PrintingNews.com

Mass-merchandise retailers in the United States reeling from the poor economic climate have slashed payrolls and closed stores at record pace for more than a year. Circuit City totally disappeared, and companies including Blockbuster, Home Depot, Macy’s, Starbucks and Saks have shed more than half a million jobs collectively, proving that the retail market is not recession-proof.

To spark consumer spending, many smaller stores are employing innovative marketing tactics. Some are offering freebies, steep discounts, enhanced customer loyalty rewards or other perks such as career counseling and blood-pressure screenings to keep shoppers coming. Despite improved sales and signs of recovery on the horizon, gross domestic product still is down. But hopeful store owners still need a different type of sign—the really big, printed kind.

As print-for-pay price margins go, the large-format signage segment, which includes banners and in-store signs, can be lucrative. In March, News America Marketing (NAM) acquired rival Floorgraphics after settling a five-year-old anticompetitive lawsuit with the Hamilton, N.J. firm. Research shows floor ads yield double-digit sales increases on average. Those colorful graphics we all trample and roll over with shopping carts are quite cost effective, delivering the lowest cost-per-thousand impressions of any ad media.

That kind of value is Muzak to grocers’ ears in any economy,. NAM also bought Floorgraphics because media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his marketing cronies are well aware of one of the most important consumer habit change in the past 25 years: At least seven out of every 10 purchasing decisions are made at the point of sale today.

Print Makeover

Paul Lilienthal is a banker turned printer who knows a thing or two about marketing. Lilienthal bought Minneapolis-based Pictura Graphics in 2003, when the shop catered to the trade show graphics industry. His vision of diversifying the then 18-year-old business has paid off, especially now as the exhibit and events business is “significantly lagging,” he said. In addition to expanding into visual merchandising and POP displays in retail outlets, Lilienthal also added digital print capabilities to meet growing demand for graphics on fabrics, flexible media, and other materials.

Operating under its new owner’s build-it-and-they-will-come strategy, Pictura Graphics’ client list grew to include names such as Anderson Windows, Home Depot, Macy’s, and Reebok. Full-time employees at the 50,000-sq-ft facility now number 45. Annual revenues also have grown, to some $10 million—more than 70 percent sales growth in the six years since Lilienthal took the helm.

Lilienthal estimates that large-format retail signage has grown to represent approximately 35 percent of the shop’s overall sales. About a year ago, Pictura supplemented its equipment list with two Roland DGA inkjet printers—64- and 104-inch Soljet models—that complement its Roland dye-sub line acquired six months before. And last fall it added a Durst Rho 800 Presto, a continuous-board, flatbed inkjet UV device that prints up to eight feet wide.

Pictura’s work even has been featured on the television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in late 2007. For the episode, the firm produced floor graphics, dye-sublimation fabric pillows and blankets, and 60 square wall murals, each measuring 48×48 inches.