With Milan and the Print4All Conference, printing has a new perspective.
From the city capital of the Lombardy Region in Northern Italy, Milan hosted the 2017 edition of the prolific Print4All Conference.
In cooperation with the Italian Trade Agency in Amman, Jordan, Venture visited Italy’s main industrial and financial capital to attend the Print4All Conference which was held between September 11 and 13 at the FieraMilano, one of Europe’s largest permanent trade exhibitions.
Milan is Italy’s main industrial and financial capital and corporation hub, home to some of the largest companies in the world. It is currently a leading global city, with strengths in almost every sector such as arts, commerce, design, education, industry, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, services, research, and tourism.
The city has long been called the fashion capital of the world and the world’s design capital. It hosted several multinational events and fairs like Milan Fashion Week and the Milan Furniture Fair, which are currently the biggest in terms of revenue and capital growth.
But with the Print4All organizers’ vision, Milan will also become the printing capital of the world. The teamwork by ACIMGA- through its operational branch CPA-ARGI, Assografici, Assocarta (all members of the Federation of Paper and Graphics), the Italian Packaging Institute with the support of ICE, the Italian trade agency, and Fiera Milano- laid an excellent foundation for Print4All. The lively discussion was marked by the two-day event combined with top-notch technology solutions.
From B2B to B2C, the business landscape covers all points-of-sale, shelf, and large-scale retailing needs. Going upstream in the supply chain, it impacts creativity, technology and machinery manufacturers. The market share held by the graphics and printing industry, including publishing, is estimated to be nearly 23 billion Euros a year.
The meeting was attended by over 600 registered members as the entire graphic, printing and communication industry was present, thus marking a significant step towards the Print4All exhibition, slated for May 2018.
A wealth of content and high-quality discussion was the main feature of the event, which presented printing applications for the pre-sale, in-store product and after-sale phases of the customer purchase journey.
KEY NOTE SPEAKERS
“In order to change, you need to have the courage to question your own status quo. It’s not possible to be both innovative and safe at the same time. We cannot innovate by looking backwards, but only by looking forwards“. – Oliviero Toscani
“Print4All will place strong emphasis on the best of ‘made by Italy’”–stated ACIMGA President Aldo Peretti.
“Print4All Conference showed once again how much the market needs discussion and guidance at this time of dramatic change. The exhibition project is designed to provide an answer to this need, and the first step is listening to the market and the industry.”- Giuseppe Garri, Print4All Exhibition Manager, Fiera Milano.
“The success of the two meeting days– concludes Peretti–justifies the highest expectations for our mission – hold a huge exhibition in 2018 capable of differentiating and playing a primary role on the global market.”
“Paper always works, but we need to promote printed products to make them special and interactive, focusing on the ‘wow’ factor. With this in mind, in order to launch the new 3D TV, we created a brochure that could be read wearing 3D glasses. A simple brochure thereby became a means for generating a unique experience“. – Arianna Bartoli, Euronics
“When it comes to in-store communication, it’s often the packaging that makes the difference. Subsequently, it’s important that we develop different solutions for different products, from the green packaging for organic pasta to tactile, audio and visual effects”. – Laurette De Franco, Barilla
“Paper is making a comeback, but it has a new role. It becomes a kind of interactive and personalizable touch screen that forms a special connection with the customer“. – Federico Tornielli, PRT Group
This conference is capable of involving and exciting the entire community of brand owners, communication agencies, opinion makers and print professionals, from technical and technological experts to creators of solutions capable of winning shelf and market share. What’s important is having the courage to change and perhaps even take risks, choosing new solutions that transform the traditional brochure into a means to access 3D experiences, pizza packaging into a DJ’s decks and the wallpaper of a child’s room into an “interactive storyteller.” These were just some of the examples mentioned at the Print4All Conference, which provided the printing world with a taste of what Print4All 2018 will be like.
In simple words, Milan has always been home to innovation and creativity and with the Print4All Conference, there will always be innovative and creative ways of looking at the printing industry.
