DIGITAL digest
HP Empowers With Print 2.0
NEW YORK—On the 52nd floor of 7 World Trade Center, more than 700 guests and 100 Hewlett-Packard employees spent two days enjoying a room with a (magnificent!) view. The event was part of HP’s rollout of the “Print 2.0: Extending the Power of Print” strategy and provided a launching pad for a new $300 million, worldwide marketing campaign—“What do you have to say?”
With New York City as a backdrop, the main attractions, however, were inside where HP staged an “Experience Center.” It resembled a Hollywood set complete with a faux bedroom, living room, home office, business office, retail store, winery and boardroom, each outfitted with real furniture and every HP product imaginable. Live presenters explained the various capabilities, usages and benefits of the individual products and integrated systems on display.
Before touring the Experience Center, guests heard a keynote speech by Vyomesh “VJ” Joshi, executive vice president, HP Imaging and Printing Group. Joshi provided details about the Print 2.0 initiative and explained that—in the same way it introduced and rode the ink-jet wave in the mid-’80s—HP will be riding the newest wave: the Web.
After the keynote speech, attendees participated in a Web Achiever panel and Q&A, which focused on the rise of the Web platform and how HP and its partners are expanding the “Power of Print” through that platform. The panel consisted of international media experts: John Battelle of Federated Media, Eric Aledort with the Walt Disney Internet Group, Wang Choo of Northstart Media (China), Katherine Borchert of WAZ Media-group (Europe) and Xeni Jardin of boingboing.net.
Once the speaker portion was finished, guests toured the Experience Center displays, which corresponded to the company’s business sectors, including consumer, small and medium businesses, original HP supplies, corporate enterprise/public, HP’s Halo collaboration studio (which featured live video conferencing between London and the event in New York) and, last but not least, graphic arts.
