Creative

In a session during the recent NEMOA conference in Portland, Maine, that had catalogers ducking for cover, Bill LaPierre, senior vice president of the Millard Group Inc., list brokerage division, provided a veteran’s critique of several catalogs he recently observed and of the catalog/multichannel business at large. His overall finding? Today’s catalogs are boring! LaPierre pulled no punches as he picked apart catalogs, referring to them as “tofu” (lacking in flavor) or “steak” (full of flavor), though he found plenty more tofu than steak. He provided tips primarily focusing on creative design. * Adapt, make timely changes to your catalog. LaPierre praised Cuddledown’s

Hollywood Gadgets has a wonderful assortment of products. Unique and interesting, it’s a catalog you know will do well if you can get it opened and perused. Therein lies the challenge. This catalog is filled with potential, but undertapped opportunities. Front Cover Perhaps with all the best intentions, this cata-loger may feel it has worked hard on the front cover, but is it also working smart? A lot of people might applaud putting the product in a lifestyle setting, but is that enough? Is it compelling? Dramatic? Emotional? Relevant? Differentiated? If you put your hand over the logo, would you know whose catalog it was? The cover

It’s not evident at quick glance which copy goes with which product. To improve this, I recommend the following: 1. Use black type for keys (a,b,c, etc.) to tie products into copy blocks. Black is much easier to read than reverse type in color. I’d also suggest black or an easier-to-read color, such as dark blue, for lead-in lines on the copy block for the same reason. 2. Be more consistent about the placement of copy and product. Customers expect copy to be under the photos — much as they see in newspaper captions. But Hollywood Gadgets puts copy blocks above, below and to

In a session during last week’s NEMOA conference in Portland, Maine, Lois Boyle, president/chief creative officer at catalog consulting firm J. Schmid & Assocs., said that the customer experience is the key factor in developing a successful catalog company. Stressing that in today’s world you’re more in competition with consumers’ time than with their pocketbooks, Boyle provided a few ways to help your catalog break through the clutter of everyday life. Included below are four of those tips: 1. Develop a schemata (customer’s frame of reference). Calling it the “curse of knowledge,” Boyle said that many catalogers know too much. “We get so close

Lillian Vernon, a Virginia Beach, Va.-based cataloger and online retailer specializing in household, organizational, children’s and fashion accessory products, has gone back to its roots in search of future success. The company’s catalog has reverted to its more unique dimensions, 8 inches by 8 inches, after a four-year departure. The 56-year-old multichannel merchant first introduced the square format in 1986, but in recent years had been using the more common 8 inches by 10 inches format. “It was such a well-known format for the core book that we wanted to return to it,” says Vice President of Marketing John Buleza. “It’s kind of in

Bluewater Books & Charts is a 104-page consumer catalog that offers navigational charts, instruments and gifts to the nautical community. In addition to the catalog, the company operates two retail stores and, of course, a Web site. I suspect this catalog markets to high-income shoppers willing to spend a great deal of money on their hobby-based lifestyle, and Bluewater needs to capitalize on this with a design that’ll make sailing enthusiasts want to part with their dollars. But the Bluewater catalog is as predictable as a nautical chart in its careful organization. Let’s look at some specific problems as well as some creative solutions that

Remember those old TV announcements, “It’s 10 p.m., do you know where your children are?” Those have come to mind lately as my son Marc, 17, enters his senior year in high school. He, my wife and I have hit the ground running searching for colleges. Like any parent, to me it seems like he grew up practically overnight. But it’s the college search thing that’s really hit home with me lately — namely, that a generation has passed. This column isn’t about him; it’s actually about my generation. See, my thought process seems to naturally flow from this, “Wow, you’re growing up; you’re

Well into the second decade of the Internet, many of you reading this — if not all of you — have a pretty good recollection of the “Wild Wild West” days of the Internet early on. It actually still is the Wild West, but in a much different way. And, having sat in on a number of sessions at the e-Tail conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, I noticed the breadth of knowledge that’s permeated the catalog/multichannel community and helped give it an entirely different character than it had 10 years ago. For one, consider how the language has changed. In the mid-’90s, I

One of the most powerful connectors between a seller and a prospect is language, or voice. Of course, it’s the writer’s job to get that communication across in words and ensure that it’s culturally accurate. To speak (write) to your customers and prospects the way they wish to be spoken to can be daunting when you’re not exactly like them — but it’s far from impossible. It just takes a little research. Most of us can tell if someone’s not “speaking our language.” We hate to be spoken down to. This is true both face-to-face and in your catalog. Yet, I constantly see curt and

Problem: The Strasburg Children catalog wanted to improve the quality of its photographs. Solution: It hired an outside photography studio. Results: Strasburg Children has seen a 400 percent increase in catalog requests via phone and online. It’s also experienced an increase in Web sales and store traffic. Strasburg Children, a multichannel marketer of high-end children’s clothing, knew it had quality products, but company officials felt its photography didn’t show off the intricate detail and delicate beauty of its clothing. Strasburg Children has gone from four stores to almost 100. But according to Marketing Manager Amy Hough, “One of the things that failed to evolve with our growth was