Art at the Point of Sale with Inkjet Printed Canvas

Blue Moon Beer on Canvas by AW Artworks

Each brand has its own aesthetic. The advertising that surrounds that aesthetic should be consistent and appropriate to the brand. In the case of Blue Moon craft beer, the advertising focuses on the craft element, emphasizing a hand-painted rendering of the Blue Moon logo and artwork.

Inkjet Printed CanvasWhat better medium, then, than gallery-wrapped canvas? Tyler Peters, distributor beer merchant for Tenth and Blake Beer Company, the craft and import division of MillerCoors, found the canvas craftsman he was looking for in Andy Wredberg, owner of AW Artworks in Sun Prairie, Wis.

Peters is based in Madison, and wanted point of sale artwork that not only in tune with the Blue Moon aesthetic, but was also in tune with the downtown Madison vibe.

“We wanted to create something a lot different than a standard neon sign or banner; something that conveys what we should see in the Madison market,” says Peters. “The artwork ties into a food festival we have here in Madison called Isthmus a la Carts. We had an interactive Blue Moon mural at the event that consumers – over 21, of course – could paint and enjoy some Blue Moon beer, too.”

Blue Moon Mural
The Blue Moon canvas wraps printed by AW Artworks on Sunset Production Matte Canvas were based on this mural painted by attendees of the Isthmus a la Carts food festival in Madison, Wis.

It was a version of this mural that was sent to Wredberg to print and build the 2′ x 3′ canvas gallery wraps. Wredberg used LexJet Sunset Production Matte Canvas to produce the prints on his Canon iPF8300 44″ inkjet printer.

“They printed beautifully; I was very happy with the look and color saturation of the Sunset Production canvas,” says Wredberg. “They had a pretty tight budget, so I checked on the Sunset Production canvas since I felt it would allow us to get closer to their budget and since it was a longer production run for us.”

Wredberg tweaked the design he received from agency a bit to ensure it fit in the gallery wrap format and wrapped the canvas around 1 1/2″ stretcher bars. Now the 50 canvas gallery wraps are ready to be distributed to various bars in downtown Madison.

Wredberg will also print 50 more canvas gallery wraps to promote Batch 19, a pre-Prohibition style lager. Check back here for photos of the gallery wraps in their environment.

Print-N-Stick for Point of Sale

LexJet Print-N-Stick Fabric at the Point of SaleLexJet’s new Print-N-Stick Fabric™ is making its mark at the point of sale.

In fact, it’s making all kinds of marks without leaving a mark behind.

That’s the whole point of the adhesive-backed repositionable inkjet-printable fabric: apply, re-position, remove and re-use without leaving any residue behind.

Add that to a brilliant white point that provides photographic image quality and watch it sell brands at the point of sale.

At least that’s been the experience of Canyon Distributing in Yuma, Ariz., which has been branding practically everywhere and everything with the inkjet fabric.

Point of Sale Promotional Graphics
The “painted” Blue Moon bottle has been a popular point-of-sale piece at Canyon Distributing. Here’s a print before it’s contour-cut and applied to any variety of flat surfaces. John Fritz of Canyon Distributing says the images really pop and look quite realistic when printed on LexJet Print-N-Stick Fabric.

“Our account reps have been asking for the material a lot lately. Everyone likes it for the point of sale application ideas they’ve come up with, in addition to the application ideas I already had. It’s quite versatile,” says John Fritz, production manager for Canyon Distributing.

Fritz says Print-N-Stick has been stuck onto chalkboard menus at restaurants, windows, coolers, doors, and bar tops and sides, among other applications. One of those applications, pictured here, is the application of Blue Moon bottle caps to floors.

“We laminated the floor stickers so they could be cleaned and are more durable. Then, they can be easily removed and placed somewhere else,” says Fritz.

Fritz adds that the bottle cap prints and “painted” Blue Moon bottles are the most popular images among Canyon Distributing’s account reps, which are usually applied as cut-outs. “The painted bottles look relatively realistic when they’re applied,” adds Fritz.

Point of Sale Graphics and Promotions“I really like the image quality we’re getting from the Print-N-Stick Fabric; it actually prints better than most of the adhesive-backed materials we use, including vinyl,” says Fritz. “It’s also amazing how forgiving the material is when you apply it; minor bends and whatnot that would ruin other media during application are easily fixed with this material. This makes it ideal for passing out to sales representatives who lack experience with media application, eliminating the need to do it myself at our accounts.”

Setting the Scene with Special Event Point of Sale Signage

Point of Sale Inkjet Printed Display for Corona

The Nackard Companies and its P.O.P. sign crew are well known for creating enticing displays for all kinds of special events, whether it’s the astronomical anomaly called a blue moon (tied into Blue Moon beer, of course), the annual Dew Downtown in Flagstaff, Ariz., or anything in between.

The Nackard Companies team always seems to come up with something different to help drive beer sales around these events. The most recent example was a collaborative project between shop manager Steve Lalio and account representative Anthony Copetillo for Cinco de Mayo.

The pair came up with a basic concept that would be translated for various Mexican beer brands and placed in a number of different locations. The two projects pictured here were created for Corona and Dos Equis.

Inkjet Printed Point of Sale Display for Dos EquisEach display included a number of elements, highlighted by a faux water tower and an airplane toting a banner with buckets of beer.

Copetillo built the water tower structure with a combination of plywood circles for the top and bottom, held in place with plywood slats, Coroplast and furring strips. The “roof” of the water tower was cut-out cardboard painted black and brown. Copetillo created a palm tree using cut-out and painted cardboard as well.

