Creating A Brand — Do Monikers Really Matter?
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Steven Schnoll, managing director of Schnoll Media Consulting in New Providence, NJ, feels it is a tremendous challenge for a company with the word ‘print,’ ‘graphics,’ or ‘litho’ in its name to remain successful in today’s business climate.
“It is simply guilt by name association,” Schnoll observes. “If you call yourself a ‘printer’ you will be judged and evaluated as ‘printer.’ The reality: if you call yourself a printer, you are a printer, and will have great problems discussing other value-added services.”
Schnoll offers the example of a sales rep making a cold call to a potential client. He feels that when the contact person hears the company name, they will immediately conclude the salesperson is soliciting printing only. If they don’t know exactly what the company does, they may listen a little bit longer, he says.
“As any good business executive will tell you, innovation is a compelling argument for growth,” Schnoll continues. “If you are labeled for only one thing—print—you will have a real challenge overcoming that perceived moniker that is considered an ‘old media’ technology. I am not suggesting that offset litho or flexo is dead; I am only making the case that new communication alternatives supported by print are more of a success formula than just trying to sell print alone.”
Offering an agency perspective, Bruce Kielar, executive vice president and chief creative officer for Rochester, NY-based Roberts Communications, feels it is important that printing companies—or any company for that matter— represent what they do clearly. Having the word ‘printing’ or ‘graphics’ in the name is a positive, from his perspective.
“When they start to add ‘marketing’ or ‘communications’ to their name, it puts them into a competitive situation with advertising/direct marketing agencies and communication companies,” Kielar warns. “On the other hand, if a printer is moving to entirely digital from offset and offering other related services (database, creative-art/copy, mailing, etc.) it should consider changing its name, tagline and/or brand identity. Maybe it’s an evolution.”
Kielar suggests a company can start by expanding the promise of the tagline. If non-printing services grow, the name can eventually evolve to reflect the transition.
“Keep in mind, (printers) need to know who their competitors are today and who they will be in the future,” Kielar stresses. “For us, printers are our partners. We bring them in to discuss projects at the concept stage and continue the dialogue throughout a project.”
According to Schnoll, any printer that would like to survive into the next decade will have to rebrand as a ‘marketing services,’ ‘content provider’ or ‘media’ business. He would suggest dropping any reference to print in the business name, but keep some identifier of the former moniker.
“Two companies that have successfully done that are Knapp Printing, now called K/P Corp., and Great Lakes Litho, now renamed as Great Lakes Integrated,” Schnoll points out. “They both do a great deal of conventional printing, as well as several other value-added services that generally support their offset business. Both these companies continue to grow and prosper as New Age information businesses.”
There are numerous examples of companies transitioning their identities to show they are more than just printers.
Recently, Miami’s Franklin/Trade Graphics announced that it has changed its name to Franklin Communications. Peter Dunne, president, stated that the new name better represented the expanded capabilities of the company. Over a period of several years, Franklin added fulfillment and mailing services, and entered the digital printing and variable data market with the addition of a Xerox iGen3 110.
In 2006, the company significantly expanded its mailing and data processing services with the acquisition of Direct Mail Advertising Corp. (DMAC), which had been in business in south Florida since 1965. Dunne also points out that the company has added off-line UV coating to the pressroom and upgraded its perfect binding capacity.
“We feel we provide a complementary offering of communication services to our customers,” says Dunne. “We are a single source provider of graphic communications for many of our customers.”
Franklin Communications offers design services, prepress and platemaking, sheetfed and non-heatset web printing, and a full complement of bindery services. Franklin also boasts Web-based ordering and fulfillment systems, database services, and customer access to current and historical job data.
Probably the biggest-name printing company to go through such a metamorphosis was when Mail-Well Inc. rebranded itself as Cenveo and took on the corporate tagline “Vision Delivered.” The name derives from a combination of “cen” for center and “veo,” which relates to vision and understanding.
But its not just billion-dollar performers, like Cenveo, that are reinventing themselves with a new company name, corporate culture and philosophy as a communications provider.
• Charlotte, NC-based The Printing Office morphed into Integraphx to better reflect its varied capabilities to its customers.
• Reflections Printing, in Minneapolis, moved forward with the single-word title Reflections.
• In the Washington, DC, area, Fontana Lithograph/Affiliated Graphics assumed the more streamlined moniker of Mosaic.
• After combining forces with AdLab, a marketing and management consulting firm, Commercial Mailing & Printing Service in Delmar, NY, revised its name to CMPS Multi-Media Marketing.
• Cincinnati’s Sidney Printing strived to be a leader in hybrid message delivery solutions, so it came up with the handle SpringDot.
• Racine, WI-based large-format printer Color Arts reinvented itself as DuraColor.
• As part of a larger brand reorganization initiative, KAR Printing, Austell, GA, came up with the term doodad to sound more nimble and accessible.
“Although we did change our name, it wasn’t to convey anything about being ‘full-service,’ ” explains doodad COO Thomas McCloskey. “We did it as a component of a broader initiative to clarify our brand. It might seem a subtle difference, but our name change was the final step in a 12-month rebranding process and not a process of name selection, per se.”
Short of a name overhaul, Roberts Communications’ Kielar feels that if a printer has added new capabilities such as variable data (VDP) digital printing, database services or finishing, print buyers should be informed about the new offerings.
“They should send us a piece or drop off a sample of their new capability and then set up a meeting with our production people—they can also invite creative and account service folks as they see fit,” he recommends.
In summation, Kielar says it’s not what a printing company’s name is, rather what the company’s brand stands for—quality, value, service and partnership—that is important. Adding new capabilities is just one way to broaden existing relationships and to create new ones.
“One word says it all—branding,” Schnoll concludes. “I know this is a foreign concept to many in the graphic arts industry. But any business today must rebrand to inform their customer base of their many New Age information services.” PI
