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At 2 million square feet, a former canning factory in Lomira, Wisc. is the largest printing plant in the world. When it opened, in the Halcyon days of print, the factory produced millions of catalogues and magazines, ranging from Playboy and Ms. When Gloria Steinem, the feminist co-founder of Ms., was asked how she felt about her magazine being printed alongside Playboy, she replied, “I think it is only fitting that the same presses that print the poison also print the antidote.”
That was 1985. We all know what happened next. Quad knows it all too well.
It was, we better become the consolidator, or the consolidating is going to be done to us.
—Joel Quadracci, CEO, Quad
Harry Quadracci founded the company 52 years ago this month. Harry’s son, Joel, is now CEO. He took over in 2006, as print continued its slow decline and before the great recession upended the global economy. “I did everything my father told me not to do, which was go public and buy broken down printing companies,” Quadracci told Adweek during Cannes Lions last month. It was Quadracci’s fist time at the Festival of Creativity where the intersection of creative, brand, platform and production merge. It’s also the intersection Quad aims to transect with a rebrand resulting from a 15-year transformational journey.
“For us, it was we better become the consolidator, or the consolidating is going to be done to us,” Quadracci said.
While its roots are indelibly in print, Quad now calls itself a marketing experience company that aims to rid companies of wasteful processes.
A transformation over time
A string of acquisitions coming out of the great recession started Quad’s transformation. The company closed more than 50 printing plants and began building production studios and providing marketing services at longtime catalogue clients like LL Bean and Cabela’s. 2009 revenue was $1.8 billion. Last year, revenue hit $3.2 billion.
Wisconsin-based Quad has more than 3,000 clients and 14,000 global employees. More than 1,500 Quad employees sit in more than 90 marketing departments around the world, including 140 staffers at U.S. grocery giant Albertsons and its subsidiaries Safeway, Vons and Shaw’s. “What we’re finding is, as you get into this process conversation and you start advising, they start saying, ‘well, could you take over parts of my marketing department?’”
“Marketing departments have gotten heavy,” Quadracci argues. “In the case of Cabela’s, we save them probably 30% of cost. But more importantly, it was almost 40% of cycle time to to create all their content, because there’s just too much waste in the system,” he said.
