03.14.08
Nioxin is a $40 million dollar hair care industry provider that sells a wide variety of hair cleansers, conditioners and treatments through professional salons. The goal of the company, as stated by founder Eva Graham, is to provide natural solutions for fine and thin-looking hair. The 20 year old company, whose products are sold in 35 countries, is located in Lithia Springs, GA, USA.
"We looked for a sophisticated hang tag product with strong appeal, a product versatile enough to do something that lower quality string or elastic tags would not," says Trevor Attenborough, vice president of marketing for Nioxin. "We had three different needs: the typical bottleneck product; a tube with no neck, where the tag needed to be near the bottom instead of the top; and, just to make things really interesting, small boxes had to be tagged."
What Nioxin found is called ElastiTag, manufactured by Bedford Industries, Worthington, MN, USA. "Because the tag has what I would describe as an integral rubber band," Attenborough adds, "it can be stretched to fit over a small box, and we can use just one tag on three totally different shaped/sized products."
The ElastiTag product was tested in early 2007, then rolled out for a production run for a new Nioxin technology product Glyco-Color Shield, which keeps hair colors from fading. "We ended up with a great looking tag that we could use on 12 different products," Attenborough adds, "conveying a high end look that was consistent throughout the line. This let us communicate to our customers via a plasticized tag printed in four-color." The promotional period ran from April through December 2007.
A second ElastiTag product, delivered early this year, is printed in 11 languages for shipment to three quarters of European Union countries. The product has the same appeal as the original tag made for Nioxin that is, it works on multiple sizes and packaging formats with just one label. "We can use shelf stock we have for the Canadian and US markets simply by opening the top of a carton and dropping a tag over the neck of each bottle or tube," Attenborough says. "You can imagine the savings. The classic solution would have been a multi-fold coupon label, but that would have required opening the cartons, taking out every product to affix the label, then reboxing it or carrying multiple inventories."
The ElastiTag is available in nearly 50 different die sizes, says Belinda Heidebrink, marketing specialist for Bedford Industries. "We have produced ElastiTag products as small as one inch all the way up to large formats, like those we are making for Nioxin. The present tag is 9" x 2.25" prior to folding in half," she says. Other products in the line include ElastiWick, used for scent delivery; ElastiNote, which has a writeable surface; ElastiBand, a stretchable band which can hold a stack of magazines or books together or serve as a label on large individual fruits or vegetables; and ElastiGlow, a hang tag that glows in the dark using photoluminescence.
"We have even made heart shaped products as well as an ElastiTote," Heidebrink says, "which lets the user slide a sample inside what works like a miniature tote bag after folding in half." One version of the ElastiTag features a loop inside a loop, so that the main tag and loop go over a product, and the other loop contains a small container or sample of a different product. The products can be fed off of a spool, and Bedford is now working with a machine manufacturer on automatic application systems.
Bedford ElastiTag products utilize various synthetic substrates such as polyester, polystyrene and polypropylene to achieve different versions of the tags. Printing equipment includes a Mark Andy 4200 nine-station flexo press and an HP Indigo digital press.
Delivery methods vary. "If a client wants bulk pack or tumble pack, we can just let the tags fall into boxes as they come off the press," says Heidebrink. "Or they can be ganged five per sheet with perforations between each tag, which would be delivered to the customer looking similar to a sheet of twist ties."
A scan of the elastitag.com shows dozens of possible applications, from vegetable produce to medical, from health and beauty to beverages, from a variety of sports items to statuary. A taxidermist supply house sells writeable tags to identify customers' fish mounts, and the products can be used in floral and nursery applications. The broad range of applications speaks to the market need for a high quality product that can be digitally or conventionally printed and used to label heretofore difficult if not impossible substrates and shapes.
