Business Solutions Division of Canon Canada, NAPL and WhatTheyThink Present Webinar Highlighting Opportunities in Digital Print

Industry expert and thought leader Barb Pellow provided view on market growth, trends, and future directions

April 17, 2008 -- Lexington, Kentucky USA -- WhatTheyThink.com reported that more than 450 industry professionals registered for a free printing industry educational webinar held April 16th, which offered an expert view on market growth, trends and future directions for the print-on-demand industry. Why Digital? Why Now?, led by industry expert Barbara A. Pellow, Director of the Business Development and Custom Communications Services for research firm InfoTrends, was sponsored by the Business Solutions Division of Canon Canada, Inc. and presented in conjunction with NAPL.

The free session archive is available by clicking here.

“It is time to ride the digital color tornado,” said Pellow.  “There are so many new applications for digital color printing, like photo books, custom publishing and transpromotional printing, and many are emerging all the time.  Digital color provides the highest revenue opportunity for printers in today’s market. By participating in the lucrative marketing value chain, helping marketers launch communications campaigns that cut through the clutter, printers can benefit from this opportunity to solidify customer relationships and improve margins.”

Pellow has proven to be one of WhatTheyThink’s most popular webinar hosts, with hundreds of printing executives regularly attending her webinars and accessing the archived material for later review. She provided an overview of the print-on-demand market during the session by:

• Defining the market, from quick-turnaround, short run, digital printing in production environments to targeted, custom, or fully-personalized messages delivered through cross-media programs;
• Illustrating how print on demand product and service developments are changing the printing market; and
• Providing an expert view on market growth, trends, and future directions.

“Although color digital printing has been in the market for more than a decade,” said Randy Davidson, President, WhatTheyThink, “there is still a need for more education. This session provided a terrific information infrastructure for those looking for the best ways to grow their businesses through the deployment of digital solutions, and in fact, more than 450 printing professionals from around the world registered for this event. We are pleased that Canon Canada chosento sponsor this important educational event, allowing us to bring it to our audience free of charge, and we encourage folks to visit the WhatTheyThink webinar archive to listen to the program if they were unable to attend it live.”

The archive for this session, and a library of other interesting and educational web seminars, can be accessed by visiting WhatTheyThink.com and selecting the Webinars tab.

About the Business Solutions Division of Canon Canada, Inc.

Headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canon Canada employs 1,400 people at its offices nation-wide, servicing the Canadian market from coast to coast. Innovation and cutting-edge technology have been essential ingredients in Canon's success. Canon's leadership in imaging, optical and document management technology and solutions is based in large part on the thousands of patents the company has secured throughout its history. For the 16th consecutive year, Canon Inc. is among the top three U.S. patent recipients.Business Solutions Division (BSD) is the direct sales operation of Canon Canada Inc., delivering superior imaging technology and value to the Canadian marketplace through our consultative sales approach, customer care, after-market support and partnerships. Supported by a foundation of innovative technology, BSD is uniquely positioned to offer you the widest range of business imaging solutions. From small businesses to large enterprise environments with multiple branches across the country, BSD will provide national sales, installation and support services for Canon’s entire line of networked imaging devices.For more information, visit www.canon.ca

About NAPL

A not-for-profit trade association serving companies in the $100 billion+ printing and graphic communications industry, NAPL offers a comprehensive slate of business-building solutions that provides company leaders with the strategies, insights, and guidance they can use to make informed business decisions, minimize risk, anticipate change, and profitably grow their business.

For more information, visit www. NAPL.org.

WhatTheyThink.com is the printing and publishing industry's leading online media organization; offering a wide range of publications delivering unbiased, real-time market intelligence, industry news, economic and trend analysis, peer-to-peer communication, and special reports on emerging technology and critical events. Serving a membership base of more than 50,000, WhatTheyThink.com also hosts webinars and live events as well as providing content through a syndication program, which delivers content directly to related websites and through RSS.

Barbara Pellow recently assumed responsibility for the development and delivery of two new services at InfoTrends specifically focused on the evolution fo the Graphic Communications Market – The Business Development Service and Custom Communications Service. Pellow has served in a number of roles including the Chief Marketing Officer of Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group. In the role of Chief Marketing Officer, Pellow was responsible for all marketing activities for the division, including marketing communications, public relations, marketing intelligence and advertising strategy. She was an active participant in developing business strategy and helping define the group’s go-to-market organizational structure.

Prior to joining Kodak, Pellow was the Gannett chair in integrated publishing sciences in Rochester Institute of Technology’s (RIT) School of Printing Management and Sciences (SPMS). She has also held senior marketing roles at IKON Office Solutions, InfoTrends, Xerox and IBM.

Pellow can be reached at barb_pellow@infotrends.com.

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