Blog Archives - Mimeo HubCast

Print is NOT Dead: Can Print Be Green? Yes!

Posted by Sean Doherty on October 30, 2015

Note: This is part of a Blog Series entitled: Print is NOT Dead.

We have all seen variations of this message. “Think Before You Print” or “Think Before You Print this Email.” The goal of this message is to get people to print less in order to save the environment. But is it true? Based on the research outlined below, probably not. Many people feel guilty for printing out paper, but I am here to tell you that you shouldn’t. I have put together some guidelines regarding how you print that can enable you to be a good, sustainable printer. While many people generally believe that printing is not sustainable, the truth is that by following these guidelines, you can easily make smart green choices about printing. Read More…

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Print is NOT Dead: 4 Reasons Why Millennials Prefer Print (Inspired by Amy Schumer)

Posted by Sean Doherty on October 27, 2015

Note: This is part of a Blog Series entitled: Print is NOT Dead.

Amy Schumer is a Millennial as a result of being born in 1981. She is also one of the hottest comedians on the planet and recently, I was lucky enough to see her stand-up act. Glancing around the dark auditorium, I realized I was surrounded by millennials. You know, that generation of twenty-somethings and early thirty-somethings who have never known a world without computers, who grew up with email, who first posted on Facebook before graduating from college.

Many assumptions about this group are stated as gospel – we think they live their entire lives in cyberspace and experience everything through screens rather than in real life. But I noticed that the millennials around me were not holding up their phones, not texting, not tweeting during the show. In fact, I was the one doing all those things, while they watched, listened, and laughed. It made me wonder what other assumptions we’re getting wrong. Read More…

Posted in Blog | Tagged amy schumer, print, print is NOT dead | 2 replies

Print is NOT Dead: 5 Reasons Why Print is Important for Marketers

Posted by Sean Doherty on October 23, 2015

Note: This is part of a Blog Series entitled: Print is NOT Dead.

I don’t know about you, but I argue constantly with my friends and family about print vs. digital. They wave their tablets or Kindles at me and assert that print is dead, but I love holding paper in my hands while reading, whether it’s magazines and books for pleasure or articles and white papers for work. During these arguments, I often make claims that printed paper provides substantial advantages over digital – and here’s the proof to back it up. Read More…

Posted in Blog | Tagged marketers, print, print is NOT dead | No replies

Print and Digital: A Marketing Match Made in “The Matrix”

Posted by Sean Doherty on October 20, 2015

Red pill or blue pill?

This is your last chance, Neo.

Inspired by this famous scene from the movie the Matrix, our marketing Morpheus offers you two choices: you can use either print or digital for your marketing campaigns. Not both. After this, there is no turning back.

You take the blue pill and the story ends; you wake up in your bed and believe that digital marketing is the only way your business can survive in the future.

You take the red pill and you get to learn how useful print collateral is for your business on its own.

But what if we told you there was a third choice?

You can take both of the pills and use digital and print marketing together to better reach the collective consumer consciousness worldwide.

Mind. Blown. Read More…

Posted in Blog | Tagged digital, print, printing | No replies

A Global Marketer’s Dream: Print That is Good, Cheap and Fast

Posted by Sean Doherty on October 14, 2015

In the past, marketers were often presented options when ordering print that forced them to choose to sacrifice either the product quality, the delivery time or the budget.

As the old saying goes, “Good, cheap, fast. Pick two.”

If a marketer wanted to guarantee high-quality marketing collateral and have it delivered quickly, the budget was blown on expedited shipping.
If marketer wanted to get the print on budget and on time, printing in country was often the only option, but quality was usually suspect.
If the marketer wanted to get it there with high quality and on budget, shipping on a slow boat was the only option.

With growing technological advances and the increasing global aspirations of businesses, “picking two” is no longer necessary—or acceptable. Global marketers want more when it comes to print collateral, and they can get it with HubCast. Read More…

Posted in Blog | Tagged printing, quality | No replies

Dabbawalas: Delivery Excellence

Posted by Sean Doherty on October 08, 2015

In 2010, Harvard Business School’s Stefan Thomke and Mina Sinha chose to study India’s dabbawalas.

