Concord Litho: On the Scent of New Profits

A Conversation with Ali Westcott: “Anything That’s Printed Can Be Scented.”

By Cary Sherburne, Senior WTT Editor

June 27, 2007 -- Concord Litho, located in Concord, New Hampshire, has operated as an independent family business since 1958. The company has revenues of $42 million, 215 employees, 7 web and sheetfed presses, and a bindery. Its location in a historic New England town has not stopped the company from delivering innovation in the 21st century.  A recent company press release caught my attention with its catchy title: Concord Litho Prints Interactive Scent Cards for 'Laugh 'n Sniff' Episode of 'My Name is Earl.'  Billed as “Your ticket to ‘Must Smell TV,’” this first-of-its kind interactive promotion ties a scented insert (six fragrances, including Oreo cookie) to the May 3 script of the television sitcom and was available exclusively in the April 30th issue of TV Guide. During the May 3rd "Laugh 'n Sniff" episode, NBC prompted viewers via on-air graphics to rub one of six corresponding numbered boxes on TV Guide's scent card, which released aromas connected to the “My Name Is Earl” storyline, including the smell of “a brand-new car,” and the chocolatey-creamy signature scent of Oreo cookies, the sponsor of the “scent card.” The release prompted me to contact Ali Westcott, Director of Marketing & Communications for Concord Litho, to learn more about this promotion and what it might mean as a new application area for Concord Litho going forward. And smelling my way through the sample kit made me hungry!

WTT:  Ali, thanks for taking the time to speak with us today.  This “Must Smell TV” promotion was a pretty unique campaign. Do you have any idea what kind of response it got?  Did NBC, Oreo or TV Guide measure it in any way?

AJW:  TV Guide is a long-time Concord Litho customer and we are waiting to get official information back from them. It got tremendous play in terms of media coverage, especially as a May sweeps first-of-its-kind event, and I do know that it got really good reviews on the message boards from the fans of the show.

WTT:  Your promotional materials indicate that you have “1,000 different scented varnishes available, from fresh cut grass to chocolate, for printing that smells as good as it looks.” What is the story behind these scented varnishes and how does it differ from “Scratch-n-Sniff” technology?  Also, can you do custom scents?

AJW:  We have a partnership with Scentisphere, the exclusive distributor for the product in the U.S., and we were the very first testing site for both sheetfed and web printing with these varnishes.  Marketers are used to scent strips and Scratch-n-Sniff.  Scratch-n-Sniff became popular in the 1980s and is used most often for kids’ stickers and other pressure sensitive labeling. The slurry that creates this product ends up as a kind of milky paste that tends to blur or obscure your graphics. You also have to vigorously scratch the area to smell it, and that limits both its shelf-life and pass-along value. In contrast, these new scented varnishes are clear, have a long shelf life, and releasing the scent doesn’t damage your product.  Also, once you rub the varnish and release the scent, it goes dormant until you rub it again, which is why it has a longer shelf life and greatly increases pass-along value for advertisers.

Scent strips are typically found in women’s fashion magazines and are a traditional vehicle for mass sampling of perfumes. They are made of a gelatin-based slurry that has a little glue mixed in so that the flap can be sealed shut and it has bigger capsules of fragrance oil that break open when you open the strip of paper. But their bigger size also makes them less stable, with the capsules often breaking prematurely.  That is one reason why a lot of airline magazines won’t carry perfume ads. They also don’t have much of a shelf life or pass-along value.

Scented varnishes are a whole new way to suspend fragrance inside the slurry in teeny-tiny polymer capsules that are strong enough to withstand the heat of the press without bursting; it doesn’t mar the piece, and doesn’t interfere with the graphics because it is clear. It’s dormant until you rub it, so it passes a lot more postal regulations and publication requirements -- you have to activate it to smell it, so it is much less intrusive. 

