Last month, we posted the article, “The Future of Packaging,” where we discussed present trends and how they will open up many new and exciting opportunities within this market. Considering these many opportunities, brand owners are experiencing the need to refresh current package designs.

In a recent article featured on Packaging World, Ron Romanik provides us with 12 guidelines to consider when revitalizing package design in hopes of connecting with consumers.  These tips will also help owners balance brand heritage with innovation.  We have included a truncated version of the tips below.

Explore the brand history and its equities.

• Study the current and past package designs closely.
• Know what the brand represents, where it has been, and where it can go. And—just as importantly—know what the brand is NOT.
• What is the brand story that consumers connect with? How can you enhance that emotional experience?

Expect the politics of heritage.

• Many brand owners have an unhealthy, sentimental attachment to the past.
• A brand logo or primary colors might actually be holding the brand back.

Understand loyal customers.

• What are your customers loyal to and how might they react to a change?
• Learn how consumers shop for your product.
• Be aware that today’s consumers are less brand loyal than in previous generations, so it’s a delicate balance to create new excitement while remaining familiar and trusted.

Understand the strategic objectives.

• Try to identify and target the brand’s specific “problems.” Frequent changes can dilute brand attachment when not managed with care.
• Defending brand value today often means offering something new. Will there be room to revitalize again in a few years?
• Don’t engage in change for its own sake; any change has to make strategic sense.

Know when NOT to revitalize.

• Look at the competition set. Does your product look “dated”?
• Notice how print quality has been improving on many retail packages. The truth is, not many products or packages look “cheap” today. If yours does, you’ll stand out for the wrong reasons.
• Maybe a new shape, structure, or material will help your package stand out. But will the investment result in a quick return on investment?

Hit the store shelves.

• Packages rarely appear alone, even online. Most often, they live in hostile retail environments on overcrowded shelves.
• Make designers and marketers get out to the stores, experience real shelf sets, and understand the distinct challenges of different retail environments.
• When revitalizing new packaging, test the new designs on mockup shelves or in virtual shelves online.

Decide on “evolution” or “revolution.”

• Evolutionary designs are helpful for brands with a large, loyal following that do not want to alienate but still require a facelift to drive relevance with a new consumer group or to clarify on-package communication.
• Revolutionary designs are great for brands that want to set themselves apart from the competition or brands that are introducing a new product category because these types of designs are foreign to consumers.

Reexamine the goal.

• What were the strategic objectives? How much change makes sense and mitigates risk?
• Was it a shoppability issue? Look at the competitive set.
• What do you want to communicate? What’s new?
• Can the brand keep up through gradual evolution? Is the package at risk of appearing old, dated, or tired?
• Make sure the brand promise of the packaging matches the value proposition that the brand delivers.

Create an emotional visual “language.”

• Identify a visual language and define the key principles that exemplify the emotional connection that your brand has with consumers.
• To get noticed in an overcrowded retail environment, brands need to stake out a unique emotional space.

Don’t forget the basics.

• Brand recognition is still the first priority.
• Being a category leader in consumers’ minds means leading in a way that addresses consumers’ wants and desires. At the same time, caution is advised. Any change in brand position is a risk; only half of all packaging redesigns increase sales.
• Remember to synthesize a single primary message across all brand touch points.

Plan ahead, way ahead.

• First, make sure your new brand platform affirms consumer expectations.
• Plan for potential brand line extensions and brand expansion into new categories.
• If you’re using a good/better/best strategy, confirm that it makes sense to consumers. For instance, make sure the bargain line doesn’t tarnish the potential of the high-end line with reduced expectations.

Double-check that communication comes through.

• Return to the start and the primary objectives. Packaging needs to answer two fundamental questions from a communication standpoint for a shopper: “What am I?” and “Why am I right for you?”
• If consumers can’t recognize your brand’s colors, shapes, or graphics instantly, you might be headed down a wrong and unproductive path.

We could not be more excited about the future of packaging. Our team of experts is ready to help turn the many packaging opportunities into realities for YOU!

Visit Top-level considerations for revitalizing package design to view the non-truncated version of the tips above.

© 2013 Salem Printing

We would like to introduce you to the squirrel that has become the mascot of our project management group.  It’s easy to become stressed in the busy world we live in, especially when we’re surrounded by the many pressures that are present in most jobs.  Don’t worry, though.  Together, we got this!