What are dabbawalas, you ask? The literal translation is “lunch carriers,” who bring over 200,000 home-cooked meals to the hungry workforces of Mumbai and then back home. What makes them extraordinary enough to garner Harvard’s interest? Besides the fact that a wife can cook her husband a meal that is delivered hot from her kitchen, they boast an error rate of 1 per every 16 million transactions.

While it is very difficult to verify the accuracy of such claim, that error rate is far better Six Sigma accuracy. Actually, it is about 50 times better. Six Sigma accuracy states that a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities.

No matter the actual error rate, this is a tremendous business feat that is accomplished with no technology and 5,000 workers of whom a majority can’t read.

Impressive. Read More…

Posted in Blog | Tagged dabbawala, delivery, printing | No replies

What the “Back to the Future” Movie Teaches Us About Printer’s Remorse

Posted by Sean Doherty on October 02, 2015

Ever wish you had Marty McFly’s time-machine DeLorean and could go back in time to keep yourself from making a huge print marketing mistake?

At one point in their career, most marketers have experienced the feeling that we at HubCast like to call “printer’s remorse.” It’s the hollow, face-palm feeling you get when you order a big run of print marketing collateral that doesn’t arrive on time for the event. Or it does arrive on time, but a day after it arrives, something changes with your branding which makes all the printed collateral worthless.

So unless you have a time machine that will allow you to go back in time, what can you do to ensure you don’t feel printer’s remorse in the future? HubCast offers marketers the opportunity to avoid reliving their past mistakes and embrace the future of printing. Here are some of the lessons of the movie which demonstrate how to avoid printer’s remorse. Read More…

Posted in Blog | Tagged print, printer's remorse, printing, time travel | No replies

HubCast Is Sustainable.

Posted by Sean Doherty on September 30, 2015

Today, we announced that our company had reduced global carbon expenditure by 600 tons of CO2 since 2010 by routing our customers’ global printing as close as possible to their intended destination. To mark this occasion, we have added a carbon counter to our HubCast homepage tracking our progress. We are very proud of this accomplishment. To be able to contribute to global sustainability efforts and help save the environment in addition to making our customers’ lives easier by streamlining the print process is very satisfying. But, that is only part of the story.

On average, every year, HubCast saves around 104 metric tons (230,000 lbs) of CO2 and other harmful emissions from entering the atmosphere. This is the same as taking 21 mid-size American cars off the road each year. Ironically, HubCast has 21 employees who drive to work, so I guess this helps in our goal to become carbon neutral. Read More…

Posted in Blog | Tagged carbon, green, printing, sustainable | No replies

What Does Our HP Indigo 10000 Press Expansion Mean For Our Customers?

Posted by Sean Doherty on August 11, 2015

Here at HubCast, we have always strived to give our customers global reach, unsurpassed quality and lightning fast speed while making global printing as cost effective as possible. It is with that vision in mind that makes our announcement today so fulfilling.

HubCast now has HP Indigo 10000 printers in eight global locations: USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, UK, Turkey and Israel. The B2 (29-inch) format HP Indigo 10000 Digital Press produces virtually any commercial print job—with Indigo quality, substrate versatility and production flexibility. Read More…

Posted in Blog | Tagged HP, HP 10000, presses, print, printing | No replies

Red is Red, Right? How is your Global Print Quality?

Posted by Sean Doherty on May 13, 2015

Wrong.

And Maybe Not So Good.

Who can measure the power of an instantly recognizable brand? McDonalds is easily identifiable across the globe as yellow arches on a red background. Not just any red, though. It’s hexadecimal dd1021.

Some may be quick to dismiss this type of branding consistency as being overly critical, but it can impact the reason global consumers choose their product.

Recent branding research from Harvard Business Review involving 3,300 consumers in 41 countries found that differences in a brands’ global qualities directly influence people choosing one global brand over another. Uniform printed materials in each country can mean the difference between a sale and a client skipping to someone else, even subconsciously. Read More…

Posted in Blog | Tagged global printing, print, print quality | No replies