Table of content
Popular Categories
When a customer comes through your door and places an order…they are buying the wearables you sell, and nothing else, right? WRONG! Ok, a cheap question, we all know customers are buying our industry knowledge, the quality of our work, and our level of service. To put it differently, the customer is buying solutions to their apparel needs, or maximizing their marketing opportunities. It’s not enough to be the best, or the cheapest any more, you need resources that allow you to add value others can’t. Creative packaging of wearables can set you apart from the competition, and add significant profit to your bottom line.
To understand the potential for packaging, we need to first understand what customers are trying to accomplish with it. Many customers are simply concerned with protecting the product. Wearables distributed in an outer package can be safely and cleanly distributed in areas the item by itself might be damaged…such as when recipients’ hands may be dirty or in an industrial setting where safety is paramount. Another reason for packaging is for ease in distribution. Rather than chaotic fumbling through stacks of shirts, nicely packaged shirts labeled for size and color variations can make disbursements flow smoothly. These benefits can easily be attained by bagging and boxing, which is well within your internal capabilities.
More than likely, if your customer needs packaging…they are looking to add value to the product. This added value may be in the form of additional advertising space or multiple messages to tie the product into an overall campaign. In any case, more elaborate packaging can turn the simplest of wearables into a marketing piece that promotes the client as professional and knowledgeable.
Getting Started
Getting started with packaging is as easy as asking your customers how they plan to distribute the product once complete. Any national, regional, or multi-unit distribution or special circumstance should ring a cash register bell in your head and stimulate you to probe deeper for more profit potential. For example, if you have a customer looking to print 500 shirts and they need to distribute them to salespeople across the country…you can knock out the competition by including packaging and/or shipping in your quotation. By solving the client’s distribution problem, you are really adding value…and more than likely, your local competitors can’t compete.
So just what are we talking about when we talk about creative packaging? Obviously, the simplest form of packaging is bagging and boxing, which is relatively easy to add to your operation and will add to your bottom line. It’s as simple as keeping track of your costs and applying your desired margin…hint: since this is value added service and extra hassle to you, be sure you are compensated. Customers will tolerate higher margins on service than you can get on everyday production. They can’t easily quantify the total costs involved, and any headaches you take off their plate equates to money in your bank account.
Several years ago now, someone figured out that by using molds and exerting extreme amounts of pressure, shirts could be shaped into a variety of objects. When combined with external labeling, compression can directly target a client’s theme. This gives the advertiser external graphics as well as the printed garment for ad space. Compressed tees can be formed into a rectangle and mailed as a postcard (with extra postage of course). They can be compressed into the shape of a racecar and handed out at the track, and a myriad of other shapes and uses, with new and custom shapes being compressed regularly. Compressed tees, towels, and other items have become routine now…and they provide you with another easy option for value added packaging. <pics attached of several shapes>
Several outside vendors offer compressed tees and other items and they generally prefer to print goods themselves. This loss of control can be frustrating to traditional decorators. If you choose to go this direction, be sure you use a reputable firm and be very specific on your clients’ needs. Thinner and less dense goods are easier to compress and shape, so be sure you get the quality your customer demands.
When you work a compressed tee into an overall concept you have reached the next level of adding value for your customers. When promotional products distributor Performance Group wanted to demonstrate how they use creativity, skill and promotional products, they used three different direct mail pieces, including a t-shirt …compressed into the shape of a t-shirt and vacuum packed onto a direct mailer. Similarly, when distributor All American Marketing put together their “Marketing Toolbox” where all the products used where tools and in the shape of tools…they had t-shirts compressed into the shape of a screwdriver. {note…photos on both of these are available from PPAI}. When clothing distributor Broder Brothers wanted to reach promotional products distributors (PPDs) in a unique way, they had shirts compressed into rectangular cubes with the traditional Cracker Jack® prize artwork on the outside. The plastic wrapped shirts were then inserted into oversize boxes of Crack Jacks® with the caramel popcorn treat and direct mailed them to PPD’s. <I believe I still have one of these around here> Of course anything involving the trademarked property of others must be coordinated with the mark owners.