For those who don’t already know us like family, we’d like to introduce you to our Project Management team here at Salem Printing.  This group specializes in working closely with each of our clients, making it possible for them to rest easy knowing their projects are in the best hands.  We promise to surround each client with a team of experts.  We promise to deliver every project as you expect it and when you expect it.  These are the people that make that happen.

So, we hope you don’t feel like our friend, the squirrel.  We are here to help and take away your headaches!  We are more than a printer.  We are your partner.  Together, we are Simply the Best!

© 2013 Salem Printing

Success never comes easy!  Especially during this day and time when we all seem to be doing more with less in shorter periods of time.  So, we are always on the lookout for wisdom and interesting experiences of other successful organizations and individuals.  The feature article in the February edition of Inc. magazine is one of those articles we enjoy paying attention to.  In “The Rules”, the authors present “eleven nuggets of hard-earned wisdom and meticulously researched insight” that are certainly worth considering.

1. Do less

“When you’re obsessing about one thing, you can reach insights about how to solve hard problems.  If you have too many things to think about, you’ll get to the superficial solution, not the brilliant one.”

- Evan Williams, co-founder of Blogger, Twitter, and Medium

2. Embrace accidents

“At Zappos, we do a lot to get people running into each other…It’s all about maximizing collisions and accelerating serendipity.”

- Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos & co-founder of the Downtown Project

3. Choose your playing field

“The heart of strategy is defining where you’re going to play and how you’re going to win.  A lot of companies don’t consciously choose where not to play.”

- Roger L. Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management

4. Fail

“Very often success stops people, because they’re afraid of taking a step that leads to failure.”

- Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor in chief of The Huffington Post

5. Let others lead

“Leadership is a team sport.  You need to build leadership through the ranks, by empowering people to independently make good decisions.”

- Michael Useem, professor at the Wharton School

6. Slow down

“It’s easy to think running a business has to be a sprint… I learned the value of allowing a business to develop its soul.”

- Danny Meyer, founder and CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group

7. Emphasize steady progress

“When we looked at the diary entries (more than 12,000 for 238 professionals) what stood out above everything else on people’s best days was that they were able to move forward in their work, even if it was just an incremental step forward.”

- Teresa M. Amabile, Harvard Business School professor

8. No Tricks

“I refuse to play the zero-sum game anymore.  It’s better to find a way to make everyone happy: no tricks, no gimmicks, no grabbing a short-term advantage at someone else’s expense.”

- Phil Libin, founder of Evernote

9. Stop thinking about yourself

“You have to develop a feeling for who your stakeholders are and figure out how to make them all winners.”

- John Mackey, co-founder and co-CEO of Whole Foods

10. Don’t discount the role of luck

“Once something has been successful, we start to believe it was the only thing that could have happened.  We also undersample failure.  By extracting attributes from winners only, we miss the companies that chose the same strategies and failed.”

- Michael Mauboussin, investment strategist at Legg Mason Capital Management

11. Don’t be immune to new ideas

“If you have an ongoing business, it’s hard to innovate, because innovation likely threatens what you have.  It’s a survival instinct; it’s like your business’s immune system is trying to kill innovation.”

- Bob Metcalfe, founder of 3Com and a VC at Polaris Venture Partners

We hope your 2013 has had a great start.  Salem Printing is about bringing success to our clients.  “Simply The Best” is about new ideas; new ways of bringing success to our client’s bottom line.  We look forward to interacting with your “rules” in ways that lead to your success.

For in-depth interviews from these business leaders, check out the February edition of Inc. magazine or visit here.

© 2013 Salem Printing

We’ll always jump at the chance to brag on our employees!  We are pleased to highlight Dennis (Bubba) Lee Spear, the best folding operator in the Triad and one of the top 10 blues artists in Winston-Salem.

Dennis has had a passion for music since his childhood, playing the drums, guitar and harp.  Thanks to a friend who recommended he share his talent, Dennis is no longer a closet musician.  He plays independently and in a band called The Twin City Buskers, one of Winston-Salem’s premier interpreters of old-time blues, swing and country music.

“I have met a lot of wonderful people, and now I feel more at home than ever with my music.”

Having written over a hundred songs with more on the way, Dennis truly is pursuing his dream!

Dennis has been ranked in the top 10 on the Winston-Salem Blues Chart on Reverbnation for the past several months.  We hope you will want to check out one of his performances!  Visit his page and listen to some of his originals here!  Also, make sure to check out The Twin City Buskers, also ranked in the top 10, here!