And yes, we can do custom scents – the “My Name is Earl” TV Guide scent card has a custom Oreo fragrance that we worked with the brand manager on.  The first customers that were most interested in this technology were cosmetics companies looking for an inexpensive and less intrusive way to do sampling.  All of those, of course, were custom scents. For custom scents, we work with Scentisphere and get the scent encapsulated in Germany.  We can also work with brands to get the essences of the actual product encapsulated to be a match.  Custom fragrances are surprisingly affordable.  Scented varnish can also be used on consumer packaging, such as for shampoo.  Something like 70% of buying decisions for shampoo are made on the spot, and people often pop open packages or otherwise damage the packaging trying to see what it smells like.  This is a way to keep the package from being damaged, and yet potential buyers can get a sense of the smell of product at the point of sale.

WTT:  Is it difficult to implement in production?

AJW:  It’s fairly easy to handle in the press itself.  It is basically applied as a fifth color.  You can have as many scents as you have open stations. We used a 10-unit web press for the TV Guide promotion, with CMYK and six scents. But we’ve been testing and using this stuff for about four years now, so we’ve learned a lot along the way … regarding mileage, the best ways to run the jobs … especially on the sheetfed side of things, where you can use the varnish in a few different ways that can save time and money.

WTT:  Are there any issues with postal regulations or toxicity or anything else along those lines with this technology?  For example, could it be used on food packaging? 

AJW:  This stuff is clear, non-toxic, and manufactured from synthetic compounds. The fragrance-to-varnish ratio is minuscule . . . a person has a far greater probability of reacting to plain-old printed ink on a greeting card or direct mail piece than the fragrance oils embedded in the varnish. So, yes it can be used on food packaging.  If you visit the Scentisphere site, you will see that Froot Loops is taking advantage of the technology in this way.

WTT:  I understand the average “scented” project requires a five- to seven-week turnaround.  In an environment where all we seem to hear about is next-day delivery, this seems like a long time.  How do you position this lead time with customers?  How much does it tend to add to the cost of a project?

AJW:  The longer lead time we quote is mostly for custom scents. For stock scents, it is just another part of the printing process, but you do need some extra lead time. For custom scents, people are generally in the midst of new product development and launch, and the lead times are not a problem for them. They understand the value of adding scents to a campaign in terms of improved response rates, and those values tend to offset any extra costs.  Other folks might be using it as a way to add an interesting element to a campaign, maybe around a holiday. We get a lot of inquiries about adding scents to greeting cards for holidays—candy cane, gingerbread cookies, pine trees, that sort of thing, and we tend to stock those scents.

WTT:  So do you have scent proofing?

AJW:  We sure do! If we already have the scent in stock, we produce a draw down sample, or if it is a custom scent, we get that sample from Scentisphere as part of the development process.  We also have a “Scent OK” on press, because you can alter the strength of the scent on press. We have been using this now for close to four years.  It took us a while to get there, in terms of all of the production processes, but we are very comfortable with it now.

WTT:  The last time I visited your plant, which was several years ago, I remember lots of huge presses printing AAA maps.  What has changed since then in terms of your operations?

AJW:  We are continually investing in both our web and sheetfed divisions, making improvements in both areas, including inline finishing, etc. We have also established a separate fundraising division. We have always done a lot of fundraising campaigns and premiums, and decided to dedicate a group to cater exclusively to the specific needs of non-profit organizations. And since you were last here, we now have an in-house bindery and, most recently, a new kitting and fulfillment center. That grew out of requirements from our current customers, which is how we typically grow—when our best customers are looking for services they can’t get elsewhere or they want to come to a single supplier for a set of services.  We are primarily doing marketing kits in our fulfillment center right now; for example, when a retailer or bank is opening a new location or launching campaigns that require the change-out of a variety of marketing pieces.

WTT:  What is your position relative to digital printing?

AJW:  We always keep an eye on all of the technologies; and we are, of course, watching the developments in digital printing. But our core competency has always been long run, high quantity projects that take advantage of our inline finishing on our webs or our large-format capabilities in sheetfed.  Most of our customers are not looking for digital from us. We know that most print buyers deal with four to six different printers, and that it’s best for both of us that the buyers pick the right printer for the right set of projects or needs. But we do have our eye on it, in case it does become a competitive issue. Digital printing really has more to do with customers looking for 1-1 marketing and is so dependent on the database. I just got two “personalized” mail pieces from the same company congratulating us on our 50th and 100th anniversary. Actually, neither piece was right, since our 50th anniversary is next year.  We find it more beneficial to concentrate on our core competencies and be the best we can be in those areas, and continue to find newer, cooler, better ways to print.

