You might say that Brian Walton, print shop manager for Clark Beverage Group, Southaven, Miss., has point of sale design and print production down to a science. It helps that Walton is involved in just about every aspect of the distribution company’s business; it helps provide needed perspective on what resonates in the market.

With what Walton calls flawless printing from his Canon iPF8000S wide-format inkjet printer and inkjet media from LexJet, Clark Beverage Group is able to create competitive advantage with unique point-of-sale displays.

Recently, Walton says they’ve had great success with portable banner stands at various venues that promote both their brands and the lineup of bands playing at those venues. Walton typically uses the LexJet Spring 3 Banner Stand with LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Polypropylene as the print medium for this type of application.

“It’s not something that gets pushed up against the wall; it’s placed front and center. When you walk in, it’s impossible to miss it. When we tried the banner stands the first time, it was a big hit. If someone gets a banner stand and a competitor sees it, they want their own, so it becomes a kind of tug of war between these bars,” says Walton. “They’re also convenient from a formatting standpoint, so that if I make one Sam Adams band list and I want to push Sam Adams somewhere else I can just swap out the information. They see the connection with the beer and they see the schedule information they need.”

Walton has also used LexJet 11 Mil Blockout Water-Resistant Polypropylene, but only in situations where there’s lots of light that can shine through the back and detract from the message. Most of the banner stands don’t require the blockout since they’re generally in low-light environments.

Whatever the design, Walton says he keeps everything as simple as possible and always works to separate the brands, instead of mixing two or three brands together on one piece.

“I’m always finding complexity in the corporate world and the challenge is to simplify everything. When I first came here they treated Miller Lite and Coors Light the same. We got out of that and began treating those beers differently since they have their own distinct branding. That way you stay true to the brand and get space at the point of sale for both. We make the package, the brand and the price the stars of the design,” says Walton. “My workflow is to build everything in Illustrator, then to Photoshop. The Canon has the Photoshop plug-in, which really makes production go a lot faster.”