rint offers engaging tactile experiences that help to communicate who your
company is and what it stands for. Walstead UK has always offered a whole
range of impressive press-finished products that our retail and commercial
commercial clients can benefit from. With the recent addition of Walstead York, which also specialises in this area, there are now endless options to choose from. We have decided to zero in on some of the stand-out solutions that our multiple sites in the UK can produce in order to bring your ideas to life and grab your target audience’s attention.
Simply put, nesting means including a printed product within a printed product. This means you can run two promotions at the same time, with an outer section focusing on your main offering and an inner section – such as a leaflet or poster – focusing on a time-sensitive offer or specific product. If you’re a garden centre, for example, you might choose to send out a regular catalogue with a seasonal promotional leaflet nested within it.
We can create fantastic combinations and – by simultaneously printing two separate products on the same press – we not only save time, but also grant you speed to market and less paper waste.
Get in touch to find out more.
Get in touch
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Nested
At Walstead, we use a range of sustainable papers from different producers including UPM, which reduced its fossil CO2 emissions by 8% in 2021 as it works towards reducing emissions by 65% by 2030.
To fulfil our clients exact needs, Walstead works closely with both paper mills and paper merchants. Denmaur, which provides innovative and sustainable solutions, is amongst the latter. As part of its services, this merchant produces reports that detail the carbon value of each paper grade. Paper made from virgin fibre sourced from well-managed forests can, for example, have a lower carbon output than recycled paper. Julian Townsend, Sales Director at Denmaur, says: “We try to give customers the information they need to make their decision.” The results are telling: “Nine times out of 10 the customer will go for the lowest carbon production value.”
As part of its partnership with the World Land Trust, a body which promotes forest protection and restoration, Denmaur has a Carbon Lifestyle Calculator. Walstead can also help with carbon calculations too thanks to ClimateCalc’s tool. Using a calculator allows clients to assess their impact. Townsend explains that measuring one’s carbon footprint is a crucial first step for establishing or fine-tuning a sustainable strategy: the information allows companies to reduce and, finally, balance their emissions through solutions such as carbon-balanced paper.
Talking about carbon emissions, Townsend says: “The problem is not going to go away. Every company will have to [have a carbon policy] at some point: it’s going to be legislation and [emissions] are going to be taxed.” It therefore makes sense to act now and many businesses already are, as Townsend has witnessed. Interest in carbon balanced paper has snowballed since Denmaur started working with the World Land Trust. “We've almost hit 150,000 tonnes of carbon-balanced paper supply. We probably took three and a half, four years to achieve the first 50: the numbers were slowly creeping up and then it suddenly accelerated,” Townsend says. Some companies started using carbon-balanced paper for one product, before rolling it out across all their paper needs.
Helping you find the right solution
Being sustainable can come with an added cost – carbon-balanced paper can cost an additional 1-2%, for example – but it is worth noting that consumers are willing to pay a premium for products that have been sustainably made. In 2020, McKinsey found that over 70% of consumers would be willing to pay an additional 5% for a green product, as long as it has the same performance standards as a non-green alternative.
In addition, having a good environmental policy can help with cost reduction. McKinsey highlights that there’s a correlation between being efficient with resources and the strength of a company’s financial performance. As previously mentioned, measuring is key and, in that respect, digital tools can be fantastic for those who use print-based marketing methods such as mail. Royal Mail points out that data analysis can not only help companies learn about their customers, but also provides crucial information that allows them to prioritise and test, which will also allow them to be more efficient and, simultaneously, reduce waste.
At Walstead, for example, we work with our clients to adjust paper grades or pagination in line with their requirements. Townsend also advises considering locally produced paper. Consumers often talk about “food miles”; he thinks that we should also take paper miles into consideration since sourcing paper locally can be cost-effective, less impactful and lower risk. Since UPM Caledonian and Palm Paper both manufacture paper in the UK and Walstead offers UK-based web-offset printing, clients can create a printed product from start to finish without having to rely on overseas suppliers. This can be hugely beneficial for companies that have a carbon policy strategy in place.
In addition, more and more research confirms that a sustainable approach creates value. Supporting McKinsey’s findings, the EY Sustainable Value study establishes that climate action boosted both customer and employee value: as a result, 69% of respondents witnessed a larger-than-expected increase in financial value on measures such as revenue growth and earnings. Committing to slowing climate change is, quite clearly, a worthwhile investment that can help businesses succeed in more ways than one.
Embracing sustainability has its benefits
Good impressions: stand out with these 8 print products
An endorsed product is one that has been folded in half after it has been printed. We can create A3 endorsed spine-glued items that range from 6 pages up to 24 pages, making this format a great choice for publications with lower paginations which we will deliver ready-folded and trimmed to size for ease. It’s a cost-efficient solution for sending out by mail: although the weight stays the same, it qualifies as a smaller letter size in Royal Mail’s pricing system once folded. Plus, we can reduce the dimensions to help make generous savings on paper costs.
A3 Endorsed
While the Slim Jim is the same height as A4, it is – as the name suggests – narrower in width. This format has a clear visual advantage: this 40 or 48-page publication will stand out from all regular-sized communications in a pile of mail. The eye-catching Slim Jim also has the added benefit of offering significant savings on paper thanks to the use of bespoke reel widths and you can save on postage too: its slimmer size means it qualifies as a standard letter with Royal Mail if it is under 240 x 165mm.
Slim Jim
Our square format is a solution for when you need something larger than A5, but smaller than A4. While we do recommend 210mm as the optimum size, we can produce this format using different dimensions including a 210 x 230mm landscape alternative. Publications with up to 16 pages are spine-glued, while ones with up to 64 pages are in-line stitched.
Square
The use of appealing visuals is crucial to attract customers. To that effect, our A4 press-finished landscape format with either 8 pages or 12 pages is an aesthetically pleasing spine-glued option. It is ideal for panoramic designs – displaying kitchens, beds, sofas or even cruise ships, for example – since it can feature an image with a 600mm width across a double-page spread.
Landscape
The A5 glued product is unique to Walstead York in that we can achieve an optimum depth of 210mm with up to 16 spine-glued pages. We think there are a wealth of opportunities for 2 and 4-page press-finished products and we can also create publications with more unusual paginations such as 10 or 14 pages: we want you to feel unrestricted when creating editorial or advertising content. This format is well-suited to a wide range of distribution channels including as a magazine insert or for door drops, for example.
A5 Glued
Our popular A4 glued format is a versatile choice since it can range from 6 to 80 pages. If speed to market is a priority for you, a publication with lower paginations may well be the solution since we can deliver standard items more rapidly than offline formats. A reduced trim size of 297mm x 165mm can save approx. 20% savings on paper usage.
A4 Glued
The folded poster is all about size. Whether it’s to showcase goods or as a one-off insert in a newspaper, it allows you to present artwork in an easy-to-view A2 format. Once folded down to A4, the poster is a quarter of its original size and therefore more portable and postage friendly. We can also reduce the standard A4 dimensions to 270 x 210mm to provide a 9% saving on paper.
There are no limits to how creative you can get with your printed campaigns. Our expert teams at Walstead UK will talk you through all the options – from formats, dimensions and paper, to budget and timings – in order to find the right solution that will add value to your brand.
Folded Poster
