Wan-Ifra, the world association of news publishers and media tech companies, recently launched its new corporate brand identity, including a redesigned logo and website. These changes come at a time when the association is evolving its service offerings and expanding its global reach.
Editorial, tech, and business used to belong to different universes. They slowly started to merge in the past few years, prompted by the necessity to convert audiences into loyal, engaged users and digital subscribers.
Undoubtedly, the effects of the ongoing health crisis have reverberated within news organizations, accelerating this move towards better alignment of every aspect of publishing – newsroom, distribution, production, product development, planning, business development. This crisis has profoundly changed the relationship with news media and how it is produced, distributed, and consumed.
2021 will be marked by this accelerating cultural and strategic shift. The change of Wan-Ifra’s corporate visual identity emphasizes Wan-Ifra’s commitment to supporting this transformation.
It brings to light our call for a strategic realignment within the industry. It demonstrates our commitment to building a more robust symbiotic ecosystem for news. This unparalleled positioning in the field of international publisher associations was at the very origin of our foundation some 75 years ago. It’s still our pledge in 2021.
“Wan-Ifra’s new brand identity will help bring coherence and showcase the breadth of our offerings consistently. It reaffirms our objective to be the preferred organization for the global news media ecosystem,” said Fernando de Yarza, president of Wan-Ifra.
Wan-Ifra continues to evolve and transform to meet the new decade’s challenges. Like its members, Wan-Ifra is committed to the continuous development of its activities to better serve its communities with a clear, singular purpose – innovate and prosper in a digital world and perform the crucial role of advancing accurate, trustworthy news in society.
2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India
Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and
multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.
The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry.
While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately
their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book
printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.
The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.
Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.
Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.
Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.
