The Daniels Group

Printing disasters and how to avoid them

Jami — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:44:01 +0000

Just stumbled on a blog through my google

alerts.http://naniprints.wordpress.com/

This is great advice on working with Metallic inks.

http://naniprints.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/metallic-ink-madness/

Look forward to following this one!

Jami — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:48:38 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Jami Daniels

Tel.: (828) 277-8250 x 112

Email: jami@danielsgraphics.com

The Daniels Group Introduces GRACoL Color Management Standards

ASHEVILLE, NC- November 19, 2009 The Daniels Group announced today that their Graphics Division – Daniels Graphics – has implement GRACoL Color Management Standards (G7) in their pre-press and pressroom departments. GRACoL (pronounced grack•le) is a rigorous color standard calibration process based on ISO & Grey Balance standards, which allows the company to calibrate their presses so that each press prints to the same standard – allowing color match, not only to the proof, but from press to press and from print to print.

“This color management process allows us to take the “guesswork” out of critical color projects for our customers helping us match proofs perfectly and keep jobs moving faster,” said Jim Daniels, Owner and President. GRACoL provides faster make-ready times on the press and more accurate color matching for customers who need to match color every time.

Daniels Graphics is a forward thinking communications company that provides “no excuses” print quality. Implementing GRACoL standards is one more way that technology is improving consistency and driving costs down.

About The Daniels Group

Founded in 1948, The Daniels Group is a full service marketing support services company comprised of a commercial printing operation (Daniels Graphics) and a 24/7 call center and fulfillment services (Daniels Communications)

For more information, visit www.danielsgraphics.com/gracol or call (828) 277-8250.

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Watch 35 books made by hand

Jami — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:45:20 +0000

It’s all Local

Jami — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:05:52 +0000

I’m constantly surprised by the cool small businesses with a national reach we have locally in Asheville. Some products I’ve seen mentioned around the internet and until recently didn’t know were here in town. A few that come to mind are The Modern Baby Co. and Figs and Ginger and Stupid Creatures.

Some things that I knew were in town but are still cool are Doctordirectory.com and Immaculate Baking Co.

There are also a surprising amount of National Non profit organisations that were either founded here or moved their headquarters here. I can think of The Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, The American Chestnut Foundation, The Alliance for American Quilts.

Who else is around here that I’m not thinking of?

Jami — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:12:42 +0000

Chaos in the Print Shop

Jami — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:34:25 +0000

Twitterversy

Jami — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:54:40 +0000

Twitter has proven to be an effective marketing tool and a potential damaging wildfire. Marketers are learning to keep better tabs on social media and use it in their favour instead of becoming the butt of it.

Heather Armstrong (www.dooce.com) complained about her brand new Maytag washer on twitter (http://twitter.com/dooce) recently and created a stir. Now I’m sure the marketing guy who runs the twitter page at Whirlpool had a small heart attack over the amount of conversation this started. It’s not good to have Dooce belittle your product. She has over 1 million followers on twitter alone and only recently slipped out of the top ten on Technorati.

By following her stream you can see that Whirlpool has tried weakly to calm the storm. But realistically, I’m pretty sure Seth Godin would teach us that this is a huge opportunity to turn it all around. Dooce is a relatively fair blogger, and if she were made happy, she would cry that just as far. Whirlpool should be falling all over themselves to send her a new washer yesterday. What’s worth more, saving the money on a whiny customer or showing over 1 million people at once that your company cares about it’s customers?

Mass Media Crisis Is Marketers’ Crisis, Too

Jami — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:47:42 +0000

From Media Post by Karlene Lukovitz

By undermining the financial viability of traditional media, marketers are jeopardizing the only viable means currently available for reaching mass audiences.

That’s the core premise of “The CMO’s Dilemma: Can You Reach the Masses Without Mass Media?,” a new white paper co-authored by John Rose and Neal Zuckerman of The Boston Consulting Group. Rose and Zuckerman argue that it’s critical that marketers, agencies and media companies start addressing the issues surrounding this dilemma together.

The current shifting of advertising dollars to new types of media and below-the-line marketing channels such as PR, events and in-store promotions represents a fundamental structural change rather than a cyclical ebb tied to the economy, say the authors.

“If traditional media companies think the advertising dollars will return when the economy rebounds, they’re kidding themselves in a dangerous way,” Rose, a senior partner and managing director at BCG, tells Marketing Daily. The high fixed costs built into their current business models mean that they cannot withstand even a relatively small absolute decline in their share of advertising revenue. “Cost-cutting may have bought them some time,” but to survive, they will have to build new business models that embrace cross-company partnerships, as well as integrate media channels, he says.

