2014 Hot Markets: Packaging, Pharma Head List

There are pockets of excitement, as in interactive publications, art books and prints, pop-ups, glow-in-the-dark, deluxe commemorative special editions with slipcases, 3D, faux paper fashion accessories and other high-value enhancements. Self-publishing, sold online and run digitally, provides high quality, very-short-run production of literary works, greeting cards, calendars, vanity wall coverings, photo books and most anything else. The marketplaces for these are less than 5 percent penetrated, so there's time to get in.

Ringing up to No. 3 is Telecommunications ($1.5T, +2 percent; with $12.0B to print, +5 percent). Sector growth is deceiving; some categories like mobile, other wireless (+43 percent) will be on an FSI, POP/POS and transit print binge while others, like directories, will continue downward at -22 percent.

Cable/satellite could be technologically displaced by 2016 as "cord-cutting" and migrations to streaming PC2TV. The cable industry will fight back with its "TV Everywhere" Wi-Fi for subscribers' movement, so there will be a lot of print in the fight for survival. Mobile apps and QR codes are also a "must provide" by smart printers (not an oxymoron), along with mobile site and SMS (short message service) management as essential complements in a cross-media interactive program.

Related, but crashing, are tech sectors, No. 14 Computer-ware ($790B, +4 percent; with $6.2B to print, -13 percent) and No. 20 Electronics ($761B, -4 percent; with $4.5B to print, 0 percent). Because most labeling and packaging are offshore, U.S. print demand is out-of-home and at retail locations. Apple will pursue lifestyles and loyalties while the other entrants tout price. Best Buy and other major outlets will maintain but not increase FSIs, bind-ins and in-store print; on hold or pause.

Banking/Insurance ($4.2T, +5 percent; with $11.6B to print, +4 percent) will withdraw to No. 5, as its financial relation Investment/Brokerage ($1.3T, +4 percent; with $5.2B to print, -6 percent) crashes to No. 19. These "institutions" are going where the big money is, and it's not in commercial banking. Retail branches will shrink into kiosks (screen and digital print-intensive), and mobile banking (+30 percent) will be widely promoted via POP/POS and out-of-home in cross-media campaigns.