Variable Digital Tax Mailings' Colours Spot On

The quality of a direct mail campaign printed on a HP Indigo 3050 press has helped to win a major new account for Prime Litho Printing Services.

The quality of a direct mail campaign printed on a HP Indigo 3050 press has helped to win a major new account for Prime Litho Printing Services.

Its new client, Mercia, had always used offset litho to print its range of communications material for accountants, but has now transferred its production of personalised tax cards to an HP Indigo digital press.

Jon Tolley, the managing director of Prime Litho said: "We distributed a personalised calendar to promote our latest investment in the HP Indigo press 3050 and to alert potential clients of the opportunities available with this facility.

The response was immediate.

A client who never believed digital could accurately match spot colours and meet the quality of offset was amazed at what was produced on the HP Indigo press 3050." Prime Litho has been commissioned to print a range of full-colour, personalised tax cards to be distributed in accordance with the government's annual budget to accountants nationwide.

The material is supplied as a resource to clients, and the front cover design is often tailored to match the accountancy firm's corporate identity.

"For that reason, we must be able to accurately match spot colours.

The customer had never been able to achieve this digitally before, but now with the six-colour HP Indigo 3050 we can use HP Indichrome on-press to reproduce these corporate colours easily and effectively," said Tolley.

In HP's opinion, what distinguishes Indigo digital printing from competitors is its ability to match offset in colour printing quality.

Adopting liquid HP Electro Ink results in rich, vibrant colour printing is claiomed to match up to 97 per cent of Pantone colours.

"Mercia recognised that HP Indigo digital printing offered a number of additional benefits.

We can now produce the personalised budget reports in short-runs, on-demand and have them dispatched to individual accountants the next day.

The job is very demanding with the press running for 24 hours-a-day over five days.

We needed a highly productive, reliable press to ensure the smooth running of the print operation, and we can be assured that the Indigo 3050 will not let us or our customers down." Prime Litho was established as an offset litho printer in 1988 but had become increasingly aware of the growing opportunities in digital printing over the past five years.

Tolley added: "We closely monitored the developments in the industry but we had never felt satisfied with the printing quality available until we received samples from the Indigo 3000 range.

The print quality was far superior, and with the ability to match corporate colours we knew we could offer our clients a whole new range of personalised digital services without compromising on our reputation for quality.

It seemed a natural progression to enhance our small format litho division and we have certainly enjoyed a steady growth in turnover since we purchased the 3050 last March.

Ultimately, what we can now offer our clients is a fully flexible service that can benefit the creative agencies and in turn the end-user." He commented that the Indigo 3050 had virtually limitless possibilities.

Creative agencies no longer had to restrict their designs according to print production requirements.

Tolley said that Prime Litho has been experimenting with different substrates, including 'flocked' paper with an aim to add to the impact of a campaign and the company's customers had been delighted with the results.

Paul Randall, the UK marketing manager for HP said: "Prime Litho has recognised the scope for flexibility with the Indigo 3050, which is essential in order to offer the broadest range of services to clients.

Rather than competing with litho, it can really complement a printer's business and open new doors in different markets.

The key to maximising return on investment is to generate awareness within target markets and Prime Litho has demonstrated that.".

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