Since its kickoff last month at Print 17, the Print Drives America Initiative has been embraced by the industry. The Printing Industries Alliance reports that many printers have already become members and several have become founding members. Many educational and fundraising efforts are scheduled in the next few months, including face-to-face meetings, presentations and direct mail efforts.

Print Drives America Foundation is a national print advocacy initiative registered as a 501(c) (3) charitable organization. Marty Maloney, executive vice president of the Printing Industries Alliance, has also been appointed the executive director of the foundation.

“Marty has a unique set of skills to make this happen. Printing, marketing, and academics have always been at the core of Marty’s career,” says Tim Freeman, president of the Printing Industries Alliance. “He was the chief marketing officer (CMO) of two NYSE listed printing companies and later was elected to the Board of Directors of a multi-billion dollar printing company. Marty’s marketing and PR agency was the largest agency serving the graphic arts industry for more than 30 years. He was a founder of The Print Council and its first executive director. Marty has taught marketing, media and business at NYU’s graduate school for more than a decade. And also important to the job at hand, he knows the top management of almost every printer and vendor in the industry.”

“We are very pleased with the rapid acceptance of the Print Drives America initiative,” says Maloney. “We need to give print a stronger voice to communicate print’s attractive features that create a strong consumer preference for print, to demonstrate its amazing ROI, and to advance print’s leadership position. We will make print attractive to all, erase the misinformation about print and greatly enhance print’s positive perception. Print today is an increasingly high-tech industry that produces collateral materials, magazines, books, direct mail, newspapers, catalogs, labels, packaging, out-of-home media, signage and scores of other print categories. Print in the aggregate makes print the largest communications media of all. Our initial goal will be to increase the perception of print, as well as to meaningfully increase print’s market share.

“We need to compare our industry against other communication media and let companies know that print is the number one communication media and, in fact, larger than all other communication media combined,” he adds. “We also need to continually educate the marketplace on the effective use of print and even how it can be supported by other media. We will increase the market share of print and keep it top-of-mind. We will reset the print mindset and educate those who make print decisions including; chief marketing officers, advertising and marketing executives and everyday buyers of printing.”