Roping up Fabric Banners for Rodeos

Fabric Banners for a Rodeo

Special events are an increasingly important branding opportunity for the Nackard Companies and the beverage brands it represents in the Arizona market. As the beverage distributor’s experience with Dew Downtown, the annual snow-shredding competition through downtown Flagstaff, has illustrated, a successful and growing special event provides brand saturation beyond the point of sale.

This summer is rodeo season in Arizona, and Nackard is branding at four different rodeos. The first one of the summer started just three years ago and Nackard was there as a sponsor and a print provider from the beginning.

The Chuck Sheppard Memorial Roping event at the Prescott Frontier Days Rodeo Grounds brings calf and team ropers together to honor Chuck Sheppard, a famous horseman and roper, and to support various area scholarships.

Fabric Banners by the Nackard CompaniesWith an average of about 30 sponsors per year, Nackard’s job is to provide 3×8 banners to line the fences around the rodeo grounds. Steve Lalio, P.O.P. shop manager for the Nackard Companies, created a template that includes one of Nackard’s brands and one of the sponsoring companies.

The rodeo’s first request was for banners that wouldn’t make a lot of noise when they flapped in the breeze and struck the fencing. It seems the animals get a little spooked when that happens, and the last thing a roper needs is a spooked animal in the ring.

So, Lalio suggested LexJet Poly Select Heavy for the banners, and the solution worked. Though it’s a heavy, durable fabric, it doesn’t make a lot of noise against the fencing if it flaps around, or at least enough noise to get up the hackles of a bull.

“If every sponsor notices what we did with the banners, they’ll want the fabric material because they print well, look nice and are lighter than typical banner material,” says Lalio, who prints the banners on the shop’s Canon iPF8000S. “What’s also nice about the fabric is that we can run them without lamination, so all we do is print, put Banner Ups and grommets in the corner, roll them up and send them out.”

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.

A Once in a Blue Moon Point of Sale Display

Point of sale display printed for Blue Moon beers

It happens once in a blue moon… That is, a blue moon. No, the moon doesn’t literally turn blue. Technically, it means there’s an extra full moon once every two and a half years, on average. This month, Aug. 31 to be exact, is the next blue moon, which won’t show up again until 2015.

This relatively rare event was the perfect opportunity to promote – what else? – Blue Moon beers. It also happens to coincide with a MillerCoors display design contest, so account representatives Anthony Copetillo and Vinnie Montemurro and P.O.P. shop manager Steve Lalio of The Nackard Companies in Flagstaff, Ariz., collaborated on a display concept for a Wal-Mart in Show Low, Ariz.

Printing a point of sale beer display“MillerCoors put out a creative display incentive for August and September, which included Blue Moon. They showed us some examples of a full theme, and I thought this concept would be perfect for the season. It also gave us an opportunity to educate customers about all the characteristics of Blue Moon beers,” says Copetillo. “I give Steve some ideas and the points I want to see on the display, then he comes up with the design theme. Steve always has great ideas that are exactly what I’m looking for, so there are rarely any changes to his design.”

Lalio’s design is divided into three parts to comprise the full backdrop behind the beer display – in-depth information about the different Blue Moon beers (year-round, seasonal and specialty), a centerpiece to draw attention and illuminating copy about what a blue moon is – plus the phases of the blue moon that “float” in front of the backdrop.

“We submitted it to MillerCoors and it caused some ripples. They were happy to see that we’re educating the customers about Blue Moon,” says Copetillo. “I’ve been doing this for 18 years and now more than ever people want to know what food to pair it with, the flavors and the characteristics of each beer.”

Printing point of sale display for beer companies
Here's a similar display conceived and executed by the Three Musketeers of The Nackard Companies: account reps Anthony Copetillo and Vinnie Montemurro and P.O.P. shop manager Steve Lalio.

The backdrop was printed on a Canon iPF8000S on LexJet 8 Mil PolyGloss Banner in seven 36″ panels, which were then stapled to the wall. Lalio says he designed it in Photoshop and used the ONYX RIP to properly tile it so that it could be spliced into one seamless backdrop. The total size is 21 feet wide by six feet high.

