Print and Beyond: drupa Communications

Read the campaign story

Ricoh’s 2013 retrospective describes its 2012 drupa communications under Print and Beyond, within the wider imagine.change. messaging. The programme included a pre-event virtual briefing, communication during the show and a subsequent online discussion. These connected stages form one case, grouped with the theme’s related event expressions rather than counted as individual activations.

The company release contains award and engagement claims, but this study does not adopt them as independent evidence that customers understood or bought the services. Its publication year is not the event year. The useful decision is how to make a trade-show conversation continue across time without confusing communication volume, attendance or social reactions with meaningful progress in a business buying process.

Editorial interpretation: an event can serve as a meeting point in a longer explanation rather than a self-contained burst of promotion. Beforehand, people need a reason to pay attention; during it, they need concrete examples; afterwards, they may need unresolved questions answered. Those are different jobs. Repeating the same announcement in several channels creates distribution, but does not necessarily create an informative sequence.

Editorial interpretation: a business platform about expanding beyond a familiar category needs especially clear examples. A broad promise of transformation can leave buyers unsure what is actually available or relevant to them. The communications should connect each example with a specific question while keeping ambition separate from demonstrated capability. A virtual briefing is useful only when people can understand the offer without needing the theatre of the exhibition floor.

Give each event phase a distinct information job

Write the question a reader should be able to answer before, during and after the event. Remove material that appears in every phase without adding meaning. In a paper walkthrough, show the stages separately and ask what changed in the reader’s understanding. This reveals whether the sequence provides useful progression or merely asks people to repeatedly encounter the same corporate message.

Use examples to bound a broad platform

Translate an abstract promise into a clearly described customer situation, a limited service response and an explicit boundary. Avoid treating a demonstration as proof that every implementation will succeed. Ask reviewers what additional information they would need for their own organisation. The communication should help them formulate those questions rather than make the broader platform sound like a universal answer to unrelated business problems.

Design follow-up around unresolved questions

A post-event conversation should not assume that everyone attended or remembers the original briefing. Provide a concise recap and an understandable route to the relevant details. In a concept review, include people who see only the final stage. If they cannot participate meaningfully, the follow-up is too dependent on insider context. Measure clarification of questions instead of treating every reaction as evidence of commercial intent.

A small test for another brief

Proposed adaptation: draft three paper communications for a fictional stationery-service demonstration: an advance explanation, a concrete example and a post-event question summary.

Measure whether reviewers understand the offer at each stage, identify its limitations and know which question to ask next. Compare the staged account with three repetitions of a single announcement using the same facts. Include a reviewer who enters only at the final stage. Retain the sequence if it creates clearer progression without implying purchase readiness, attributing sales to engagement or making attendance necessary for basic understanding.

Stop if the sequence inflates engagement into buying intent, obscures service limitations or excludes people who missed the event.

• Use a fictional service and paper messages.
• Include a late-entry reader.
• Send no invitations and collect no business leads.