FESPA Denmark: a digital future

We spoke to Michael Brochmann from FESPA Denmark about the state of the industry and how AI lacks print production solutions.

What direction is FESPA Denmark heading in this year? 

FESPA Denmark has made a significant change over the past year, expanding from being a printing association to a more general communications association. Recently, the number of members has grown but across many different industry segments. FESPA is a little different here in Denmark from other associations: we are part of an umbrella organisation called Grakom, a communications group. Our new CEO, Carina Christensen, is a former minister in the Danish government, who has gathered a lot of experience in massive sectors such as the transport industry. I think her main focus this year will be to proceed in the same direction – moving into new sectors.

For example, we now have more than 100 members from creative and advertising agencies. We have also onboarded photographers and digital companies. Perhaps half of our members are still from the traditional print sector, but we are really increasing our membership from digital communications businesses. If we look at the broader picture, traditional printing is declining, so we have to shift to other segments. The agencies have much younger owners and workers; the traditional print companies tend to have leaders aged over 50. Therefore, our strategies for meeting and networking is different due to the different age brackets. 

How does this change in demographic affect the recruitment and retention of those younger people who are essential for the print industry to prosper?

For the traditional offset printing and wide format industry, it’s difficult to attract younger people. Simply put, many young people have no knowledge regarding working for a print company. For other younger people, they were born using digital, so to them printing is just a subset, a part of the creative business sector – these people are easier to recruit and retain. 

What events does FESPA Denmark have planned this year?

We have hosted World Wrap Masters in Fredericia [1-2 March 2024] for the third time. The exhibition was a public event so anyone could experience the competition. Our aim this year was to attract many more young people, and we hope we will break new records in spectator numbers. In April we are holding a big Grakom management conference, which is also open to FESPA members. 


The topic is artificial intelligence (AI), and in the morning members will be able to discuss the state of the industry: how do they see the future in the light of the economic situation? Later in March, the members of FESPA Denmark will visit Amsterdam for the FESPA exhibitions including FESPA Global Print Expo, European Sign Expo, Personalisation Experience and FESPA’s new exhibition, Sportswear Pro. In September, we will have a stand at a wide format exhibition, where we are going to exhibit wrapping – not cars this time, but interior décor. We are due to hold a members meeting about our climate calculator that can calculate CO2 emissions from specific products, which we are introducing now for the wide format segment. 

What is the value to the Denmark Association of attending FESPA’s exhibitions?

For us, attending these exhibitions offers us the opportunity to network. There will be 20 of us members visiting, a majority of these members are from smaller businesses so they don’t usually have the opportunity to talk to colleagues within the industry. Bringing them to these events, we are hoping to facilitate that. Doing this we are hoping to also attract new members. 

Mass customisation and personalisation was a big topic at last year’s Personalisation Experience. What is your opinion on this trend within the industry? Has it reached its full potential?

The trend now is that the market has to optimise everything for personalisation. But it should be a much larger business than it is today. I think the Personalisation Experience taking place alongside FESPA Global Print Expo last year was a good first attempt, but we should be looking for greater sophistication. 

You mentioned AI earlier on. What kind of role do you see AI playing in the industry?

At the moment we are organising several webinars and online classes that will cover the creative aspect of AI, particularly Midjourney and Firefly. I believe at the moment we are lacking AI solutions for production companies. We have some invitees at the Grakom conference who will discuss leveraging our use ofs data for customer services, for example, but the industry is demanding solutions specific to production. We want to get inspiration and knowledge, but currently in the industry, not everyone knows how to use AI to its potential. This is a gap that we should be able fill and meet for our members.