4 questions with Massa
Hoshino
Hoshino, executive sales manager, North America, of Seiken
Graphics USA Inc., talks about why the Japanese vendor of press and press
accessories opened up an office in the United States and what it expects to
market.
Seiken
Graphics has manufactured newspaper printing presses and associated equipment
for decades. What are your top priorities in North America and why did you
decide to open up a U.S. marketing office?
Seiken’s primary goal is to
introduce the Super Panorama System to the North American newspaper market. The
SPS allows newspapers to print a 4-page-wide, 4-color center spread through the
use of a device that attaches to the press. Seiken Graphics in Japan originally
developed the system in 2000, and it wasn’t long before newspapers in
neighboring countries showed interest in the system.
Over the past year or so, we
have had conversations with many production managers interested in the SPS, and
we have demonstrated the product at the last few Nexpo conventions. To properly
serve the market, we wanted to establish an operational company in the United
States, complete with 24-hour phone support, sales and service representatives
and a technical sales manager.
That process is complete and
we have now opened a sales and service office in Phoenix.
What are some of the
benefits of SPS?
As newspapers grapple with the
economic challenges they face, they are searching for alternative ways to
attract new revenues and compete with alternative advertising opportunities
offered by other media.
The SPS, by enabling a
newspaper to produce what are, in effect, four broadsheet-page posters, allows
for a rather quick return on a newspaper’s investment. It attaches easily to
most presses, and it doesn’t require any expensive modifications. Another
benefit is that it provides a profound impact for the newspaper industry that
cannot be satisfied by other media, such as Internet, TV or magazines. More than
20 newspapers worldwide now use the SPS and they all report that ads produced
with the system yield much greater reader response. Here’s one example: One SPS
user, The Age and Sydney Herald in Sydney, Australia, landed an order from
Mitsubishi to produce 750,000 SPS posters to promote one of its automobiles. The
posters were then inserted into both papers.
What modifications, if
any, is Seiken planning to make to SPS and is Seiken planning to market any
other products to the North American market?
We aren’t planning at this
time to make any changes to the SPS. We will continue to market some of our
other newspaper press equipment to North American newspapers.
What are your perceptions
of the newspaper industry overall and how does your experience selling the SPS
and other Seiken products worldwide translate into selling equipment in North
America?
I believe the North American
newspaper market is looking for ways to find new revenues and is searching for
ways to regain some of their financial losses. We are meeting with a lot of
representatives and it’s been a great experience so far. It’s a small world
here, as it is in Japan, so we believe our sales and marketing experience there
will benefit our marketing efforts in the United States. Newspapers seem to be
generally interested, and we hope to continue to network and meet more people at
this year’s trade shows.
