Earlier in 2018, Wide-Format Impressions and NAPCO Research surveyed our audience to find out how the visual communications market was faring overall. It was of little surprise to find that survey respondents were overwhelmingly optimistic about the current state of the wide-format industry and opportunity. Eighty-seven percent of respondents reported they were optimistic, with 45% of that number being highly optimistic.
A large part of this optimism is due to growth. Two-thirds of respondents reported increasing sales and volume growth in wide-format products and services in the past year, and more than 75% expect that trend to continue in the coming year.
Survey respondents reported many reasons for sales growth and overall optimism, from technology innovations enabling unique and more affordable applications to new media and inks enabling any surface to be used as a marketing conduit. Here is a sampling of respondents’ answers to an open-ended question on why they were optimistic about the visual communications market:
Denise Gustavson is the Editorial Director for the Alliance Media Brands — which includes Printing Impressions, Packaging Impressions, In-plant Impressions, Wide-Format Impressions, Apparelist, NonProfitPRO, and the PRINTING United Journal — PRINTING United Alliance.