Cashing In on the VDP Bonanza of 2012

The predictions are that 2012 will be a very interesting year and one that promises a substantial upsurge in the demand for variable data printing. We have the Mayan apocalypse forecasted for December 21st (get those personalized Christmas cards out early!). The biblical numerologist, Harold Camping, who told us the world would end in 2011 has checked his math and now says the right date is October 21, 2012 (think mailings for those for pre-Armageddon specials). Even the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has issued preparedness guides in the event of a zombie outbreak (survival-related industries should be advertising big time). While there may be a huge spike in personalized thank-you-for-your-business (and farewell) mailings, the real bonanza in VDP work will come from all of the campaigning focused on November 6, 2012.

[Update - The first political job of 2012 hit our inbox on January 3. The recruiting piece for campaign volunteers with 7,000 pieces.]

To put this into perspective, we did some “cocktail napkin” analysis of election season spending. More than $6.2 billion was spent on electioneering and promoting various issues during 2008. Similar expenditures during 2012 are predicted to be at least 30% higher than 2008 and should easily top $8 billion. Doesn’t that make your head spin?

Data from the Center for Responsive Politics (www.opensecrets.org) indicates that 2012 campaign printing expenditures (postage not included) have been running around 10% of total expenditures (see complete details here…). That suggests there will be more than one-half billion dollars in additional printing work available in 2012. And, some portion of that half billion will require variable data printing. How much? Well, we can’t say for sure.

Nevertheless, we do see some trends for direct mail for political and issue-oriented printing:

• Increasing use of VDP for addressing and/or personalization
• More targeted messaging through versioning
• Fewer pieces per mailing but increasing frequency of mailings
• Growing demand for turnaround times (mailed) less than 24 hours
• Increasing use of variable graphics

A common type of VDP political work is issue-demographic personalization. These pieces use a specific issue message and a demographic-appropriate image as the focal point. For example, Mary Smith indicates in a telephone poll that education is her primary concern. The campaign turns around and sends her a postcard (usually the next day) versioned with their message on education combined with a picture of school-aged children on the front.

Another popular use of VDP by political campaigns falls into a category we call “the issue du jour”. To capitalize on the revelation that candidate Joe Blow spit on the sidewalk as a young child, his opponents send out postcards as quickly as possible claiming that their candidates never spit. In these situations, the printer typically receives artwork, image files and anywhere between 500 and 15,000 addresses…and has to have the job in the mail the next day. VDP is frequently a convenient (and usually less expensive) way to get this type of work done.

VDP is used with GOTV (Get-Out-the-Vote) efforts to include geo-location information while fundraising messages often utilize personalized financial data to increase contributions.

What about the bug?

A union bug may be needed to secure certain political work but the requirement seems to be softening as the number of organizations and groups that are indifferent or prefer dealing with non-union shops is on the increase.

Political campaigns will continue to use mass mailings for broad branding and messaging however, 2012 should be a banner year for digital and variable data printing. If you’re ready to cash in on the 2012 VDP bonanza, good for you. If “variable” and “data” aren’t in your vocabulary, you may want to give us a call. In any event, here’s hoping that your zombie outbreaks are small ones and that you have a very profitable 2012.

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