We are so grateful to be surrounded by people that are passionate about what they do.  Congratulations Dennis!!!  Keep making that sweet music.  We will keep our toes tapping and rooting you on.  You are what makes our group at Salem Printing “Simply the Best!”

© 2013 Salem Printing

While we work hard, we love it when we can step back and recognize some of the fun in what we do.  This Hagar the Horrible comic from January 7, 2013, has provided us with one of those opportunities, considering our clients often “Hook Whales” and then proceed to call Salem Printing.

The world of packaging and print continues to grow in complexity.  As we highlight in our lead business article, segmentation of brand communications throughout hundreds of SKUs and multiple Lean production systems means short turnaround times, smaller runs and the absolute requirement for flexibility.  This is why we focus on much more than the final product.  Our product includes not only the physical piece but project planning and management, logistical planning and reporting and systematic integration of ordering, delivery, warehousing, distribution and invoicing.

When our clients hook that whale, it is anything but fun to be unsure if their supplier can handle it.  But when you succeed every day, when you have the support of a great relationship, when the beautiful execution of a plan becomes visible above the surface… man that’s fun!

So, if you ever have one of those days when everything seems to be going well, but then that rod bends over double and doubts about your ability to see what you’ve just hooked creep into your mind, give Salem Printing a call. We have the “fun” of reeling those in every day!

© 2013 Salem Printing

Packaging is the fastest growing segment in the North American printing industry.  However, packaging is changing.  The complexity of packaging is increasing exponentially and consumer product companies (CPCs) must always be evolving, keeping up with the demands of their various target audiences.  So what is a packaging buyer to do?

Jackie Bland recently wrote an article in The Magazine by Printing Industries of America titled, “Trends Driving Packaging in the Future,” that presents an interesting study by the Print Industries Market Information and Research organization, PRIMIR. Their study shows that “in extremely uncertain times, brand owners face challenges on many fronts: corporate sustainability objectives, regulatory uncertainty, and volatile raw material costs and availabilities.  But one of the most important challenges is changing consumer demands. Many challenges arise from shifting demographics, which call for changes in how products are developed, marketed, distributed and packaged.”

“With these changes and the proliferation of SKUs, historically larger packaging orders are splintering into an ever-expanding series of smaller orders with shorter and less predictable lead times.  This could lead to a shift from historical packaging converters who handle large-volume orders with longer lead times to smaller firms who are more flexible and nimble.”

“Change generally equates to ‘opportunity’ in the segments.”

Flexible!!  And Nimble!!  This is why Salem Printing focuses on much more than the final product.  One of our competitive advantages, Project Management, is squarely aimed at this demand by our clients.  The production of the item is one thing, but the flexibility and efficiency to produce and manage a growing number of SKUs within a Brand line and deliver them throughout a diverse logistical plan is where the future of packaging meets the reality of today.   We live in this reality every day and could not be more excited about the future for our clients.  Present trends should open up many new and exciting opportunities for these clients and we are here to turn these opportunities into realities!

© 2013 Salem Printing

Two long whistles means a train is getting ready to proceed forward, releasing the brakes. The “All Aboard” call has gone out and it is time to proceed. So with two long whistles and a Happy New Year, we are off.

Canvas Magazine recently published an article by Lorrie Bryan, titled “All Aboard! The Train is Leaving the Station”. It is a wonderful description of the choices and challenges facing our industry and demands faced by our clients. In short, clients have shifted from requiring transaction-based vendors to relationship vendors that are constantly required to deliver value.

As stated in the article, our clients look to and trust us to not only deliver the various products and services they require, but to help them make smart decisions on what they buy. That is why we have embraced new technologies and are dedicated to “Connecting Print” for our clients like never before. In 2012, we expanded our capabilities by combining with Advanced Direct, a full-service Direct Marketing & Mail company, and now a division of Salem Printing.

“Our single most important business driver is to always add as much value as possible to our clients.” - Dean Petrulakis

Siderodromophobia, the fear of trains, hindered many from embracing rail technology in the 1800s. Similarly today, Technophobia delays many from adapting to the current marketplace and the many new methods of communication offered. We believe that it is more important than ever to anticipate the demands of our clients and integrate appropriate communication choices into their system demands.

