Filling in a Beverage Barn’s Nooks and Crannies with Banner Branding

Wrapping a Cooler with Banner Graphics

Rather than apply a patchwork quilt of adhesive-backed inkjet media to the cooler and ceiling beams at an area beverage barn, DeCrescente Distributing’s Monty Pyle decided to use JetFlex FL Matte (13 oz.) from LexJet.

Cooler Wrap by DeCrescente Distributing“On a concrete wall hiding conduit and other obstacles it’s easier to wrap it with vinyl banner, rather than applying one strip here and one strip there. There were so many nooks and crannies in this place, it was unbelievable. They raised their ceiling and it made for one big obstacle after another. Then they put cameras in, so we had to take out the cameras, re-install and re-orient them. This was the most feasible way to do it, and it definitely changed the look of the building to where they were happy with it,” says DeCrescente’s Monty Pyle. “The owner originally wanted it printed on satin flag, but I told him he wouldn’t be able to clean it like you can a vinyl banner. The last thing you want is a filthy graphic after just a few weeks that you can’t clean.”

Printed on an Epson Stylus Pro GS6000 low-solvent printer, Pyle installed the huge cooler banner by himself, attaching it with screws to a wood backing above the cooler. Since the drop ceiling was taken out, exposing the beams, Pyle wrapped the beams as well.

Cooler Wrap for the Beverage BarnOn the cooler, Pyle found that the width of the material didn’t quite match the height of the higher ceilings, so he added a strip of Photo Tex PSA Fabric – Solvent Printers to border the top of the main wrap. “Since it was a matte banner material with a matte adhesive fabric it was pretty seamless and creates the illusion that it’s all one piece,” says Pyle.

“The media from LexJet we’ve been using has really been good and our image quality has increased using it with the Epson GS6000, which has also been very reliable,” adds Pyle. “He gave us a lot of opportunity in the store, and it happened so quickly; they wanted it up pretty darn fast.”

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.”

Step Back in Time with a Printed Cooler Wrap

Vintage London tavern design

Give the people what they want is an excellent phrase to keep in mind when you’re designing anything. In the case of Douglas Liquors in North Attleboro, Mass., the owner – who happens to be English – wanted to immerse his customers in a traditional London tavern.

Printing a themed cooler wrapColonial Beverage’s sign shop manager, Tennyson Lacasio, was happy to oblige. Lacasio did some research and brought all the elements of a vintage pub to the fore: stone walls, barrels, candle and lantern lighting, and so forth.

The tricky part is combining a themed décor-like cooler wrap with the necessary branding. And, as you can see by the design and the accompanying photos, Lacasio expertly and seamlessly worked the beers Colonial Beverage sells into the picture.

Branding and advertising at the point of sale“The only things I snuck in that were modern were the Blue Moon and Coors neon signs, but all the other brands were given a more vintage, aged look. Still, those neon signs worked well and did not distract from the theme, and that was most important to the owner,” says Lacasio.

The 44.5″ x 46′ cooler wrap was printed on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Self Adhesive Polypropylene, laminated with LexJet 3 Mil Matte UV Standard Low Melt, and applied to Coroplast.

Need for Speed at the Point of Sale

Printing cooler wraps for point of sale advertising

Hot off the presses, or hot off the track in this case, is the latest point-of-sale masterpiece from Tennyson Lacasio, print shop manager for Colonial Wholesale Beverage in North Dartmouth, Mass. The key to a nice-looking cooler wrap, says Lacasio, is detailed measurements before you design it.

Point of sale advertising with cooler wrapsIn this case there were minor variations in the lengths and widths of the cooler areas that would get the NASCAR graphics and Miller Lite and Coors Light branding treatments, but by and large they were relatively square and level.

Once measurements are taken, Lacasio says he creates a framework with all the elements, including obstacles like cooler door handles, in CorelDRAW. Once that’s created he sets up a new file and adds the imagery.

Lacasio printed the images on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Self Adhesive Polypropylene and laminated them with LexJet 3 Mil Matte UV Standard Low Melt (3 Mil).

“I usually go with LexJet’s gloss laminate because it really gives the images extra pop, but in this case I chose the matte finish laminate because part of the problem using the gloss laminate for indoor installations is the light reflecting off the images. I’ve been meaning to try the matte laminate anyway, and this was the perfect excuse,” says Lacasio. “It came out really nice, it’s very visible throughout the entire store and it gives it a real nice finished look to it.”

Lacasio adds that the cooler wrap dominates the store; it’s the first thing you see when you walk in. The store itself, 44 Liquors, is relatively small, but it does a lot of volume at its prime spot on Route 44 in Massachusetts.

“I was looking for a sense of movement throughout the design because of the subject matter and the fact that we want people who are buying beer to get involved in the imagery. When we installed the project we took out almost all of the competitor’s advertising and now we basically own the entire space,” says Lacasio.

How to Win Space at the Point of Sale and Keep It

Printing cooler wraps for the point of sale

A crucial ingredient in the beer wars is securing as much advertising and promotional space as possible at the point of sale, whether it’s a c-store, liquor store, bar or restaurant. And the key ingredient in making that happen is a combination of design and printing horsepower, a combination The Nackard Companies P.O.P. shop manager, Steve Lalio, has in spades.

Cooler wraps with adhesive backed materialThe Nackard Companies, based in Flagstaff, Ariz., serves the entire state, excepting the Phoenix and Tucson metro areas. The company’s wide reach demands a special emphasis on dominating as many spaces as possible for their brands in the market. A recent project completed in early December at Premier Beverage, a liquor store in Sierra Vista, Ariz., illustrates the power of point of sale printing to do just that.

In this case, the daughter of Premier Beverage’s owner happened upon a cooler wrap Lalio had created for a c-store in Flagstaff. Word got back to Premier Beverage and the request was made for the Lalio/Nackard treatment for the liquor store’s cooler.

Down came the competitive cooler wrap and in its place went Lalio’s handiwork. The concept was simple yet striking: A blue icy background interspersed with craft beer logos and bottles distributed by The Nackard Companies.

“Craft beers are taking off and we’re doing our best to come up with unique ideas to promote those products,” says Lalio. “In order to really understand it, you have to see it in person. That blue background really pops out and makes the store brighter and more alive. The question I ask before I design is, ‘What attracts you to something? It’s eye candy, and to me it’s the background. And, you don’t want to clutter it too much; you want to advertise what you really want to sell to the public.”

Advertising at the point of saleLalio printed the giant project – which is one main cooler graphic 27 feet long and 56 inches high, a corner cooler that’s 20 feet long and 56 inches high, plus the approximately 20” x 80” cooler corners – on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Self Adhesive Polypropylene with a Canon iPF8000S inkjet printer.

The prints were then laminated with 3 Mil Luster UV Standard Low Melt laminate and applied to Coroplast. In the end there were more than 20 panels created for the area salesperson to attach on-site.

“A gloss laminate looks real sharp with outdoor banners, but indoors we typically use luster because of the lighting. If it will be up there for a long time, like this one will be, we laminate in case they need to wipe it down for whatever reason,” says Lalio.

The real challenge was getting everything lined up just right so that the entire piece appears as seamless as possible. Lalio says it’s just paying attention to the minute details, taking extra time to scale everything and accounting for intrusions like air vents that ensure a big project like this comes together from print to installation smoothly.