When it comes to creative packaging, the clients’ budget and your imagination are the only limitations. There are three main variables in any business: price, quality, and time…your customers should be able to pick any TWO and have you help them with packaging. I digress a bit to selling your creativity in general. Yes, I said SELL your creativity. If you constantly come up with the most creative ideas and you give them away at rock bottom prices…you will end up bitter and poor. When customers call our company and indicate they are looking for something creative…and as fast and cheap as they can get it, we remind them they can choose any two…but not all three. We also ask if they would like our quote department or our creative department. When working with our creative department, we expect more latitude, and we expect the client to buy what we come up with from us. I strongly suggest you have clients signoff on a statement to the effect that they recognize the value of the creative process and effort you have put in and that if they buy from you…there is no charge for creativity and research. On the other hand, if they take your ideas and go elsewhere…they owe you $XXX per hour of your research time. Many items like wearables are commodities now…creativity will never be a commodity and you need to protect this valuable business resource you bring to the table.
One of the most creative marketers in wearables today is Mary Ellen Hudicka, Director of Marketing Communications at clothing distributor Bodek and Rhodes. Hudicka says the key to packaging wearables for her is to “present ideas and new items in a way that makes the recipient want to show it to others, such as salespeople and clients.” Hudicka jokingly shares the story of how several fellow staff members observed a hoagie sandwich on her desk one day and told her to “eat your lunch.” Turns out the “hoagie” wasn’t her lunch at all…but her latest marketing campaign, promoting a Philadelphia sales representative. Shirts printed with “Secrets of a real Philly Cheese” on the front and “secrets of a really good Philly rep. on the back. The shirts were then rolled, wrapped in foil, and bagged. The response was phenomenal.
In another promotion, Hudicka used a tackle box as the outside packaging, with fish-shaped hangtags on shirts talking about different “schools of thought” for how to sell that particular item. Included in the promotion was a bait box with gummy worms and ad copy to indicate the box contained “fresh bait, guaranteed to land whopper savings. Once again, the outer packaging pulls the whole concept/campaign together.
It really is up to your imagination to maximize the impact of your clients’ promotion through packaging. When Video Post and Transfer wanted to establish their identity with independent filmmakers, they used movie film canisters which are usually discarded to package their tee shirt for give-a-way at the show. Sounds cute, but would it work?…Video Post and Transfer reported more than 200% more new business from this show than from any previous show where they exhibited. Similarly, when PE Biosystems wanted to drive trade show traffic to their booth and double product inquiries and sales leads from the previous year, they adopted a champagne bottle theme. The theme ran throughout their promotional items used leading up to the show and culminated with recipients receiving a bottle of champagne in their hotel rooms and a shirt packaged in a plastic champagne bottle if they stopped by the booth.
Some of my personal favorites for creative packaging aren’t all that expensive to do and have high impact. You can get your own canning equipment relatively inexpensively…and package shirts in paint cans with a full wrap label and a pull top lid. One fun variation on these is to find boxes that will fit in the paint can when loaded from the bottom…but will not fit through the pull top lid. Then you load the shirt into the box and can it. On the end of the box that shows once the pull top is removed, I suggest you print something like “see what happens when you put a square peg in a round hole?” We received feedback that this was one of the most creative things people had ever seen…and it was a mistake the first time we did it…we thought the boxes would come out. Shirts can also be packed inside other promotional products like flowerpots, large coffee or travel mugs, 6 pack coolers, inside a cap or hat, even fish netting for a nautical theme.
Creative packaging isn’t for everyone. If your niche is in high end, unusual prints or techniques or you cater to local charity runs with the lowest cost shirts available…this may not be for you. For many of us though, combining creativity in packaging with high quality work can send sales and margins soaring. Good luck…I challenge you to stretch your creative mind and find answers to your clients’ problems and opportunities. I promise you that as you do…you will raise the playing field of our industry…and have a lot more fun yourself.