Looking back on a Decade: A Q&A with William Latham

When did you join Hop Industries? What were some of the attributes that you appreciated about the company/products?

I first joined Hop Industries in May 2004 right after graduating from Montclair State University. I interviewed at many companies selling commodity, or “me-too” type of products that really did not spark much personal interest. When I interviewed at Hop and learned about their products and how they focused on a very specialized market segment of the printing industry, I jumped at the opportunity to join the sales team of such an up and coming brand in the market. I was shown several samples on how Hop-Syn was being used for applications such as menus, signage, tags, and packaging. Selling to these types of industries sparked a lot of interest and challenges to an emerging market segment of the printing industry.

 

How have the synthetic paper market and related technologies changed in the last decade?

When I first started with Hop Industries, finding printers that printed on plastics or synthetic papers were few and far between. If I had to put a ratio to it, I would say that 1 out of every 25 printers that I would call on would have an interest in printing on synthetic papers. Many printers would not even consider printing on synthetic paper or plastic due the many changes on press and special inks that were required. As newer technology such as better ink formulations and fountain solutions emerged, and the rising popularity of UV technology, that ratio quickly turned to 1 out every 10 printers who would be interested in using our product by 2012. Today with the wide and grand format market on the rise, particularly with the UV Inkjet, 1 out of every 5 print shops would have interest in Hop-Syn. This ratio will continue to get smaller as newer technology emerges that adapts to printing on plastic substrates.

 

How are these changes impacting big brands?

With newer technologies, big brands have more options now than ever before to print on media such as Hop-Syn. Big brands can now print big runs and small runs on plastic media at more affordable prices due to the new technologies.

 

What advice do you have for companies that haven’t used Hop-Syn synthetic paper in their print promotions? Do print buyers need to specify Hop-Syn?

For companies that have not used Hop-Syn, I would recommend that they contact Hop and discuss their durable printing applications with one of our experienced sales professionals. Hop-Syn is known in the industry as the “application specific” synthetic paper, designed to meet specific requirements for high performance printing demands. Print buyers in particular do need to specify Hop-Syn. But before they can do that, we need to educate them on the quality our material has for their applications and the advantages over competing products in the market.

 

Please follow and like us: