Structural Graphics, a print marketing agency specializing in 3-D pieces such as pop-up mailers, has retired its old logo after 26 years and begun a rebranding campaign with a new logo and an increased focus on CRM.
The old logo, an image of two letter “Cs” interlocking, had been around so long it had ceased to create lasting impressions, said Michael Dambra, vice president of marketing for Structural Graphics, Essex, CT. It had been around in various forms for most of the agency's 27 years and stayed after the former owner, Chris Crowell, upon whose initials the logo was fashioned, sold the company four years ago.
“It was time,” Dambra said. “It had gotten to the point where the old logo was nondescript.”
The new logo, launched in July, features a paper airplane in a teal background over the agency's name, which is written in Roman-faced and italic type.
Dambra said Structural Graphics chose the image of a paper airplane as a representative of a “simple yet elegant” engineering device. The logo adorns all of Structural Graphics' new mail communications, including an 18-page brochure designed with the paper airplane theme in mind.
The brochure illustrates the company's three-dimensional marketing expertise with a pop-up ad that unfolds to reveal a paper airplane flying into a sunset. Also in the brochure are highlights of the services the agency offers, industries it serves and common applications of its three-dimensional mailers.
Structural Graphics can ship the brochure in a custom folder with an all-black cover bearing the image of a watercolor flower and the headline “Extra Sensory Perceptions.” The recipient is instructed to pull a tab on the bottom of the folder cover, which changes from a flower to a picture of Marilyn Monroe in an example of the company's “magic window” technology.
In addition, Structural Graphics designed a pop-up business card featuring the new logo. The agency also is working to produce new case studies, how-to guides and fact sheets for its client base as part of its rebranding. Though the logo will change, direct mail will remain the company's main medium of communication to customers.
“That's our business,” Dambra said. “It's where we shine, so it makes perfect sense for us.”
However, though its marketing medium will stay the same, the agency has a new focus on customer relationship management, he said. More efforts are being applied to targeting customers already in its database and providing them with useful information and education.
For example, the agency is sending past clients a double-pocketed shelf-top storage kit featuring the paper airplane theme. Structural Graphics follows up with periodic mailers, which the clients can store in the kit, and over four months the kit becomes a useful reference guide.
To design the logo, Structural Graphics brought in Noemi Kearns of How2Design, Guilford, CT, while Peter Good of Cummings & Good, Chester, CT, designed the brochure. Though it produces mail pieces, Structural Graphics has little experience in creating new graphics and depends on its clients to provide artwork, which it applies to the Structural Graphics three-dimensional template.
“We're design people but not graphic design people,” Dambra said. “What we specialize in is making paper perform.”
