In this article, we talk to Richard Romano of WhatTheyThink and get a view of the story behind WhatTheyThink and the inside track on how the US market is coping during the COVID-19 Crisis.

Richard, how did you get involved in print? 

Me personally? It was pretty much the “family business.” When I was 10, my father had launched TypeWorld Magazine, and my summer (and another holiday) (or even non-holiday) job involved inputting press releases for publication. (Hmm, not a lot has changed in 42 years...) I also used to set type (on a phototypesetter! Via paper tape!) and do manual paste-up (which actually was fun; I hated desktop publishing when it appeared).

When I was in high school, Frank opened a small print shop and I used to run the A.B. Dick press with the other press guys, make negatives, and do other prepress and production tasks. (As well as some other unpleasant things he could never ask the press operators to do, like fill in septic tanks.) I graduated high school when Aldus PageMaker 1.0 (aka Ragemaker) was released and hoped I would never see it again. Despite my best efforts to not go into the industry, after college I ended up in book publishing (putting together the photo section for an “instant” book about Jeffrey Dahmer was an early low point of my career), then magazine publishing (doing research for a columnist for whom I still do research on a freelance basis), then began working full-time for a brace of industry trade publications in the late 1990s (Digital Imaging and Micro Publishing News). That led to TrendWatch and working with Dr Joe Webb, then WhatTheyThink. 

“And then one day you find/Ten years have got behind you...”

What led to the launch of WhatTheyThink?

WhatTheyThink was originally a fax based survey of print buyers that was sent out to printers.  That evolved in 2000 with the launch of a full website "portal" that has slowly become a leading industry media company with two digital properties (whatheythink.com and printingnews.com) and a printed magazine with two versions (WhatTheyThink - Printing News and WhatTheyThink - Wide Format & Signage)    

I like the title. Where did you get the name from?

Our original founder had a friend who he told about the website idea and the friend said, "You should call it What They Think!"

Prior to COVID-19 how was the market developing in the USA? Strong?

One of my favorite quotes is from poet John Greenleaf Whittier: “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’” 

2019 had been one of the best years the industry had had since 2016, at least in terms of revenues, and at the Fall 19 trade shows, there was an excitement that hadn’t been seen since the late 1990s. January and February were very strong and this was shaping up to be the year the industry finally sorted itself out and started to grow—maybe not at the rate we saw in the 1980s and 90s, but certainly at the best pace since the turn of the millennium. Ah, well. It might have been.

The landscape for (print) events has changed radically in the USA over the past 2 years, what is your view of this? Positive? Negative?

The number of shows tends to follow the demographics of an industry—any industry. A large, growing industry spawns a growing trade show ecosystem, and of course, the reverse is true as well. (This is the same with trade publications.) In the 1990s, there was a ton of major industry shows, both domestically and internationally, but they had dwindled over the course of 2000s as the industry itself shrank. At the same time, specialty niche shows had begun to proliferate in those parts of the market that were growing—labels and packaging, in particular, and more recently wide format, signage, and even industrial printing. At the same time, there has been more of a tendency for vendors to host their own events, some of which—likeHunkeler Innovationdays, Dscoop, Xeikon Café, EFI Connect, and others—have become must-go destination events on a par with major trade shows. 

I’m not sure that more events is better, but it really depends on who you are. If you’re a print business owner, getting on a plane with any regularity to go to yet another event takes time away from running the business, and if I were running a print business, I’d prefer one, maybe two big shows a year, spaced half a year apart, with everything in one place. 

If you’re an equipment manufacturer or other vendor, it can be expensive to cart all that gear around—especially wide-format printers.  (A friend of mine’s daughter plays the harp and when she was in high school, lugging it around was a major struggle. I always told her that if she played the harmonica she wouldn’t have these problems.) Anyway, a variety of shows both large and small makes it more likely that announcements won’t get drowned out in a sea of press releases, press conferences, and product introductions. This is also why they tend to like their own events since they have a captive audience and the trade news cycle pretty much to themselves. 

