12 Mar
10 Mar
What’s Unique About What They Do Here…
“What’s unique about what they do here, is create something that is not only aesthetically pleasing, but also can be manufactured.” That quote is brought to you courtesy of now former ChemArt President, Dave Marquis, who religiously led-off his tour of our department with this statement — verbatim. In my 5 plus year tenure in the Graphics Department, I’ve heard that line so many times, it has burnt itself into my subconscious. It even finds it way into conversations outside work, when a light-hearted interjection is needed to break up a serious discussion. It’s going to be difficult to witness a company tour without it. ChemArt is undergoing a change of the guard currently, as Dave has decided to move on and a new cast will now undertake the presidential procedures. ChemArt is strong, but Dave will be missed. Good luck to all involved. Dave had a mustache…
And so did we, as of a couple weeks ago. Our Graphics Department, as I’ve mentioned before in earlier blogs (if you haven’t read them — for shame!), is a unique group. We enjoy mixing it up, even if it means self degradation. And so, the most brave men in our department embarked upon a mission to grow the Creepiest Mustache in 2010. The criteria: grow a mustache and by the ides of February, a winner would be crowned (I’m aware that traditionally the Roman calendar recognizes the “ides” in the months of March, May, June, and October, but it sounds good here.). We embark in a number of what I’m going to quantify as “team building” activities throughout the course of the year in Graphics.
On Thursday nights in the warmer months, we break out the pale legs and high tops to play basketball at a local high school. It’s remarkably competitive as we showcase such talents as Cuz’s 3-point prowess, Bennett’s no-nonsense hustle, and fadeaways by Sweetness. Incidentally, Sweetness (Eric’s cousin… Cuz’s cousin) does not work at ChemArt, but he is an accepted member of the crew and deserves recognition for his perfected jump shots that consistently stretch the twine. Occasionally, I’ll host a soirée at my humble abode in Narragansett. In the past, these summits have been highlighted by horseshoe throw-downs, beach football, iron chef-esque grilling, and large, poorly-attended fires. By the way, I’m surgical with a horseshoe and welcome any challenges. Birthdays are commonly celebrated by a night out at the most reasonably priced watering hole. Those nights traditionally result in social-networking-worthy pictures. Sweetness has a mustache…
Right, right —mustaches. I don’t grow facial hair too well. I suppose if I were a rock star, studio artist, or homeless person, it would be a less blatantly noticeable shortcoming. Alas, I work in an office and live with a wife. The mustache competition was a humbling experience. My cohorts held the advantage in the early weeks, as their pangean patches grew evenly and fully. Mine, was a patchy mess of multicolored mane. By the end, I was a dead ringer for Earl Hickey (My Name is Earl) and for my sacrifices, I was awarded the victory. What “team building” activity is next for the Graphics Department? You tell me, we’re up for most anything.
Sir Blogs a Lot in red plaid, Creepy Mustache Winner 2010
8 Mar
You want what, with what, for how much???? – Graphic Challenges
Sound familiar? I would guess most sales people understand what I just said. When they are asking that question it inevitably has us designers asking them the same question.
With the economy as it is and the cost of everything from brass to gold going through the roof, that has been a reoccurring question all year. I bet you would have thought my graphics challenge would have been about coming up with new and refreshing ideas day in and day out. I thought that was too obvious so I figured I would show how we deal with cost constraints.
This past year has brought a new set of challenges to us as designers. We always had to deal with costing as an assembly challenge. As you know, everything we design is hand-assembled at ChemArt. Our designers have a unique challenge in engineering a design that is cost affective when every piece is hand-assembled. This aspect has us working closely with the assembly department. We work together to come up with the most efficient way to put a collectible together without compromising the integrity of the design.
So this past year we have had the challenge of keeping our designs up to the bar we have previously set, but also dealing with the rising cost of materials. This is where our creativity gets heavily challenged. Some designs may be slightly smaller but have a more intricate look to them. We may have been constrained to 2 colors but we did some creative things with screen print layers to make it look like we used 3 or 4 colors. I would call this behind-the-scenes creativity.
It challenges us as designers to provide our clients with something they want and can afford. After all if they can’t afford it nobody wins. Judging by the success our clients had with their programs I would have to say we did an admiral job providing them with beautiful products for them to be successful.
5 Mar
Weekly Wrap Up March 5, 2010 – must see blogs and web sites
5 Levels of Effective Communication in the Social Media Age
25 Tips for Better Fundraising Copy
PR is Only Dying If It Isn’t Evolving
Top 3 Excuses for Not Marketing a Small Business
Online Communications Planning for Nonprofits
Integrating Your Website, Email Newsletter and Social Media Sites
9 Website Upgrades That Visitors Love
Is Your Nonprofit Reaching Diverse Activists and Donors
Volunteers need to know their organizational role
3 Mar
ChemArt decorative collectibles shuffles management team
Multi-segmented designer and manufacturer ChemArt announced that effective immediately, it has implemented a necessary organizational executive shift, according to the company.
