Print Solutions July 2006
Cover Story
Experiment No. 4:
Metcom Inc. undergoes a facelift.
In Brief
A distributorship gives its logo and tagline a sleeker look to attract larger clients and change its “printer” image. |
 "If this works, we expect our client list to be reduced. We’ve topped off at about 600 clients. I want that to be our highest. We’d like to see that number go down as our sales go up."
Tom Warnez, CDC president Metcom Inc. St. Clair Shores, Mich. |
Metcom Inc. sought a cleaner, crisper image that would attract new customers
when it changed its logo and tagline. |
Objective:
Metcom Inc., St. Clair Shores, Mich., wants to focus on fewer, larger clients
and make its clients aware that it is not a printer but a total resources
management company. These new clients will not necessarily be corporations but
companies that have enough income to invest in and develop marketing campaigns.
“If this works, we expect our client list to be reduced,” says Metcom President Tom Warnez, CDC. “We’ve topped off at about 600 clients. I want that to be our highest. We’d like to see that number go down as our sales go up.”
Hypothesis:
To jump start this new image, Metcom decided to revamp its logo and tagline.
Both new branding tools will launch this month on the company’s web site and newsletter. “We wanted a cleaner, sharper look that we thought fit with our new business
customers and the changing landscape,” Warnez says.
Procedure:
1) Hire a professional. Warnez says the company did not go through a brand
consultant, but did hire a graphic designer
“who helped us with the logo and how to incorporate it into our web site and
newsletter.”
2) Drop “print” from the tagline. When Metropolitan Forms & Systems began in 1983 it had “business forms” in its tagline to help describe the company. “The first 10 years, we had business forms and for the next 10, we had print,” Warnez says. “Now we have neither.” In 1998, the distributorship officially became Metcom Inc. Now the company has
decided to switch from
“Printing, promotional & informational services” as its tagline to “Your business is our business” to further emphasize Metcom’s diverse capabilities.
“The main reason we’re doing it is because we’re not a printer and ‘print’ seems to conjure that image,” he says. “We’re program-centered. If anything, we’re a program company, a technology company, a procurement company or a service
company. But we’re not a printer. It’s just too limiting to us. We’re too unique for that.” But Warnez acknowledges there was some dissention within the ranks when the
company made the decision to lose the print references.
“I know this is not everyone’s opinion,” he says. “Even within our office we had one person who thought we should keep the word ‘print’ in our tagline.”
Results:
The jury’s still out on this one because the company launched the new logo and tagline
only recently. But Warnez says he has high hopes for what the long-term impact
will be.
“If it is combined properly with the right marketing efforts and pitch and
resources, it can be successful,” he says. “I think if done effectively, it will help us be a program company that serves
special clients and not a product company that serves everybody.”
Conclusion:
“For the most part, changing to adapt to a new industry and new clients I think
is a positive move,” Warnez says.
