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FuturePrint Podcast
#258 Sustainable Wide Format: Inside Groupe Mediagraphic's Award Winning Olympic Success
The intertwining worlds of print innovation and sustainability take centre stage as Stanislas de Missolz of Groupe Mediagraphic shares his company's remarkable journey through creative display solutions and environmental leadership.
Founded over two decades ago in Lyon, this business has evolved into a powerhouse of print media distribution with a distinctive approach that transcends conventional business models. Stanislas reveals how their five-entity structure—including three specialized product companies complemented by an R&D operation in Shanghai and a dedicated sustainability arm—creates a unique ecosystem designed to anticipate market trends and deliver comprehensive solutions to complex display challenges.
What truly distinguishes Groupe Mediagraphic is their three-pillar strategy: expert prescription that extends beyond printers to advise major event organizers, innovative product development that ensures they're never competing on identical offerings, and a profound environmental conviction that transforms sustainability from obligation to opportunity. This approach culminated in their Kavalan Green Leader Award-winning project in the 'Innovation category'—a breathtaking open-air photography exhibition across Paris during the Olympics, featuring iconic sporting moments captured by renowned photographer Raymond Depardon.
Diving deeper into their sustainability practices, Stanislas shares fascinating details about their systematic approach to product lifecycle analysis and end-of-life management. From converting banners into artist-decorated flip-flops sold for charity to developing a dedicated recycling facility in Morocco, this business exemplifies how environmental responsibility can drive business innovation. Their meticulous tracking of chemical compositions and regulatory changes positions them at the forefront of an industry navigating change and complexity while still solving problems the bringing to life new ideas and innovation.
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Welcome to the FuturePrint podcast celebrating print technology and the people behind it.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the latest episode of the FuturePrint podcast. We have another Kavalan Green Leader Award winner with us today, so welcome to the podcast. Stanislav Dimizov Media Graphique, I believe you're based in the Paris area, is that right? Have I got that right, stanislav?
Speaker 3:You're quite right, hi, marcus, hi everybody, good afternoon. First, thank you, marcus, for inviting us to this podcast, great opportunity for us to talk, to talk about, uh, talk about our company and and our business. Um, just to to correct you, uh, the the group is located in lyon, uh, in france well, that's very yeah, but the business is done mainly in paris I.
Speaker 2:I had paris in mind because your award-winning campaign was obviously in Paris. So that was in Paris you'll talk about a little later. So, stanislas, if you wouldn't mind, could you introduce the business um, you're obviously in Lyon, we know that, um, and what it is you actually do yes, sure, um.
Speaker 3:so, as uh, as I said earlier, we are operating uh in france, uh in the in the in the printing industry. We are distributors of, um of medias, uh for now about 20 years. Um, the group owes the five, uh five entities like three business companies and two side business companies. We have Mediaprint, which is dedicated to sell self-adhesives, mediavision for the banners, and we have Mediafix for a tensioning system. And aside of this business, we have two companies that are really specialized companies that operate only for the group. The first is Natum Ignis, based in Shanghai, and this company is like a pure R&D company. The objective is to find the new product, the new technologies and the new market trends that can be set in Europe. And we have WinWin, which is specialized in all the CSR stuff. So we are mainly managing the end of life of the group products.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. So clearly sustainability is a very clear thing that you're committed to. What makes your business different, perhaps, to others in the marketplace?
Speaker 3:I think three things. We are different on three bases mainly. First base would be the experience in the industry we have. So my father has founded the company like more than 20 years ago, but he has more than 30 years experience in the, in the industry and and he has developed a huge expertise on all kinds of projects within the industry, from a small project to a large scale project. And and also we gather only people from the products within the company. We are not a financial company or whatever. We are a company with only passionate people, so from the products, and I think that makes the difference in the business. The difference in the business, I will say, also linked to your previous question, our presence in several markets. So we are a multi-product group with companies that sell different kinds of products for several markets. So, as I said, self-adhesive banners, tensioning system, and thanks to these companies we can create a package that can fill all the industry needs or all the needs for one project. And thanks to this presence also, we have the opportunity to collect some market trends that can create some synergies with other markets and so that we can anticipate some market moves and we can try to have a good steering of the overall industry.
Speaker 3:And I would say one last point, based on our business model. I guess our business model is very different from our competitors in the distribution industry. Here again, we have three bases of our business model. We have three parts in our pyramid that is very important for us in what we are very careful. First is the prescription. So, as I told you, we are from the product, so we know the product very well and we know the industry very well. And to develop the business, to create a competitive advantage for our group, for our company, we have a huge focus on the prescription. And the prescription enabled us not to deal only with printers but to deal also with the final customer. We are advising a lot of sports industry leaders, so leagues, for example, organizers of the different main sports events, organizer of the different main sport events, because the need is huge, the projects are always complex and they need some expertise and some advice.