Revisiting Danielle
In less than a year, Danielle & Company, Clarks Summit, PA, USA, has more than doubled the number of retail outlets carrying its line of natural and organic fine soaps. Not so incidentally, the company also had a 100 percent increase in the number of its products with the August 2007 introduction of a parallel line of organic body washes in the same 21 scents that the bar soaps come in. Taking a page from the bar soaps, which are produced in a large bath size bar as well as a small two ounce bar, the new body washes some in full size eight ounce bottles as well as a mini travel size. (L&NW first wrote about Danielle & Company in May/June 2006.)
Founder and CEO Danielle Fleming said the evolution from bar soaps to body washes came about from consumer demand: Since the consumer will use one or the other, it just made sense to offer both. One of the new body wash products took first place at the New York International Gift Show, Extracts Division, with judging done by editors of 12 magazines in the field. Joining the Lemongrass-Peppermint organic body wash as another first place winner was Danielle's natural Shea Butter Sweet Kisses bar soap.
"Winning not one but two first place awards in a competition against 135 companies, many of them multi-million dollar industries, was extremely gratifying and a testament to our products," Fleming says.
Just last month, the company scored yet another triumph, walking away with the Best in Show award for its All-in-One Organic Soap Garden at the New York International Gift Fair, Extracts Division. The product includes soaps and body washes housed in a planter pot that is biodegradable and made from rice and grain by-products. Wrappings are of Nepalese lotka paper, made from the daphne bush and embedded with wildflower seeds so that it can be planted.
Small wonder that Fleming was named 2007 Young Entrepreneur of the Year by Bank of America and has won a number of other awards. All of this while running a fast growing company and pursuing her doctoral degree in human deveopment at night at Marywood University in Scranton, PA.
"We designed the label for the new body wash line in-house to give it a family look with the soap labels," Fleming says. Production for the 21 large and 21 small labels was awarded to WhipSmart Development of Patchogue, NY, USA, which specializes in health and beauty, cosmetic and personal care labels.
Not one to rest on her laurels, Fleming said "We're hard at work right now on new products to introduce later this year: an organic shea body lotion, organic liquid hand soap and soy candles." In addition to placing the products in 60-plus specialty stores and upscale outlets, Danielle & Company products are now offered by three on-line boutiques as well.
"We looked for a sophisticated hang tag product with strong appeal, a product versatile enough to do something that lower quality string or elastic tags would not," says Trevor Attenborough, vice president of marketing for Nioxin. "We had three different needs: the typical bottleneck product; a tube with no neck, where the tag needed to be near the bottom instead of the top; and, just to make things really interesting, small boxes had to be tagged."
What Nioxin found is called ElastiTag, manufactured by Bedford Industries, Worthington, MN, USA. "Because the tag has what I would describe as an integral rubber band," Attenborough adds, "it can be stretched to fit over a small box, and we can use just one tag on three totally different shaped/sized products."
The ElastiTag product was tested in early 2007, then rolled out for a production run for a new Nioxin technology product Glyco-Color Shield, which keeps hair colors from fading. "We ended up with a great looking tag that we could use on 12 different products," Attenborough adds, "conveying a high end look that was consistent throughout the line. This let us communicate to our customers via a plasticized tag printed in four-color." The promotional period ran from April through December 2007.
A second ElastiTag product, delivered early this year, is printed in 11 languages for shipment to three quarters of European Union countries. The product has the same appeal as the original tag made for Nioxin that is, it works on multiple sizes and packaging formats with just one label. "We can use shelf stock we have for the Canadian and US markets simply by opening the top of a carton and dropping a tag over the neck of each bottle or tube," Attenborough says. "You can imagine the savings. The classic solution would have been a multi-fold coupon label, but that would have required opening the cartons, taking out every product to affix the label, then reboxing it or carrying multiple inventories."
