Page 18 - Print21 Magazine March April 2021

Profile
For the
Love of Print
Fresh from its world-first tee-up with Canva, the country’s biggest print franchise group – Snap Print & Design –
is banking on the future of print. Its CEO Richard Thame tells Print21 editor Wayne Robinson where the group is heading.
The world of franchised couriers is not for the faint-hearted, but under Richard Thame’s ten-year tenure, the Fastway group
became the number one courier brand in the country.
Now Thame is the head of Snap Print & Design, running a group with in excess of $100m in print sales, in the equally turbulent low margin, high competition world of print, where differentiation is not easy to achieve – but he comes with high hopes for growth.
Snap has 130 bricks-and-mortar stores in a mix of regional, suburban and CBD locations around Australia and New Zealand, with 16 in Ireland. There are also five mobile centres in Australia. Snap operates in a world which many perceive as increasingly unfriendly to print,
but for Thame and his chief growth officer Sonia Shwabsky, print is a land of opportunity. Their stated mission is “to ignite imagination and excitement for the world of print.”
Tough 12 months
No doubt the past 12 months have been tough for many in the print industry, particularly for those in the commercial print sector like Snap’s franchisees. Thame says, “Our owners have had to draw a deep breath. Adjustments have been made. But Snap franchisees are close to their customers. That is a key plank of our business, and they have been working hard with them to ride out the storm.”
The average Snap franchisee has been in the business for 20 years and has more than 2000 customers on its books, and a turnover of anywhere between $700,000 and $2m. Thame says, “They know their area; they know their customers.” And Snap,
18 Print21 MARCH/APRIL 2021
Above
Vision: Richard Thame
and Sonia Shwabsky
at Snap Print & Design
of course, has been here before. It survived the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1920, two World Wars, and the Great Depression.
Thame says, “This time, the focus first was on getting through the crisis, and second on adapting our business. Sonia and I sat down and had a thorough assessment of the future. We are clear that print will play a major part, and we believe a hybrid model where we marry print with the digital world will reap great rewards.”
The partnership with Canva
is the first evidence of the Snap strategy for a hybrid model coming to fruition, and on the face of
it seems a win-win-win; for the franchisees who will have extra print work, for Canva which will have a trusted brand for its print, and for Snap itself which effectively has
a huge marketing team behind it now pushing the brand around the country. The deal means that Snap has become the first franchise in the world to be a Canva partner, and for Snap, it means a pipeline of work coming to its stores.
Thame says, “The digital environment is key to our future, but equally so is print. Our new slogan
– For the Love of Print – highlights that. People ask me why I took this job, they say ‘isn’t print dying? No-one reads printed newspapers anymore’. I say the newspapers
part may be true, but if I am in a
restaurant or bar I will say look around, look at the labels on the bottles, the coasters, the posters on the walls, the signage, the menus,
the floor graphics. Print is changing, but print opportunities are growing, certainly for a print business that
can leverage digital into its strategy, and that can provide high-quality graphics on a range of applications on-demand, as Snap franchisees can.”
Indeed Snap – which has a 122-year legacy, with its foundation in 1899
as the Imperial Printing Co, and then following the Great War as Imperial Instant Printing – reinstituted the word Print back into its name after famously dropping it a decade ago. The move came shortly after Shwabsky joined. She says, “Snap is a print business. We offer a range of services of course, but print is our foundation, and it is what we do very well. I felt it was important to have that back in our branding.” The company is now known as Snap Print & Design.
The company has a clear vision, “To be a leading force in re-shaping and re-defining the international print industry.” No small view, and not compatible with merely bunkering down in the suburbs and hoping for the best. The innovative partnership with online juggernaut Canva reflects the bigger vision and gives Snap a huge online presence, but the face- to-face bricks and mortar remain
key to the company. Thame says,