

BC: We will probably develop an ongoing relationship with the Sloane Foundation at some level. In the next few years, The Print Council may focus on acting as a clearinghouse for market data and information, and print effectiveness data and information, made available in a way people can have access to it. That is what people are telling us they want to see.

WTT: What is the third area?

BC: The third element is creating more interest in The Print Council among printers. I have been reluctant to go out and recruit new members until I felt we had something tangible to recruit with. We are now in the process of encouraging printing companies to join The Print Council so we can develop the resources to create this clearinghouse. Until you can run an ad that drives people someplace where they can get information, advertising The Print Council and its efforts doesn’t do a lot of good.

WTT: And if you don’t success in generating an appropriate level of interest among printers?

BC: If printers don’t support The Print Council, it will not survive. People are enthusiastic, but printers have to step up and participate. We want them to look at it as not just another trade association, but as a means to get access to this new marketing information which is not available through trade associations. If people believe they are getting something tangible and beneficial, they will support it financially.

WTT: Where at Graph Expo will people be able to see this kit?

BC: Exhibitors who are Print Council members will have samples of the kits in their booths. We are not producing enough for everyone, because that would obviously be beyond our financial means at this point. But members will have both samples and flyers about the kit that we hope will help us in recruiting members and stepping up the level of interest in our work.

WTT: Ben, thanks for speaking with us. We will look forward to seeing the reaction at Graph Expo and hearing more about future Print Council plans.

This Interview was conducted by Cary Sherburne. She can be reached via email at cary@sherburneassociates.com, online at www.sherburneassociates.com and by telephone at 603-430-5463.

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