Revisiting a topic from eight months ago - that of North American giant Quad/Graphics bringing its brand to Europe - I note that the group is getting more active here in the UK with an advertising campaign currently running in PrintWeek no less.

This is interesting on a number of levels. It's evidence of Quad's ambitions over here in Europe, and of its confidence in the Quad/Winkowski offering. Bold too, given the current overabundance of web offset capacity here on the small island, combined with the unfavourable exchange rate for continental printers targeting the UK.

Of course in Poland they still have the zloty so not all the company's costs are in euros, providing some exchange rate flexibility that other continental competitors lack in that respect. For example, I'm informed that it's cheaper for Germans to print in Poland than at home right now.

Winkowski is also avoiding the general carnage in commodity web print by establishing something of a specialty in smaller formats such as A5, and lightweight papers of the sub-40gsm variety. It has a lot of short cut-off presses, too. I seem to remember them being pretty popular at Cooper Clegg...

As I mentioned in the piece last year, getting on for half its sales are to export markets, and the UK and Russia make up the lion's share of that. Is Quad ambitious to grow that business? You bet it is. And it remains to be seen whether Quad will also get busy with any of the much-mooted consolidation moves.

So... before UK web printers campaign for me to be hung, drawn and quartered for highlighting a foreign competitor, answer me this: given the beneficial £/€ rate how many are being so bold as to advertise on the continent?