WTT:  It is not all that usual for a printing company to have a senior marketing executive.  How long have you been in that role, and what kinds of marketing efforts are you engaged in on behalf of Concord Litho?

AJW:  I have been here almost ten years, and I love it.  I think I am one of the luckiest marketing directors on earth, because anything I want to get printed, I can get printed!  I have counterparts at other companies as well.  I was a marketing specialist, but I also moved around the company through a number of different departments, including creative services and IT.  Officially, I took over as marketing director about three years ago.  In terms of marketing efforts, we have rebranded the company.  Our old colors were classic 1990s black with silver, with a little granite thrown in as a nod to being located in the Granite State.  We went Technicolor a few years ago, redid our web site, etc. 

We also place a lot of focus on finding ways to connect with the print buyer today that is a very different buyer than the print buyer of 20 years ago. The print buyer today probably looks more like me—there are a lot more women buying print.  We spend a lot of time providing education, showing different ways you can do things with print. We have also put together “Idea Kits” for various applications and products, including our patented CoverSleeve, calendars, and the scented varnish.  We have eight different kits right now. You hear a lot of people talking about the death of print, but I don’t think that is going to happen anytime soon. It is a good, solid medium for people to reach their customers.  We are also involved with print buying groups, like Suzanne Morgan’s Print Buyers Online and Margie Dana’s Print Buyers International.   I also think it is great that the two leading print buyer organizations are led by strong, talented women!

WTT:  The gift wrap promotion you sent out for Valentine’s Day was clever.  Tell us a little about that.

AJW:  We print a lot of premiums, including gift wrap, for our fund-raising clients.  The sample you are talking about is double-sided gift wrap, with a special fold so that you can see the second design.  Our fundraising group is always looking at ways to produce those premiums more efficiently.  The latest round of postal increases pretty much slammed calendars, so we are looking at new calendar formats that will have better postal rates.  We want to put samples in the hands of our prospective print buyers that reflect what we are good at.

WTT:  You must have a good-sized R&D effort going on.

AJW:  We have a product development team that works on these kinds of issues. They also look at new inks, new techniques, that kind of thing. We are working on a new phosphorescent ink that we are trying out.  A lot of our customers are ad agencies, and they are always looking for new and novel ways to promote new movies, TV shows and other things, so we like to be able to give them lots of new ideas.

WTT:  How do you leverage your facility, equipment and suppliers in your marketing efforts?

AJW:  We are very aware of what our facility looks like, and we make sure that it is attractive, clean and efficient.  Plant tours are still pretty much a classic step in developing a relationship with a new client.  We are also looking into having more open houses and that sort of thing.  When we have new equipment and new capabilities, we inform our customers about what these new capabilities can do for their business.  We launched a product sampling program this year.  When we have something new that product development is testing, people can sign up for the sample program and we send them successful samples out of the labs.  It can be a good thought starter for them. This concept grew out of the idea kits that we do.  We do have strategic relationships with Scentisphere and Flint; both are important partnerships for us.  They are great about supporting us as we work to find new things to do with their products. Even though we have been using scented varnishes for four years, we are still testing new ways to do things.  And we are really lucky to have an experienced crew here at Concord Litho as well.

WTT:  What are some of the innovative developments we can expect to see out of Concord Litho going forward?

AJW:  As I mentioned, we are testing phosphorescent inks.  The other major area for our testing activities right now is format based—that came into the forefront with the new postal regulations.  Many of our fundraisers use specific formats that have a high perceived value, like the calendars. We are working with them to create new formats that don’t sacrifice the value of the premium, but that will still combat the postal increases.

Cary can be reached via email at cary@sherburneassociates.com, online at www.sherburneassociates.com and by telephone at 603-430-5463.

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