Rural News Group

As a team, Inkwise is always on the lookout for like-minded businesses who would make a great addition to our family of clients. We first needed to identify how we could add potential improvements to their publications so that the idea of changing suppliers was worth their while. We offered Rural News a different substrate which would make them stand out from their competition, whilst retaining the uncoated look of newsprint and its environmental appeal to their market.

We combined this with our staccato FM line screen, which we were able to demonstrate by offering a print trial. Rural News were impressed by the improvement in the reproductive quality of their images and overall look of their publications. In a nutshell, staccato FM line screen produces a smaller dot, applied in a random pattern to achieve a smoother looking colour particularly noticeable in skin tones, by eliminating the patterns and rosettes characterised by AM screening. An AM screen uses a standard line frequency with a larger dot arranged in a grid type pattern, which can leave the dots visible to the naked eye, appearing as a grainy image.

The Rural News collection is produced on our DGM Heatset and Goss M600 printing presses. The turnaround for their main newspaper publication is 56 hours including delivery into Auckland. Being an independent, family-owned company, our business ethics mirror their own and Rural News were impressed with our competitive offer and suggestions, which provided them with a point of difference in a tough marketplace.

The challenge

To overcome their initial concerns about printing in the South Island, we had to prove we could consistently achieve their turnaround requirements. To do this, we liaised directly with their distribution company to ensure our client’s production timeframe would not be jeopardised by the change in print location. Meanwhile, our key relationships with freight providers gave Rural News the confidence that we would achieve their goals.

Our process

To gain our client’s trust, we produced a print trial of Rural News to show them the difference we could make to the overall look of their publications. We also invited their key team members down to Inkwise for a site visit to see the scale of our business and to meet our team.

The knock-on effect of our partnership has been that we have worked together to provide cost saving initiatives and growth opportunities for both businesses. We have produced a first-class body of publications by finding a cost-effective way to improve our client’s paper substrate, coupled with our line screen making Rural News stand out from the crowd.