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.

The 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.”

Lalio 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.