Bill Thomas will assume the position of president of the Lincoln, R.I.-based company. David Beaupre will take on the role of executive vice president; Kurt Hague will expand his role as VP of operations and general counsel; and Deb Parkinson will manage all the marketing activities as VP of marketing and development.
Parkinson will be responsible for supporting ChemArt and its sales strategies with market-driven strategies including campaigns and programs that foster growth and market penetration.
Under the new structure she and her team will also focus on business and market development to position ChemArt for the future.
ChemArt has served as the premiere designer and manufacturer of photo-chemically etched decorative ornaments and collectibles in the United States. ChemArt also provides products for the giftware industry and fundraising ventures, and is pushing its way into the retail licensing segment as well.
Parkinson told DailyVista that the new organizational structure at ChemArt is not necessarily a change, but rather an evolution of responsibility.
“I’ve been with ChemArt a little under five years, and came here when they took over a retail initiative. Prior to that, they’d just been a behind-the-scenes manufacturer for a lot of people,” she said. “The result is that I oversaw both marketing and sales, and because of a change of leadership, we now have a new president who will focus on sales, which gives me an opportunity to focus on marketing as well as development.”
Because of Parkinson’s interest in market research and development, she will now be able to focus more of her efforts on that and tweak the strategy to reach the new markets that are out there, and figure out the best way to approach them.
“I think that our branding efforts to this point have been to distinguish ourselves,” she said. “We were behind-the-scenes, and now we have the opportunity to build the brand under a name of ChemArt – short for Chemical Art because of the process we use – and we were able to put in place the classical branding strategies with positioning, including the marketing communications that come with it.”
As ChemArt further penetrates the retail segment with licensing partners like the Baldwin brand, an extension of Black & Decker, the company is also working with The White House Historical Segment, which has granted ChemArt permission to sell their products in the retail division as well.
“The retail has its own little umbrella because we now sell custom products to retailers, Baldwin and White House and regional appeal products, and a semi-custom product to retailers under the ChemArt name,” Parkinson said. “It’s quite complex. We touch a lot of people in many different ways and the real story we have resonates and it doesn’t matter how it resonates, whether it’s with the donor, the member, the volunteer or the consumer that walks into a retail establishment… we really do have a very unique proposition.”
ChemArt uses traditional print media as well as some electronic forms of reaching out to customers. The company has been building a permission-based opportunity for newsletters and is also entering into Webinars that use one of ChemArt’s clients to speak to the other clientele in that same platform.
“We’re trying to engage them, which brings us back to the idea of social media – how that becomes one more arrow in our quiver, and other elements of how else we can reach the customer, whether it’s through ecommerce or international marketing,” Parkinson said.
While there are many other initiatives in the pipeline, our source said that ChemArt is definitely focused on social media, and is working diligently trying to determine whether or not it will make an impact and ultimately lead to a sale closure.
“We’re very new at social media,” Parkinson said. “We have a blog, and we’re on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, but we’re still feeling our way through that. It’s baby steps for us.”
With three segments of business – industrial, decorative and retail – ChemArt targets a wide variety of consumers, ranging from engineers to fundraising and higher education to religious institutions and the government.
“The decorative portion of the business is dedicated to custom products for philanthropy and fundraising… creating awareness and working with donors and making sure that the membership is recognized in some way,” Parkinson said. “So that’s the primary product and market that we actually serve and tagged onto that is retail opportunity, so we’ve kind of created an umbrella company so that we serve a significant number of constituents, most B-to-B, and we’re looking at avenues of B-to-C, but again, that comes under development part of what I’ll be doing.”
ChemArt has contracted specialists for its Web site, but hasn’t ventured into partnering with any additional firms for other services. The company has a unique relationship with the surrounding Rhode Island colleges and as such, ChemArt’s college internship program is an ambitious one, where students are expected to assist with research and development and to contribute their expertise to aid the company’s success.
“We’re not averse to it, but because we’re a small business, we’ve used our resources differently, but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t speak to someone who felt they had a very strong background in a particular focus that we had,” Parkinson said. “So if we had an initiative for ecommerce, for example, certainly we need to understand not only front end, but the back end of it, and I’m sure there are hundreds of thousands of people who say they are experts in how to set that up and work not only B-to-B, but also B-to-C.”
© 2010 DailyVista
