IL-Based Bloomington Offset Process (bopi) Does Much More Than Produce Pocket Folders
There isn't a printer alive who hasn't received an e-mail with the following admonishment: "Please be mindful of the environment when considering printing this e-mail." It's akin to sending tofu recipes to the local butcher. The knee-jerk reaction is to write a note back to the effect of, "Please be mindful of your audience when sending ridiculous suggestions about not printing."
It is maddening that, in an age of Internet-addled enlightenment, there are still those who can't see the forest for the recycling buckets filled with second-hand A4. But perception's sidekick is ignorance, and no matter how much you incredulously stammer, "more trees now than 100 years ago...the most recovered of all recyclables...try throwing away a computer," the greater the resistance. It's enough to make you want to beat The Lorax senseless.
Fortunately, the printing community has its share of patience and an unending supply of intelligent, rational people willing to explain the benefits of the printed word and, indeed, illustrate its ability to happily commingle with the same electronic alternatives that (so the perception goes) have pushed it to the brink of the endangered species list.
One such print evangelist is Bloomington Offset Process Inc., known in the commercial printing world as bopi (bah-pee). Its tagline is "A leading provider of print, mail, fulfillment, ecommerce and digital business solutions," but stopping there sells this $8 million-a-year performer short. The company may have been founded in 1947 (and owned exclusively by the Mercier family since 1985), but its mission is to look out for the best interests of its customers and provide them with the resources that will most effectively produce success—through a rich mixture of modern marketing tools that includes, but is not limited to, ink-on-paper.
"There is a need to promote print as an important part of the media mix," notes Jeff Fritzen, executive vice president for the firm, which serves national clients, but routinely caters to the Chicago/Indianapolis/St. Louis trifecta thanks to its Bloomington, IL, location. "There are things you can do with print that you can't do with other media—you can pick it up, feel it, smell it. You don't have to be prompted by an e-mail or Twitter feed to pick up a printed piece and look at it. There's things about print that gives it a life."
