New market opportunities for self adhesive

New market opportunities for self adhesive 
by Denise Nathan 

It’s an exciting time for the sign and visual communications market. The rapid development of technology has put our industry in a strong position to offer more advertising opportunities to end users.

As overseas trends show an increasing desire for client’s to promote their brand in more unusual ways, the sign and digital industry is set to capture a greater share of client’s advertising budgets.  While traditional forms of advertising continue to be popular, advertisers realize they need to be more creative to capture the attention of their target market. Signage has many advantages. It is cost effective and able to reach customers close to or at the point of purchase or in surprising and unexpected ways. Television, print and other traditional forms of advertising may create a propensity towards a brand but research supports that what client’s see close to the point of making a purchasing decision can be just as powerful.

The print and self adhesive technology available today means that almost any kind of application is possible. There are no longer the same restrictions on what substrates can be printed on and image resolution and ink durability is superior. Output is faster and overall print costs have become much more price competitive. Similarly adhesive technology has improved and now most application surfaces have a compatible adhesive.

In order to take advantage of the technology available today and the increasing needs of advertisers to promote their brand and services in more unique ways, we need to publicize new possibilities to our potential clients. Surprisingly, many advertising agencies are still not aware of the opportunities signage and self adhesive applications can offer in brand promotion, or the ease of application and removability and these agencies are responsible for how their clients’ advertising portfolios and investment are structured. Graphic designers may not be aware of the full potential of self adhesive and so design can be restricted based on perceived limitations in self adhesive applications. Customers who already have signage campaigns in mind may not know how an upgrade in signage spend or coverage can bring them even greater attention and a longer dwell time (simple company name branding vs. a full or partial vehicle wrap, a building fascia sign vs. a building wrap). While increased coverage is initially more expensive it can bring an exponential increase in brand interaction and so offer greater value per dollar spent.

Over the next few months Wide Format Online Tips and Tricks will showcase some interesting new and not so new advertising mediums made possible by developments in print and self adhesive technology that can be promoted to agencies, designers and end-users to increase business opportunities for our industry.

Conveyer belts and escalator graphics 

Supermarket conveyer belt

Supermarket conveyer belt

This is one of the newest applications to hit the market. Supermarkets overseas have already been using internal floor graphics and merchandising for years and now the progression has been made to checkout signage. Internal promotional campaigns are highly influential on shoppers’ purchasing behaviour. In an environment that supports last minute impulse buying, advertising on conveyor belts while customers are waiting to be served or loading groceries is another opportunity to grab a customer’s attention before they leave the store.

There has been debate about the value of advertising at this point in the purchasing process and questions have been raised about the timing of such messages. Is it too late? The key is in the advertising message.

To advertise a product that is in supermarket aisles is likely not to be effective. It would be unrealistic to expect that any checkout advertisement would be powerful enough to compel someone to abandon their groceries and run back in the store risking the fury of other people waiting in line. However select advertising of products found at the checkout ( confectionary, magazines), services at the checkout  ( visa, fly buys, eftpos, coupons or in store promotions) and services found immediately outside the supermarket can greatly benefit from advertising at this point because the message is delivered exactly at the time the consumer is in a position to be influenced.

What about visibility? Groceries are stacked onto conveyor belts blocking the message. It is not always the case that there is no visible space on the conveyor belt. The key is to have a simple, instant message that is more of a graphic representation then too text orientated. Alternatively running a continuing repetitive message over the whole conveyor belt takes advantage of visible space where ever it may occur.

To ensure a successful application, the right product must be used. Due to the composition of conveyor belts, the movement and flexibility of the substrate and the need for clean and easy removability only specialized recommended products for this application should be used.

With the right product this concept can be extended to similar applications such as airport baggage conveyor belts and even escalator handrails.

Denise Nathan is Marketing Manager - MACtac in Oceania
denise@mactac.co.nz
www.mactac-europe.com