Two T370HDs will expand the company’s high-quality, faster-to-market, personalised direct mail offering
HP has today announced that IVE Group (ASX: IGL) subsidiary Blue Star Direct has chosen to expand and upgrade its digital fleet in Sydney with a new HP PageWide Web Press T370HD, in response to increasing demand for agile and high-quality digital printing.
Blue Star’s previous HP PageWide Web Press T300 has been relocated from Sydney to its Clayton facility in Melbourne, where the press was upgraded to a T370HD. The upgrade process is unique to HP’s PageWide Web Press series, and enables 80 per cent of the parts and materials to be reused while increasing the lifespan of the press.
The acquisition and upgrade has equipped Blue Star with HP’s High-Definition Nozzle Architecture (HDNA) technology, while expanding Blue Star’s HP PageWide Web Press capability to Melbourne, allowing the company to expand its service offering and customer base, which already includes many of Australia’s leading financial and retail organisations.
The HP PageWide Web Press T370HD’s HDNA technology empowers Blue Star to close the gap between conventional commercial printing and traditional inkjet production capability. Supported by a complete commercial printing production line, inclusive of inline priming, post coating and automated sheeting, the HDNA technology enables Blue Star to print on a wide variety of uncoated and coated substrates with top-of-class productivity and efficiency.
The acquisition comes eight years after the company became a pioneer HP inkjet customer in Australia, with its 2011 purchase of the HP PageWide Web Press T300. It says the decision to continue its long standing partnership with HP came down to quality, speed, and unique differentiation.
“Since 2011, we have used the high-quality output of HP PageWide technology, and its 30-inch print format, as a point of difference in the market, and we have enjoyed a lot of success as a result,” said David Veness, Group General Manager, Blue Star Direct. “This upgrade will deliver even greater print speeds, higher quality printing, and better performance through a combination of hardware and software upgrades.”
This collaboration has enabled Blue Star to become a market leader in direct mail – a marketing channel the company says has experienced a resurgence in popularity, with a 2018 Roy Morgan Research report finding that close to 70% of Australians read catalogues.
“The wealth of customer data now available to businesses, in conjunction with advancements in digital printing technologies, has fostered a renaissance in direct mail marketing,” said Veness. “With HP PageWide technology, we can create highly personalised and targeted marketing campaigns, which deliver a far greater return on our customers’ marketing investment.”
Digital printing is increasingly being utilised for print jobs traditionally dominated by offset printing, like direct mail, for its flexibility and customisability. In North America, 60 per cent of direct mail is forecast to be produced by digital printing by 2020, up from just 45 per cent in 2015.
“As direct marketing continues to trend towards data-driven personalisation, printing service providers require presses that offer mass customisation at a competitive cost, and on a variety of media options,” said Michael Gillis, Country Manager, HP Indigo and PageWide Industrial, HP South Pacific. “The HP PageWide Web Press T370HD delivers on each of these demands, while also offering outstanding image quality and enhanced productivity.”
HP’s PageWide Web Press solutions are ideal for personalised direct mail campaigns, but are also being utilised around the world for high-volume commercial printing, publishing, and corrugated packaging applications.
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