In the ongoing battle to win the hearts and minds of consumers, brand marketers such as Coors are turning to variable-data printing to achieve victories in local in-store skirmishes.
When Coors invested a chunk of their marketing budget to become the official beer sponsor of the National Football League, the company expected that the affiliation would help them sell more beer. To maximum the impact of the sponsorship, they approached Hewlett Packard's Digital Publishing Consulting group for help in building a secure, streamlined digital-imaging system that could help their 600 distributors nationwide offer something extra to local retailers. The objective was to make it as easy as possible for Coors distributors to create and print a wide range of customized point-of-sale materials without jeopardizing the integrity of either the NFL or Coors brand image.
Although many beer drinkers remain loyal to their selected brands of beers, many others prefer to try different products from week to week. Many beer buyers don't make up their minds about which brand to buy until they see what's on sale or if any special brews or promotions are offered. To encourage these undecided buyers to choose their brands, brewing companies and their distributors now lavish a great deal of attention on giving retailers the promotional tools they need to post effective “calls to action” on signage throughout the store. In addition to posters and displays, point-of-sale materials such as “floor talkers” and “shelf talkers” deliver “calls to action” to customers perusing the store shelves.
Coors distributors had been using HP's wide-format Designjet printers to print regionalized signs and banners for several years. But when they approached HP's Digital Publishing Consulting Group this time, Coors officials made it clear that they wanted to take localized marketing to the next level by offering even more personalized communications that retailers could use to help enhance the customers' buying experience.
“In the past, distributors often resorted to producing handwritten signs and banners in order to customize messages to local consumers,” says Ted Galuth, Coors national manager of point-of-sale and merchandising. Using HP's e-Point-of-Sale solution, “Now we can take a high-quality national brand campaign and tailor it to specific markets. This gives us terrific mileage for our advertising dollars.”
HP's Digital Publishing Consulting Group worked with Coors and their ad agency The Integer Group to develop a distributor-friendly system that ensures that Coors and NFL retain control over how their digital brand assets are utilized in localized promotions. Distributors whose customers want to take advantage of the offer to use NFL/Coors branded personalized, printed materials can now order the materials on-line, using a web-based system developed by HP's Digital Publishing Consulting Group, with input from HP technology partners such as Printable and Adobe. Distributors can choose from a variety of design templates developed by Integer, choose from a variety of high-resolution graphics, and then customize the messaging. After the distributor provides details such as quantity and delivery instructions, the orders are transmitted to Rastar, a Salt Lake City, UT-based printing company that is proficient in using HP Indigo digital color presses and Designjet wide-format inkjet printers.
Bruce Summers, group director of marketing services of The Integer Group, gives high marks to the color consistency that has been achieved in promotional materials produced through the system. “The ability to control image content and accurately reproduce the various Coors brand colors was a real concern. But the results have been impeccable.”
According to Walt Sledzieski, a vice-president in HP's Digital Publishing Solutions Group, the creative team from Coors and The Integer Group will be exploring additional promotional items that can be personalized with HP digital-printing equipment. He notes that one of the key advantages of the new system is that when competing beer companies launch new promotions, Coors distributors can quickly respond with new promotions of their own. (Hewlett Packard: www.hp.com)