Lalio printed a banner on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Polypropylene that was about 42 inches tall by 115 inches long, which Copetillo wrapped around the structure. For the Corona display, Lalio designed the piece with a wood-grain background and added the Corona logo. It looks strikingly real, which is a testament to what great design and printing can do for a display.

The airplane, which is about six feet long and has a 38-inch wingspan, was printed on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Self Adhesive Polypropylene, applied to Coroplast and cut out in the airplane shape. The banner the plane flies behind it, as well as the other hanging banners, were printed on LexJet 8 Mil PolyGloss Banner and laminated with LexJet 3 Mil Gloss UV Premium Low Melt. Lalio laminated these banners because the customer wanted to re-use them.

Printing Branding Backgrounds for Beers

Wall murals and graphics for stores

The cooler wrap is tried and true for selling beer at the point of sale. It becomes even truer when you can translate it to any room in the house, so to speak, and create a branding background that gives your brand the highest visibility.

Printing wall murals for store signageTennyson Lacasio, sign shop manager at Colonial Beverage in North Dartmouth, Mass., took the inkjet printed cooler wrap to the next level with two recent projects at local liquor stores. Both projects were printed on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Self Adhesive Polypropylene and laminated with LexJet 3 Mil Matte UV Standard Low Melt.

Lacasio says he laminated the prints first (each project had anywhere from three to 12 printed panels) then applied the laminated pieces to Coroplast. This method helped hide the ridges that normally show through when you apply the print material directly to Coroplast before laminating.

“When you run print material through the laminator directly to Coroplast it bonds so closely that it shows the creases in the Coroplast. When I laminated the material first, it gave it a nice, fine, seamless finish,” says Lacasio.

Inkjet printed wall muralsAlso seamless was the paneling, particularly on the Blue Moon background display. Lacasio says this was mostly due to the fact that the wall he applied the panels to in the new building was perfectly square. Moreover, and most importantly, this 12′ x 19′ Blue Moon mural did its job rather effectively.

“You see it right off the bat when you walk into the store. The walls are light blue, which complements the graphic and draws your eye to the back of the store. The owner just wanted to do one brand, which allows you to focus on the strong points of the brand,” says Lacasio. “The image is not pixilated at all and it’s very impressive to stand right in front of it. After we installed it, people were walking out of the store with Blue Moon and they commented on the enticing feel of the image.”

As per usual Lacasio paid special attention to brand details in the designs, including such minutia as the types of glasses in which you serve the beers.

The other two wall murals – featuring Coors Light, Miller Lite and Leinenkugel’s – are on either side of a walk-in cooler door. The Coors Light mural, themed as an American fall, is 8′ x 13′. The Miller Lite/Leinenkugel’s mural, themed as a German Oktoberfest, is 8′ x 10′.

“Fortunately, they’re placing a minimal amount of cases at each display and replenishing them regularly so that you can see most of the display from just about anywhere in the store,” says Lacasio. “I had huge canvases to work from, which makes all the difference in wall branding graphics.”

Selling Beer with Banner Stands

Printing banners for banner standsThere are a million and one ways to promote beer (or anything else for that matter) at the point of sale, but one way that’s often overlooked is the use of a simple retractable banner stand.

“They’re lightweight, portable and collapsible so that it’s easy for our account reps to take the banner stands from one place to another,” says Bob Korabek, POS designer for Caffey Distributing in Greensboro, N.C. “They’re also great for tight spaces. You can utilize them in small areas, like c-stores, where you can put them next to a beer display. And, since it’s retractable, you can also create a smaller banner that’s not as high if ceiling space is an issue.”

Korabek recently completed a couple of winning projects using retractable banner stands. One was a promotion for Blue Moon, which was tied into today’s (Aug. 31) astronomical event called, coincidentally, a blue moon (click here for another project with the blue moon promotional tie-in).

Using banner stands for point of sale displaysThe other banner was designed to be displayed in the entrance to sports bars, featuring the 2012 Carolina Panthers schedule. Since the schedule goes through the end of the year, it’s a perfect relatively long-term promotion that puts Miller front and center at least through December.

“For shorter promotions we can easily take out the previous promotion and re-use them for another one,” explains Korabek. “I just use the usual LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Polypropylene that I get from LexJet for all my banners and apply Heavy Duty Banner Tape on the edges of the tall sides to strengthen the edges and prevent long-term curling possibilities.”

LexJet carries a full line of banner stands for any budget and any application. Here are three to check out initially:

XStand: Available in 24.5″ x 63.5″, 26.5″ x 71″ and 32.5″ x 71″ fits the bill for a cost-effective, lightweight indoor display. Click here to see the demonstration video.

MediaScreen 1: Available in 33 7/16″, 39 3/8″ and 60″ widths, this more-durable banner stand also includes a lifetime warranty and the telescoping pole adjusts the height from 63″ to 88 5/8″. Click here to view the demonstration video.

MediaScreen 3: Available in a 33 7/16″ width, this banner stand features changeable graphic cassettes so you can change the message in seconds, a lifetime warranty, a base that compensates for uneven floors, and more. Click here to see the demonstration video.

For all of the Display Hardware demonstration and how-to videos at LexJet’s YouTube channel, click here. And, if you’d like to read more about banner stand applications, tips on production and the right banner stand for the job, download LexJet’s educational white paper, Making the Most of Banner Stands, at www.lexjet.com/banner-stand-white-paper.aspx.

And, as always, if you need any additional help or information, contact a LexJet customer specialist at 800-453-9538. Happy Labor Day weekend!