Penwizard - Currie Group

JEDI OR SITH? THE CHOICE IS YOURS WITH PERSONALISED STAR WARS:THE CLONE WARS DIGITALLY PRODUCED WEB-TO-PRINT BOOKSPenguin and Penwizard join forces in another digital bookpublication ventureThe phenomenon of films and TV shows generating hostsof collateral products from board and video games, totoys, branded accessories, and all forms of magazines andbooks, has served to keep their stories and characters freshand spawn new characters stories, and even more films.The Star Wars brand has now been running for morethan a generation, and while the demand for productscontinues, the challenge is to keep the brand fresh andinvolve new audiences in the experience. Among the latestproducts of the Star Wars brand are two books that can becreatively personalised via an easy-to-use online interfacethat feeds data to a print service provider (PSP) that usesHP Indigo presses to produce high-quality, full-colour booksthat can be delivered in less than five days.The project is a collaboration between brand-ownersLucasfilms Ltd and its publishers, the Penguin Group. Tohandle the digital printing and publishing aspects ofthe job, Penguin built on a successful alliance formedwith Penwizard Ltd, a specialist on-demand publisher, toproduce personalised Peppa Pig books.Facilitating interactive publishingEstablished in 2004, to produce innovative productsutilising digital printing technologies, Penwizard has jointlydeveloped its web-to-print solutions with HP and works withPSPs that own HP Indigo digital presses. Penwizard hadundertaken previous personalised printing projects withPrime Print Group Ltd, of Nottingham, UK, and their closeworking relationship and established data handling abilitymade them the logical partner for The Clone Wars books.“The Peppa Pig books had done very well, but Penguinwanted to take the personalised book concept to the nextlevel with a global brand,” said Eric Huang, categorydirector, Brands & Licensing, Penguin Group (UK). “TheStar Wars books were thought to be a perfect vehiclebecause of its massive market appeal, and it also wouldbe aiming at a higher age range than the Peppa Pig bookswhich were aimed at parents of pre-school children. Bothboys and girls of all ages and interests get excited by StarWars.“Lucasfilms is well known for being innovative and forwardthinking, so selling the idea to them was relatively easy.”Protecting brand integrity was the biggest challenge,according to Huang.“Creating a customisable avatar that would still reflect theimage and values associated with the Star Wars brandwas the concern,” Huang explained. “But the team soonworked out that this could be overcome by amalgamatingthe characteristics of the different Star Wars characters.”Lucasfilms and Penguin had also been concerned thatsome print-on-demand books are not very high quality andflimsy, but the experience with Peppa Pig, Penwizard andPrime had shown that quality would not be an issue.“The final product is the standard that Penguin’s customerswould expect, with a glossy and luxurious look andfeel. Raising the bar on personalised books while at thesame time enabling readers to interact with the story ina way not possible before is an exciting development inpublishing,” Huang concluded.