PETpla.net Insider 03 / 2013

imprint EDITORIAL PUBLISHER Alexander Büchler, Managing Director HEAD OFFICE heidelberg business media GmbH Häusserstr. 36 69115 Heidelberg, Germany phone: +49(0)6221-65108-0 fax: +49(0)6221-65108-28 info@hbmedia.net EDITORIAL Doris Fischer: f ischer@hbmedia.net Michael Maruschke Ruari McCallion Ilona Trotter Wolfgang von Schroeter Anthony Withers MEDIA CONSULTANTS Ute Andrä andrae@hbmedia.net Martina Hischmann hirschmann@hbmedia.net Roland Loch loch@hbmedia.net phone: +49(0)6221-65108-0 fax: +49(0)6221-65108-28 France, Italy, Spain, UK Elisabeth Maria Köpke phone: +49(0)6201-878925 fax: +49(0)6201-878926 koepke@hbmedia.net LAYOUT AND PREPRESS Exprim Kommunikationsdesign Matthias Gaumann | www.exprim.de READER SERVICES Shiraz El Goudi reader@hbmedia.net PRINT Chroma Druck & Verlag GmbH Werkstr. 25 67454 Römerberg Germany WWW www.hbmedia.net | w ww.petpla.net PETplanet insider ISSN 1438-9459 is published 10 times a year. This publication is sent to qualified subscribers (1-year subscription 149 EUR, 2-year subscription 289 EUR, Young professionals’ sub- scription 99 EUR. Magazines will be dispatched to you by airmail). Not to be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. Note: The fact that product names may not be identified as trade marks is not an indication that such names are not registered trademarks. 3 PET planet insider Vol. 14 No. 03/13 www.petpla.net EDITORIAL dear readers, Husky shuns K and drinktec The world of plastics is still reeling from the news that Husky will not be participating at this year’s drinktec or K exhibitions, world showcases for the beverages and the plastics industries. Instead, the Canadians will be organising a rolling road show in 2013 covering all continents. Every twelve years the 3-yearly K exhibition and the 4-year drinktec cycle coincide, placing an enormous logistical and financial strain on exhibi- tors. This year is one of those years. Only a month and 600km separate the two exhibitions. And although both events feature PET technology, the key target groups are very different. K attracts the processors, whilst bottlers concen- trate on drinktec. Husky supplies both target groups. The converter with ten or more PET lines is unlikely to look further than K; the bottler on the other hand, intent on expanding into the preform sector, will head straight for drinktec. And naturally because the customer of the converter is the bottler, converters will also be flocking to drinktec to meet their customers. Of course, in-house exhibitions and road shows have their place in the marketing mix. Nowhere else can manufacturers focus so intensively on their customers at the same time as presenting new products with maxi- mum impact. Customers themselves are also generally keen to come along. It eliminates the hustle and bustle of exhibitions, and promotes relaxed one to one discussions. So for existing customers, in-house exhibi- tions are an excellent way of showcasing the brand. If, like Husky, you have a market share of over 90%, it’s a no-brainer. What in-house exhibitions cannot and will not do is to win new custom- ers nor find out what the competition is up to. And here all sorts of ques- tions occur to me: Jeff MacDonald, Vice President Marketing, was explain- ing to us that with its H-PET AE range of small preform systems launched in 2010, Husky has been able to win a lot of new customers unknown to them up to that point. So even Husky’s high market share does not guaran- tee they will be aware of every potential customer. And finally the Italians Sacmi and Sipa, with the support of Robert Schad, are storming the Husky stronghold. Added to this, what effect will the re-structuring at both Krauss-Maffei and Netstal have on the market? Let us not forget the tooling sector, which will be heavily represented in Munich, and which we will be reporting on. In light of all this, it will be inter- esting to see just how well Husky’s “no to K and drinktec this year” policy turns out in practice. Yours Alexander Büchler