The ElastiTag is available in nearly 50 different die sizes, says Belinda Heidebrink, marketing specialist for Bedford Industries. "We have produced ElastiTag products as small as one inch all the way up to large formats, like those we are making for Nioxin. The present tag is 9" x 2.25" prior to folding in half," she says. Other products in the line include ElastiWick, used for scent delivery; ElastiNote, which has a writeable surface; ElastiBand, a stretchable band which can hold a stack of magazines or books together or serve as a label on large individual fruits or vegetables; and ElastiGlow, a hang tag that glows in the dark using photoluminescence.
"We have even made heart shaped products as well as an ElastiTote," Heidebrink says, "which lets the user slide a sample inside what works like a miniature tote bag after folding in half." One version of the ElastiTag features a loop inside a loop, so that the main tag and loop go over a product, and the other loop contains a small container or sample of a different product. The products can be fed off of a spool, and Bedford is now working with a machine manufacturer on automatic application systems.
Bedford ElastiTag products utilize various synthetic substrates such as polyester, polystyrene and polypropylene to achieve different versions of the tags. Printing equipment includes a Mark Andy 4200 nine-station flexo press and an HP Indigo digital press.
Delivery methods vary. "If a client wants bulk pack or tumble pack, we can just let the tags fall into boxes as they come off the press," says Heidebrink. "Or they can be ganged five per sheet with perforations between each tag, which would be delivered to the customer looking similar to a sheet of twist ties."
A scan of the elastitag.com shows dozens of possible applications, from vegetable produce to medical, from health and beauty to beverages, from a variety of sports items to statuary. A taxidermist supply house sells writeable tags to identify customers' fish mounts, and the products can be used in floral and nursery applications. The broad range of applications speaks to the market need for a high quality product that can be digitally or conventionally printed and used to label heretofore difficult if not impossible substrates and shapes.
In less than a year, Danielle & Company, Clarks Summit, PA, USA, has more than doubled the number of retail outlets carrying its line of natural and organic fine soaps. Not so incidentally, the company also had a 100 percent increase in the number of its products with the August 2007 introduction of a parallel line of organic body washes in the same 21 scents that the bar soaps come in. Taking a page from the bar soaps, which are produced in a large bath size bar as well as a small two ounce bar, the new body washes some in full size eight ounce bottles as well as a mini travel size. (L&NW first wrote about Danielle & Company in May/June 2006.)
Founder and CEO Danielle Fleming said the evolution from bar soaps to body washes came about from consumer demand: Since the consumer will use one or the other, it just made sense to offer both. One of the new body wash products took first place at the New York International Gift Show, Extracts Division, with judging done by editors of 12 magazines in the field. Joining the Lemongrass-Peppermint organic body wash as another first place winner was Danielle's natural Shea Butter Sweet Kisses bar soap.
"Winning not one but two first place awards in a competition against 135 companies, many of them multi-million dollar industries, was extremely gratifying and a testament to our products," Fleming says.
Just last month, the company scored yet another triumph, walking away with the Best in Show award for its All-in-One Organic Soap Garden at the New York International Gift Fair, Extracts Division. The product includes soaps and body washes housed in a planter pot that is biodegradable and made from rice and grain by-products. Wrappings are of Nepalese lotka paper, made from the daphne bush and embedded with wildflower seeds so that it can be planted.
Small wonder that Fleming was named 2007 Young Entrepreneur of the Year by Bank of America and has won a number of other awards. All of this while running a fast growing company and pursuing her doctoral degree in human deveopment at night at Marywood University in Scranton, PA.
"We designed the label for the new body wash line in-house to give it a family look with the soap labels," Fleming says. Production for the 21 large and 21 small labels was awarded to WhipSmart Development of Patchogue, NY, USA, which specializes in health and beauty, cosmetic and personal care labels.
Not one to rest on her laurels, Fleming said "We're hard at work right now on new products to introduce later this year: an organic shea body lotion, organic liquid hand soap and soy candles." In addition to placing the products in 60-plus specialty stores and upscale outlets, Danielle & Company products are now offered by three on-line boutiques as well.