For printers, it’s always good to get technology demonstrations, network with peers, and get business ideas. By whatever mechanism that happens—in-person or virtual—may be increasingly irrelevant. We’re taking part in a big experiment right now: how effective are virtual events in meeting the twin goals of any event: a) vendors selling products, and b) printers getting new business, product, and application ideas? We shall see.

Do you think that COVID will lead to any more event cancellations in 2020?

I think it’s inevitable but will depend upon the trajectory of the disease. If everyone “re-opens” too soon, testing is scarce or non-existent, and the virus pulls a ‘1918’ on us and new cases start to take off into the stratosphere as part of a second wave—putting us back at square one and making July the new March—then that’s all she wrote for 2020. Even if the shows are not cancelled or postponed, people will have to decide if it’s worth the risk. And let’s face it, we’re not—generally—an industry of young people (myself included). And speaking personally, I would not want Frank (Romano) to be trotting off to a big show until new cases were virtually nil, but good luck stopping him. And he takes cruise ships! 

When do you think the recovery will begin and will it be ‘U’ shaped or ‘V’ shaped? 

One hesitates to make predictions—heck, who would have predicted that llamas might be our salvation from all this?! But it will depend on two things: maintaining effective social distancing, and widespread testing and tracing. I’d be happy if the recovery were either U- or V-shaped; what worries me is that it will be W-shaped. The trouble is, a fair number of people (but from what polling I have seen, it’s pretty much a minority) are getting antsy and eager to stop quarantining, and doing that prematurely en masse will very likely short-circuit any chance of a quick-ish recovery. The best case is we have a really lousy Q2, then things start to pick up in Q3 and Q4, and we’re reasonably back to normal in Q1 2021. That, alas, is looking increasingly doubtful. As one popular analogy has it, having some states open while others are closed is like having a dedicated peeing section in a swimming pool.

If we jump the gun and relax our preventive measures too soon, we’re risking turning what would be a short temporary recession into a prolonged multiyear depression. Yeah, it’s tough and getting annoying and boring, but, you know, Anne Frank hid in an attic for two years, so I think we can survive in our homes with Netflix and Doordash for a few months. And wearing a mask in public and staying six feet apart are not major hardships. 

What impact will this have on the market? 

We’re going to lose some printers, and the revenue losses this year will more than offset all the gains we had been making in the past few years. If the various provisions of the CARES Act do their jobs (a big if), it might help small businesses and individuals get through a few slow months. If we can reopen without the virus resurging, I think pent-up demand will make the economy rebound faster than we would think. (Anyone in the hair care business is going to have an awesome autumn.) It’s just hanging on until that happens that’s the challenging part. But if this becomes a prolonged problem—we’re in for some serious carnage. This is why we need to not jump the gun on reopening businesses.

This doesn’t have to be the end of the world, if we all just work together, make a few sacrifices (which pale in comparison to what our grandparents had to make), and help each other out. 

What initiatives is WhatTheyThink doing to help? 

One of the first things we did was set up a special content area on WhatTheyThink.com to inform our members and the wider industry about COVID-19 and the impact it was having.  There were several press releases coming out about moves companies were making and events that were being postponed, cancelled, or putting out statements.  That information has continued to come in and we wanted to make sure we did our primary job, which is to inform the industry.  

From an industry information perspective, we also launched a Virtual Technology Outlook Week which helped both printers and vendors. Printers were able to be informed about the technology they may have seen at a spring trade show, while vendors got an opportunity to get in front of their customers and be top of mind when the market recovers and ‘cap-ex’ loosens up. We’re happy to share the webinar content with the FuturePrint Virtual Summit as well and hope attendees here find it useful.

And what session will you be presenting at the FuturePrintVirtual Summit? 

I am the moderator for the five recorded webinars we are offering to the summit. Each is focused on a different technology area of the industry and includes Production Inkjet, Software and Workflow, Labels and Packaging, Wide-Format & Signage and Apparel, and Print Finishing. I will be co-presenting the Wide-Format & Signage and Apparel session with my colleague Cary Sherburne, as my regular “beat” is wide format and Cary’s is textiles and apparel.

If you are interested in seeing WhatTheyThink at the FuturePrint Virtual Summit then register for FREE here.