Speaker 3:On the global package for all the displays, I guess we also have a specific product development strategy. So, again, as I told you, we have an office in Shanghai which is dedicated to find and develop new products. So we have these two aspects product development, so collecting market needs and try to develop our own products and product finding, finding new products that fit to the market and thanks to this, we are not competing with other distributor on the same product basis. We have a range which is clearly different from the, from the other, and thanks to that we can. We can leverage some, some new product specification in, bring the market with new specificities.
Speaker 3:And the last point for business model will be our environmental conviction. I guess this is driving our business model currently what we try to think with this. We try to go thinking beyond the products. We try to go thinking beyond the products to offer to the customer a full experience from product development to end-of-life management. I think we will talk about this later, but this is very important for the industry, as we are an industry that that is displaying just for a few days, weeks or months. So so we we try to um to leverage on the on the environmental question because, uh, we have, we have deep, deep conviction in uh in this topic yeah, yeah, so pretty comprehensive number of reasons what make, I guess, your business quite different and unique.
Speaker 2:Obviously you have a leadership position in the marketplace as well and, as I said at the beginning, you won the business won a cavalan green leaders award. So why don't you tell us a bit about that project? How well was it received, perhaps by the client and also the people of paris?
Speaker 3:um. First the cavalan um. Just one word on the on the cavalan award. I guess it was a great initiative from from cavalan because that was the great opportunity for us to compare not in a competitive way with other players of the market at an international scale. So I think it was like a win-win deal for everybody because everybody was able to get some insight of the global industry trends. We were able to see what are the best practices, the practices that works on the market and that can be applied in several markets in several countries. So it was, I guess, a great initiative from the Cavalan Group to set up this award and to answer your question for the clients how he was received the. So maybe one word about the project um.
Speaker 3:So we did a partnership with the city of paris, samsung and the famous olympic photographer and the famous Olympic photographer, raymond Depardon, to create the widest open-air exhibition in Paris. So some large-scale formats of Raymond Depardon photographs were displayed in the streets of Paris during the Olympics game. Raymond Depardon photographer were displayed in the street of Paris during the Olympics game and it was a pretty great receive from the city of Paris because the Olympics game was all around environment. So all the main issues that providers faced, not only for display but for everything, was how we can offer some environmental products and how we can manage their waste their waste. So we came to this project with our panel of solutions to provide the most eco-friendly display and it was pretty appreciated. And more than that, it was a lever for us at the end to have a closer relation with the city of Paris for other events that could be managed with some product they already know. So at the end it was great, even for business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and obviously we'll put some photos in a follow-up article, but it was like you created a huge gallery in paris where all of these amazing iconic sporting moments were captured. It was like a mixture of photography and and print and it was all sort of following the theme of the Olympics and famous sporting events and moments from years gone by. How many prints were there? I think like 17 or something, 20. Yeah, 20 all across Paris. So it's just absolutely fantastic and the impact, I think, was huge and the people of Paris loved it as well, I believe as well, I'm sure they did and sort of a wonderful spectacle. Um, obviously, sustainability the environment, is very important to you. Why is that, and are your customers actually demanding these solutions?
Speaker 3:Of course, I guess, as all industries, the environment is getting more and more important.
Speaker 3:This is why we have created the company Win-Win into the group, just to analyse and to tackle all the issues and try to find a new lever in terms of business to make the environmental issue not an issue anymore but an opportunity to win deals and to do some business for our customer. And this is linked with the prescription efforts we are doing, because right at the prescription phase we are already talking about end-of-life and end-of-life management. Regarding the environment, I guess there are two things to mention. First, the product itself. That's the most important. That's what we are selling and we are doing a lot of efforts to understand the chemical composition of the product we sell, to that we are able to build some reports on potential economies that are done by our customer. The things you need to know is that every product we are developing, the things you need to know is that every product we are developing, we are asking our supplier a full list of chemical ingredients that compose the product and we are providing this able to fill some fields in our LCA analysis. So we are doing a lifecycle analysis of all the products we develop so that we are able to have accurate figures on the impact all the products have on display. And this is something the customer really enjoys because they can anticipate all the impacts of one communication campaign. And there is another side of the environmental topic we are dealing with is the end-of-life management, and it's pretty linked to the first step, because, once you know the chemical composition of your products, you are able to offer several end-of-life solutions that you master. And, secondly, you can manage end-to-end. And so we developed a lot of solutions for our products in order to make our customers able to select the end-of-life management solution that fits better to its company or to its conviction. And this is something we are aware of, because providing several solutions end of life for one product is pretty good, because, besides, your customer can communicate on the solution he has taken because it is linked to his business, it is linked to conviction or whatever.
