First a disclosure: It is not sour grapes that interrupted my day-job, pushing me to write this post. Nor it is April Fools. It is however an article in The Wall Street Journal titled “Top 10 dying Industries”, where I had the unpleasant surprise to find close to home sectors at the top of the list.

Now, there’s no news that industries such as wired telecom carriers, newspaper publishing or media rentals are forecasted as declining. As expected, the Internet – the great equalizer in terms of information access – did it, together with its sister-in pan-media communication, cellular telephony. Also on the list are clothing manufacturing and rentals, dethroned as the article states, by an  increase in cheap imports. According to the article, Internet and globalization doomed these industries – the same reasons that helped us at AND Inc. develop and grow a successful business in creating visual content.

Then the shocker came.

With the highest numbers in forecast decline for 2010-2014, tripling the industries mentioned above, were: Video Postproduction Services and Photofinishing. These sectors, like their co-listed fellows, were dethroned by accessible digital technology; quality left behind by the overwhelming quantity of cheap competition, now available 24/7 via the Internet.

The (not so) bad news:

It’s been a while since our business was bombarded by overseas (misplaced or lost in translation) offers of “we do the same thing as you – dimes on a dollar”; also by clients eager to play the outsourcing card in order to get a better price. This source of frustration (how can one explain that many times ‘cheap’ means just that?) sometimes turns in poetic justice, when clients using an overseas rendering service learn the hard way the difference between ‘price’ and ‘value’. Personal sensitivities aside, I understood the logic behind the WSJ forecast on video and photo production service providers. What I did not understand at a first glance, was: why place these sectors aside giants such as telecoms, publishing and manufacturing?

Then after an in-depth debate, both Adrian and I realized that these industries, dealing with quality visual media, are the back-bone of marketing and the sine qua non condition for any successful advertisement and sell on any web, blog or social site. It entitles these sectors to be considered amongst the economic engines – even though this is the one forecast list no one desires to be on.

The good news:

Every bad predicament has a silver lining. Without trying too hard to find the pony, in the case of visualization services there are quite a few good outcomes in terms of being providers of video, photo or interactive content.

First, as mentioned in a previous post, the so called Wal-Mart-isation of visuals via microstock trading, over time lead to a clear increase in content quality. Offer or demand driven, this increase helped us at AND Inc. to discover and learn trade tricks (in the form of programs and techniques) we would have been otherwise unaware of. Good examples are: After Effects – already yielding an unexpected ROI – and now Cinema 4D– the software we hope to open for us the gates of content providers for high end movie production.

Second, the globalization driven pricing structure – with inevitable requests to work for free – in turn helped us reach an unexpectedly broad audience. When the numbers are high enough, thanks to the wonders of referrals and advertising – quantity becomes indeed quality and hits, clicks, views and downloads yield tangible rewards.

The opportunities:

For over ten years, the Internet helped us at AND Inc.  develop a rewarding business model: creating quality visual content for a previously hard to reach clientele. Over the last couple of years – courtesy an unprecedented economic downturn– the same Internet and a globalized world forced a reevaluation both of our business model and bottom line.

With the certainty that we are heading toward a more flexible (the ‘other’ term being volatile) and fast paced world of graphic design; we have to seize once again the opportunity and become pioneers in terms of digital visual content and the way this is delivered.

If this is indeed something more than our positive thinking, then companies and individuals involved with the sectors lowest on the “Top 10 Dying Industries” – will use this forecast as incentive to shift the paradigm and the Internet and the flow of free communication in a globalized world, in a once again creative and lucrative way.

And who knows, maybe in the not so distant future The Wall Street Journal will have reasons to publish a revised list.

As said, at the end of May I will return with details.

Until then, be well.