The moon phases, which dangle from fishing line a few feet in front of the backdrop, were printed on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Self Adhesive Polypropylene, laminated with LexJet 3 Mil Luster UV Standard Low Melt and applied to a heavy card stock.

“I used the PolyGloss Banner for the backdrop because I knew the Blue Moon and fall colors would really pop out with that material. We designed it so that it was informative about not only the beer, but the blue moon,” adds Lalio.

Nackard Companies Does the Dew with Inkjet Printing Huckfest

Dew Downtown Flagstaff banners

This past weekend was epic in downtown Flagstaff, Ariz. Dew Downtown Flagstaff came to town and set up an urban ski and snowboard festival on Flagstaff’s main drag, San Francisco Street. When the event was confirmed about two months out, the city began hoarding any snow that fell in Flagstaff, then trucked a bunch in from nearby Mormon Lake to build a 2-3 foot base.

Printing promotional products with an inkjet printerSan Francisco Street was then prepared as a snow-packed urban ski and ride terrain park with jibs, jumps and vert for competitions and an open event so that locals could take their turn trying the rails, stairs and other terrain park features

Nackard Companies, a regional beverage distributor signed up as one of the corporate sponsors and the print shop, led by P.O.P. shop manager Steve Lalio, was recruited to produce most of the signs for the event.

Lalio estimates that the shop printed about 100 signs. Most of the signs were banners printed on LexJet 8 Mil Ultra Photo Gloss Extra, laminated with LexJet 3 Mil Luster UV Standard Low Melt.

Other signs were printed on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Self Adhesive Polypropylene and applied to Coroplast. Lalio also printed the snowflake “medals” for competition winners with TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Self Adhesive Polypropylene.

“We had three big events at the same time, but we pulled it off somehow and a lot of people showed up for the event,” says Lalio. “It’s too bad we didn’t have more snow in town, but they made it work well.”

In Search Of… Customer Service

Best practices for customer serviceCustomer service is often pegged as the key to a successful business, but what does it really mean and how do you put it into action? It’s a question that AEC Printing in Flagstaff, Ariz., has been asking and searching for as it seeks to improve its customer service and ultimately grow its business.

“Customer service is our biggest priority. We can’t offer customers something they can’t already get online or at another printing company. The one thing we can offer is great customer service, which is something they can’t get everywhere. I thought we were doing a pretty good job until I started using LexJet and realized we could do a lot more,” explains Amy Dryden, owner of AEC Printing.

Dryden recently described her experience with LexJet customer service at her blog, Green Sprout. Since she has been constantly mulling over the customer service concept and implementing customer-oriented practices, her discovery of LexJet and its emphasis on enhancing the customer experience, capped by a phone call from Art Lambert – LexJet’s co-founder and owner – came at the perfect time.

Printing photos with a large format printer“My conversation with Art was great, because at the time I was thinking I don’t know if we can make this company any bigger, and he really made me remember why I’m excited about doing this and that we can make it grow,” explains Dryden. “I had been thinking about posting something about customer service anyway because I think about it all the time, and then I had a conversation with Art that was so relevant to what I was thinking about that I typed the blog up half an hour after I got off the phone with him. I thought we were doing a pretty good job until I started using LexJet and realized we could do a lot more.”

One aspect of customer service AEC has down pat is personal service. It’s easy to be impersonal in the digital age and let the computer handle most everything, but AEC has emphasized personal contact. Moreover, Dryden has empowered each employee to make independent decisions they think are best for the customer.
“You’ll never come in the door with a print job or a problem and have to wait to talk to me to get it fixed. My employees can do anything they need to do that seems like a good idea to make sure the customer is happy, and that’s helped a lot,” explains Dryden.

Perhaps the most important customer service element Dryden has found is simple clarity. AEC Printing takes a very straightforward, no-nonsense approach to its customers and potential customers, even going so far as to recommend they go somewhere else. Though AEC Printing does just about any type of printing imaginable, from large format to small format commercial printing, there are times when they know they can’t meet the customer’s needs to a tee.

“We want to avoid situations where customers don’t get what they wanted. Rather than killing ourselves to meet their needs when we know we can’t, we’ll encourage them to go elsewhere. This is much better than having a dissatisfied customer who’s stuck with something they won’t be able to use. We do not allow people to have that experience,” says Dryden.