Best of the Best: Top Shops Product Spotlight

The graphics for Brunswick Zone XL are part of an identity package that layers across all marketing communications from the in center experience to the website, ads and billboards that create the brand expectation. Color and quality were critical. These were produced as part of a retail grand opening of an important new facility, and they were the first of a new standard to be applied in all Brunswick Zone XL locations around the country. As is typical with new construction, we had a tight window of time to get the graphics manufactured and installed prior to the opening event. Large scale graphics can be very tricky, especially when dealing with non standard installations, curved walls and other unique circumstances.

Source One Digital produced the graphics on one of their Jeti Solvent 3M machines printing on combination of wallpaper and vinyl for different applications. Source One Digital team then traveled to Lakeview, MN for installation of all graphics produced. Printing and Installation was provided by Source One Digital installation team.

CLIENT: Brunswick Bowling
AGENCY: LoSasso Advertising, Chicago
PRINTING & INSTALLATION: Source One Digital

Rank 8
Sharpe Images
Winston-Salem, NC
www.sharpeimages.com

BB&T (www.bbt.com) came to Sharpe Images for a new temporary in-branch display option with a specific price point in mind. Sharpe Images worked with BB&T to help them decide on the best option.

Click here to view larger image of packing floor.

Sharpe Images produced 1,000 33.5x79-inch Retractable Displays for the branches in July 2008. The project took three weeks from start to finish (printing, construction, packaging and delivery).

We screen printed 700 of the graphics but digitally printed 100 each of three designs on our HP Z6100 Plotters. We used our newly purchased 18,000 square foot facility (not yet up fitted for printing) in Charlotte, NC to construct the displays and set them up for quality control checks. After they were carefully checked for defects then we packaged them and delivered them to the BB&T Material Management Facility in Winston Salem.

All of the displays were distributed throughout the bank branches without one defective display reported (our proudest accomplishment). BB&T was so pleased with the results that Sharpe Images is currently producing the next order of 1,600 displays.

Rank 9
Pictura Graphics
Minneapolis, MN
www.picturagraphics.com

The Minnesota State High School Boy's Hockey Championship is one of the largest and most unique sporting events in North America. It attracts over 120,000 fans each year, statewide broadcast coverage and substantial corporate sponsorship. Fans, players, coaches, scouts and product manufacturers converge on St. Paul for four days each year, creating the largest and most focused product marketing event in the hockey world.

Click here to view larger image of Bauer exhibit.

The tournament attracts significant sponsorship investment and crowds fill the Xcel Energy Center, home to an NHL franchise, to capacity for several games. In fact, the 19,559 that showed up for the 2008 semi-final games set a record for the largest crowd to ever attend a hockey game in the state of Minnesota. The trade show held at an adjacent convention center is jammed with hockey consumers in search of the latest and greatest in skates, sticks, protective equipment and every hockey widget imaginable. The unique combination of a sold-out sporting event paired with a consumer product show open to the buying public equals a one-of-a-kind opportunity for product marketers.

As one of the leading brands in the sport, Bauer Hockey considers the Tournament and trade show an important battleground for winning market share in the ultra-competitive hockey market of Minnesota, regarded by locals as "The State of Hockey." In recent years, Bauer Hockey raised the bar at the tournament and the trade show, securing category exclusive marketing rights in the arena for the hockey games and building out a huge 100x100-foot trade show space, complete with the latest audio/visual technology and product displays, to accommodate the throngs at the trade show.

For 2009, Bauer Hockey was looking for unique and effective vehicles for branding a new product launch. They came up with the concept to wrap the giant support columns spaced throughout the main concourse of the Xcel Energy Center with large, adhesive graphics. Unfortunately, the operations staff at the Xcel denied their request, citing surface damage done to the columns by adhesive graphics applied by an inexperienced vendor during the 2008 Republican National Convention.