Advertisers have shifted enough of their spending to threaten traditional media companies’ economic viability, but not enough to create alternatives that approach the effectiveness of television, newspapers and magazines at providing national advertisers with broad demographics and massive reach — and strong alternatives won’t be available for at least the next several years, Rose says.

Underlying all of this is the reality that CMOs’ ability to create marketing strategies reflecting optimal mixes of traditional and digital media and below-the-line channels is severely hampered because of a vacuum of integrated media planning and measurement solutions, Rose and Zuckerman maintain. Instead of integrated solutions that enable them to determine the effects of shifting budget dollars among media, CMOs are pitched “unique” sets of solutions for each channel, while agencies have by and large responded by creating specialty divisions.

However, CMOs are beginning to ask the questions needed to arrive at new solutions, according to the authors.

These include:

What are our goals and targeted customer base for each traditional and new marketing channel, what specific activities will best help us reach customers, and how should we measure their success?

How do we allocate dollars across increasingly overlapping marketing activities and create an integrated cross-media strategy that recognizes each channel’s value?

How do we work with agencies and other partners to put our media strategies together?

Will our media mix changes contribute to the elimination of traditional media and what, if anything, can or should we do about this?

“None of us can fully answer these questions until advertisers, agencies and media companies collectively recognize that the crisis in mass media is a marketing challenge, too,” Rose and Zuckerman conclude.

However, they say that traditional media companies need to work with advertisers and agencies to develop sustainable, relevant business models; that advertisers need better support from agencies to leverage opportunities; and that large advertisers should be considering developing select in-house capabilities to fill the gaps in their needs.

How to Market in a Downturn

Jami — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:48:43 +0000

Great interview with John Quelch on Bnet.

How to Market in a Downturn

by Ann Marsh

One of the best-known academic minds in marketing is John Quelch, a 30-year veteran of Harvard Business School and one of 10 marketing experts profiled in the 2007 book Conversations With Marketing Masters, by Laura Mazur and Louella Miles. Quelch’s own co-authored book, Greater Good: How Good Marketing Makes for Better Democracy, points out that marketing serves a higher purpose in society than simply moving products. Quelch writes the Marketing KnowHow blog for Harvard Business. Here he talks to BNET about the two types of luxury consumers and how to hang onto them in a recession.

You’ve said there are two types of luxury consumers. What are they?

I divide the luxury market into “must-haves” and “wannabes.” Members of the first group have incorporated luxury into their lives and seek to retain that lifestyle in the face of recession. Very high net worth individuals occupy the top rung of the must-haves. They are largely inoculated from the downturn. Even if they’ve lost a lot of money in the recession, they are still ultrarich. On the other hand, those must-haves who have become financially strapped are now buying luxury items at lower price points or buying them less often, but never compromising on quality.

The luxury wannabes view luxury aspirationally, occasionally investing in luxury purchases in order to touch luxury without immersing themselves in it. They would never buy (or probably would never be able to buy) a Ralph Lauren suit. But they can afford a few lower-cost accessories such as a polo shirt with the logo.

How do marketers hold on to these customers in this economy?

You have to figure out how your customers’ behavior has shifted. Can you enable your more price-sensitive customers to continue to patronize you? It’s a balancing act, because you don’t want to taint the image of the brand.

This is more challenging at a time when cash-strapped companies are reducing spending on market research that could help them learn just how to reach those customers. Most large companies in the U.S. are cutting their research budgets by 10 percent to 20 percent. To adjust to this shift, I urge marketers to focus their research on the products, brand, and markets that are key to their strategy. Don’t waste resources on peripheral or potential consumers.

Should you consider discounting? Or is that always a bad idea for luxury brands?

Of course, discounts, if overdone, can detract from brand quality and the credibility of retail list prices. But modest, often unadvertised discounts on selected or discontinued items need not dilute brand quality. In fact, during a recession, even some luxury must-haves are hurting and need a helping hand in the form of a price cut from their favored brands.

You’ve described a new kind of consumer as being a “Simplifier.” What does that mean?

Simplifiers predated the recession, but the recession has accelerated the trend. These are people who trade down to a simpler lifestyle than they are able to afford. In particular, they seek to reduce the scope and scale of the stuff they own, because they simply find it too aggravating to maintain and less emotionally satisfying than they expected. Often, as they grow older, they place more value on — and invest more money in — experiences instead of possessions.

Savvy marketers will keep this new Simplifier in mind when creating an argument for their product or service.

Twitter Guidebook

Jami — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:10:51 +0000

Still trying to figure out the best way to utilize Twitter? Who isn’t.

Mashable has put together some very useful guides:

http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/