“To do that, we have to be intimately connected with those clients, knowing their greatest challenges, and knowing where they are trying to go, so that we can continue to bring the right solutions to them and add that value.” – Dean Petrulakis

We are confident that we have shaped our organization for our client’s current and future demands. We have embraced new technologies when appropriate and remain dedicated to our client’s success.

“Chooo Chooo!”

© 2013 Salem Printing

Our long term client partners will recognize a new look from Salem Printing. We could not be more excited about the growth of our organization, the new technologies and communication choices that are available to our clients and our ability to impact our clients in even greater ways. We can only be successful if our clients are successful. Our new look Simply Means More!

Let us introduce you to your “New” best vendor partner.

1.  We have capitalized our name.

While simple, this has purpose. We are no longer a small business. Salem Printing completed a successful 26th year with tremendous growth from new and long term client partnerships. We also acquired an innovative Direct Marketing & Mail partner, Advanced Direct. This combination has created one of the largest Graphic Communications companies in the Southeast. As good as we were for our clients yesterday, we know we have to be better today and we are excited to continue offering new and innovative solutions to our clients. Our organization is a true Multi-Channel Marketing Solutions provider. Let us show you how we can increase your bottom line. We believe in Results!

2.  We have redefined our product and service channels.

Packaging, Direct Marketing & Mail, Commercial, Labels and Fulfillment & Distribution. These are the demands of our clients. We believe the world of marketing, packaging, print and communication has changed. We believe individual success in any one of these areas requires understanding and satisfying the demands of the others. In short, we believe they have become one. That is why we have shaped our organization to provide a single point of contact; a single integrated solution for those clients that require value.

3.  Connecting Print – Multi-Channel Marketing Solutions.

The world is abuzz with new technologies. Unfortunately, the expertise for coordinating the implementation of these new technologies into a Corporate Brand or Marketing strategy is not in the same supply. We have created an organization with the expertise and internal production capability to bring the right print and marketing solution with the right combination of technologies to the customers our clients wants to touch. Communication and Print will never be the same. And we love it! This is Multi-Channel Marketing. This is an integrated solution. This is value.

© 2013 Salem Printing

We are pleased to announce that Salem Printing continues to move up the list of the 400 Largest Printing Companies in the United States and Canada. In fact, we are moving up the list faster than any company in the nation thanks to our clients and our employees.

Printing Impressions magazine provides a listing each year of the 400 largest print, publishing and direct mail companies in North America. Not only are we moving up the list, we are among the top 5 fastest growing companies on the list this year, jumping from #308 to #189. We are also the 2nd largest in North and South Carolina and one of the 15 largest in the Southeast!

We always are careful with our growth. Our goal has always been to grow smartly. We grow by delivering consistent and increasing value to our clients with products and services that we are most efficient at as an organization. We cannot be all things to all clients. But for those clients that fit, we can and must be “Simply the Best”.

Considering the challenges of the economy and the constant drive for lower costs, we believe this is evidence that we are meeting the needs of our clients. We are blessed with strong client and employee relationships that make up our organization. We are blessed with successful clients that drive us to get better each and every day. YOU are why we have had our best year to date and we want to extend our sincere thanks! We will continue to grow in ways that add value to YOUR bottom line. We look forward to YOUR future!

View the entire list here: http://digitaleditions.napco.com/publication/?i=138507&p=40

© 2013 Salem Printing

Merry Christmas and a huge THANK YOU to our customers for the trust you place in us every day! You are a true blessing to our organization, and we are grateful for our relationship.

We hope everyone has an opportunity to remember the season and a chance to experience their own personal blessings. That’s why this year, with your help, we will support each of the charities below with a holiday donation.

Wounded Warriors

American Cancer Society

ASPCA

Make-a-Wish Foundation

American Red Cross

Hurricane Sandy Relief

Simply visit www.Salem-ADI.com/MerryChristmas and we will direct a $1 donation* to the charity of your choice. Our desire is to let these charities know that they have world-wide support, and to do so, we need your help! Please share this opportunity with family and friends on Facebook, Twitter or by email! Together, we will spread this message of support around the world!

Thank you again for making this past year “Simply the Best!”

*Salem Printing and Advanced Direct will be donating a total combined gift of $2,000 to the listed charities. If we receive more than 2000 votes, total dollar allocations will be based on the percentage of votes for each charity.

© 2012 Salem Printing