This new iGen 4 combination, which Xerox first introduced in the spring, provides a matte look that mimics offset gloss characteristics more closely.

"One of core areas we do direct marketing for is the retail automotive market and we have a number of ongoing campaigns whereby we aggregate the volume from a number of different locations to enable us to create a large ongoing direct marketing campaign," TGI Direct VP-sales & marketing Robert White explained in an interview with PrintWeek.

"There's quite of bit of flexibility in the machine size and landscape available to us to image on - whereby we can run volumes of programs that are not only time-based, but the new device also gives us quite a bit of flexibility to intermix different messages and different sizes into the finished products."

TGI Direct began nearly five decades ago as a print and fulfillment house and now offers a host of web-based solutions including variable data imaging, print on demand, fulfillment, email marketing, web hosting, full warehousing, distribution, and direct mail services.

Company president Douglas Bacon said TGI Direct boasts a number of national and international clients, many of them Fortune 1000 companies. He added the new Xerox iGen 4 Printer with Matte finish toner joins an iGen 3, an iGen 4 and a Docutech 6135 for digital production at the TGI Direct production floor.  

"We've become pretty much a Xerox house, though we do have a little of HP and have some Canon stuff as well," Bacon added. Bacon said it wasn't a specific contract that triggered the decision to purchase the iGen 4 with Matte Toner combination, but noted, "Given the direction our clients are going and the direction we as a company are going and where we think the market is going, it made a lot of sense."  

TGI Direct is privately-held and doesn't release specific revenue numbers, but White said the company has been experiencing eight to 12% annual growth in its digital business for the past four years. "It's mainly from clients that are transitioning out of traditional offset and into digital," he explained. "We're more of a fulfillment company that's in the business of digital mainly because of fulfillment and direct mail, and not because we're a traditional printing company transitioning to digital."  

TGI Direct has already had several of its key clients visit its facility and see the new device and the resulting print products first hand and anticipates it will be a value-add that none of its competitors can offer.  

TGI Direct financed the new equipment through Xerox and Bacon stressed, "We had no issue with that whatsoever. We have an outstanding partnership with Xerox that's been great for all. He also said the purchase was not part of any larger equipment upgrade for the company, adding, "It is a continuous investment process, and a lot of our investment is not so much in the equipment as it is the software and technology. We do a lot of cross-media work and we really believe in the value of marketing automation and using the right tools."

Both White and Bacon said the new Xerox equipment did not require a great deal of training for their workforce. "In the first four days of the device becoming operational we ran more than 500,000 impressions," White said. "So the process to get up and going was very seamless because we had the operational footprint already in place."