Speaker 3:Just to give you some inputs, for example, for certain products, we can provide free solutions. We can provide recycling, industrial recycling. We already did this. So, basically, you take the material and you are creating. You are creating some plastic pellets that can be, that can be used for the automotive industry, for example. You can do some, some upcycling and and you can and you can also use, use it in in the in the industry, in the chimney of the industry, to create some energy by burning and, as it is environmental, there is no pollution and everything is validated by laboratory, so we have proof for everything. It's quite a lot of work, but passioning and also it's nice to see how we can develop a new life for the products.
Speaker 3:I can give you one example that I worked on and that was like pretty, pretty nice. So we did at one time a partnership for a display and we wanted to have an upcycling end of life because we were dealing with a guy that has a company in in northern France and he was doing some, some flip flops with a, with with plastic, so, but he was not able to sell the flip flops. There was the funny story and as he was not able to sell the flip-flops that was the funny story. And as he was not able, we said, okay, let's try with banners to create some flip-flops and what we are going to do is to see how the product looks like.
Speaker 3:And he did the first batch of flip-flops and that was terrible, because the color was not stable, the smell was not good at all, smelling like bad plastic, and we say, okay, so we have plenty of flip-flops. What can we do? And we said we are going to to take advantage of all our connection with some artists, because we have a lot of connection with the artists and some of the artists are pretty well known and those artists graph the flip-flops and we were able to sell the flip-flops for charity, so that was good at the end. So just to show you that there are plenty of solutions to manage the end of life of our materials yeah, and that's um interesting.
Speaker 2:Going back to where you started, a new part of the business win-win which is focused more on developing sustainable solutions and it and it gives you that focus and that way to then test things out, try things out and, as you say, a lever for actually getting new business. So you can win new business by being more sustainable, which is exciting, because often it's often it's seen as something that perhaps is more difficult to achieve. So your proof really that and your success with the award and other clients shows there's growth in that area, right? Yes?
Speaker 3:sure, and this is exactly what we want to, uh, to use as a lever for business. So I I told you the example of the flip-flops that started not very well but that finished well, and we are investing a lot to develop this solution because tomorrow our customer will be able all the printers will be able to sell this solution to the final customer, because the regulation is getting harder and harder for the waste management and I guess people have deep conviction in environmental issues. So it's important always to feed the market, to feed the market trends, and to provide what the market, what the market is asking for, and to to give you, to give you also some, some information. We are currently working on creating a dedicated company for for recycling, for recycling that will be probably set in Morocco. So so we are, we are really engaged in this field.
Speaker 2:Fantastic, and do you have any other projects that you are kind of proud of that you can point to? That perhaps would be interesting to hear more about.
Speaker 3:Yes, I will talk about two projects, the first one focusing on products and the second one focusing on recycling, so that you will have all the spectrum of what we are doing.
Speaker 3:So the first one is pretty linked to what we have done with Raymond Depardon in Paris for the Cavalan Award.
Speaker 3:We are now partners for more than maybe for five years with La Gacilly Photo Festival, which is also an open-air photograph festival that I held in French-Britanny every year, and every year it gathers the most worldwide talentuous artists and we are providing all the display material to display large-scale photographs within the village of La Gacilly, which is the village where the brand Yves Rocher was founded I don't know if you know the brand, that's a typical French one and we use this festival also as a lever in communication to feature our products and also to show how our products are cool and are working for this pay and all the quality it has, and are working for this pay and all the quality it has. But also we take advantage of this festival to feature all the novelties we have in our range, in our product range. So this is the first example we mainly communication and marketing side, and the other we with a recycling side. It's been now three years that we are doing, we are providing all the display for the, the 14th of July, which is the French day, and and we are doing this event because the mandatory thing is to provide some environmental display.
Speaker 2:So what we are providing, and every year we are recycling the, the, all the material, all the banners, into plastic pellets that is sent to the automotive industry so that the product has a second life fantastic and that's um you continually developing new projects and ideas and ways of improving sustainable performance within the work you're doing, which I think you obviously have a strong commitment to developing new things all of the time. You have a culture for innovation, right.
