Drupa markets itself to a wider audience

Print buyers are being specially targeted at next year's drupa.

Organisers have announced plans for drupacube, an event focussing on market-driven applications for printed products and the technology that makes this possible.

"The drupacube acts as a portal for print buyers by serving up concise infotainment on all things print communications and guiding them to exhibitors' stands," said Manuel Mataré, drupa project director.

Despite the fact that most printing jobs are marketing material, the two very seldom join forces. Mataré hopes that drupacube will show the likes of marketing and publishing directors, production managers, account executives and creative directors the potential of using print in the marketing mix.

"With this tool, we intend to attract print buyers to drupa in greater numbers," he said. "Undoubtedly, many of the exhibitors also have offerings catering to this target group. But at a technology fair of drupa's kind, this type of information is often in danger of being drowned out."

To give the print buyer group as much time as possible to digest the information available, each day will deal with issues facing different groups. "We plan to engage people in the topics they have to deal with every day," Mataré said.

A number of organisations such as German Direct Marketing Association - DDV, Forum Corporate Publishing (FCP) and media production association (f:mp) have already committed to the project, with a number of newspaper, magazine and free sheet publishers also showing support.