HP sinks $300 million into Print 2.0 campaign

Palo Alto (CA) – Hewlett-Packard is betting big on printing and is spending $300 million to prove the point. The company’s pricey new ad campaign will tout its new printers in commercials featuring stars like Gwen Stefani and business owners like Jake Burton of Burtons Snowboards. HP is also partnering with Web 2.0 companies to embed one-click icons to print out documents and photos.

The slogan of the campaign is “What do you have to say ?” and will highlight the features and benefits of HP printers. HP launched 12 consumer inkjet printers today which include all-in-one scanner/copier/printers and five photo printers. The company also announced several enterprise level printers.

Integration with web pages is a big part of the HP’s strategy and the company estimates that nearly half of all print jobs come from web pages. But printing web pages has traditionally been a hit or miss affair with print looking either too big or too small. Now the company says it has made a Javascript app that simplifies online printing.

Web browsers call up the up by clicking the “Print It !” icon on partner websites and HP claims a perfectly formatted page will be printed with minimal wasted space. Sounds like a perfect way to make the printer use more ink.