Speaker 3:Yes, sir, yes, we are pretty creative, and more than that, I think. As I told you at the beginning of the interview, we are people from the product, we are passionate about the product and we have the chance that all the employees of the companies are really passionate about the product. They are the first to send pictures when they see our product display on the building of the cities. So it's a gather, engagement, energy, and that drives all the project and that nourish also all the creativity we can have, and that's a very good point. And also we are a very committed company and also in this field, the employees are just incredible in this way, because they are very focused on the trends, they are very curious, uh, and they and they always want to do better than we did yesterday, so, uh, so it gives, uh, it gives us the drives to um, to uh, to go into it, to dive into the project, uh and uh, and that's very, uh, very passionating yeah, yeah, it's great stuff being passionate, being forward focused and so on and seeing trends.
Speaker 2:Tell me how do you see the future of the industry developing. Are there any issues or trends that you see influencing and shaping the future?
Speaker 3:yeah, I guess. I guess the industry is uh, is, uh, is getting complex and complex, increasingly complex for many reasons, and what I will say also, what I observed, is that all the customers are now acculturated to the, to the media, to the display. So first I will say innovation, innovation first. We need to work on new display solutions, on new material, on new chemical use to answer different needs, to answer different needs, to answer environmental needs, to answer technical needs and to answer aesthetic needs also. So the innovation, I guess, is at the forefront of our industry and I guess we are lucky for that, because the industry is very innovative, very creative and has a kind of maturity that helps the industry to go always beyond and to find always something new.
Speaker 3:So I guess we are looking on this side. There are plenty of innovation that can be triggered and that can be levered on different markets, so it's a good point for us. Regarding the future, I will tell that the resilience of the industry needs to be also levered. I will say two things about this. First, we are in a complex world organization. I would say there are plenty of events that don't really help the business. So companies need to be resilient and the resilience can be levered in several ways.
Speaker 3:In Mediagraphic, for example, we level resilience with the integration of the best practice we can see in other industry that we can combine to our industry to offer something new, to offer something different and to offer something that is relevant. And also we need to keep and to offer something that is relevant. And also we need to keep adaptive to the market trend and to the market itself. I think our product need to meet perfectly the customer needs if we want to sell or to make a business. And I will talk at the end of the CSR, which is very important, I guess we need to integrate now the industry needs to integrate all the sustainability and ethical practice into the operation. I think it's not a place, it's a mandatory field. Now, clearly, we can see it in our advisory at the first site of the call for tenders and I guess the industry this is what we're trying to do, but not many people are doing this and I guess it's a pity. It's a pity for all the industry. It's to take advantage of the environmental. It's to take advantage of the environmental issue we are facing to create more value. I think it's a great way. What we can see every day is that everybody says that environmental issue is just a mandatory field to think in the call for tenders. But I guess it's a great opportunity to sell a new service, to create some new value for the product and for the company to have a real competitive advantage at the end. So I think this is a great opportunity for the future of the industry.
Speaker 3:And the two other things I would say is about the regulation. Regulation is moving so fast and is not going in the sense, I guess, of the industry. So the industry and the companies need to be very focused on all the new jurisdictions, all the new laws that are held in Europe mainly that are held in Europe, mainly In our company, for example, we are working with a lawyer that is doing monitoring all the year long on new regulation, new laws that are voted in France and in Europe, just to anticipate and try to adapt and I guess this is a point that the industry should be very, very careful of, because that can be really impactful on the business. And last point I would say, to adapt to all the crises we are facing, some geopolitical economic crises, but it's linked, maybe, to resilience.
Speaker 2:My first point yeah, no, it's a really good sort of analysis really, about the future and sort of ending on the world that we live with. This uncertainty and volatility is, of course, it impacts all of us, doesn't it? I mean it places pressure onto decisions, onto speed, onto responsiveness, creativity, but still, the environment remains a really important aspect of it all. And listen, stanislas, thanks so much for joining us today. Congratulations to you and your business for winning that Green Leaders Award. Continue with this innovative culture. It's served you very well.
Speaker 2:I think you're the next generation, right? So, yeah, you're the next generation. Take on that spirit, which I'm sure your father's still very much involved, of course, but that is very interesting. No matter what's happening in the world, innovation enables, I think, a business to lead properly forward, and I think that energy, whilst at times it's very difficult, it's not easy being innovative, but it does give you power and it does give you a much greater opportunity, I think, of generating profit and keeping clients and solving their problems. So well done, congratulations, and thank you again for joining us, van der Looft. Thank you very much, marcus.
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