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Although I enjoy reading all three framing related magazines Art + framing today I find the most thought provoking in many ways.
In the June edition among all the adds and glossy pics of the great and the good is a excellent item "Get your brand to stick around" by Rheanne Pittaway. It discusses the use of your own custom branded tape for packaging as a way of raising your own brand awareness.
The idea of having details of your business printed on good quality gummed tape to finish the back of framed art work is something I have never considered. Other than the back of the frame appearing a tad busy I think it's a great idea.
I would be very interested in hearing what others think.
Justin, good point, on the other hand, if a visitor remarks on the hanging picture and asks who framed it? the owner can easily show the details on the back of the frame.
Keith, you ask, "Which are the other 2 " Four Walls and PFM. Although, I am considering stopping my subscription to PFM as the other two IMHO, are more relevant to UK framing
poliopete wrote
"Justin, good point, on the other hand, if a visitor remarks on the hanging picture and asks who framed it? the owner can easily show the details on the back of the frame."
surely that is what your framers label is for, sorry I think it will look very tacky and like you have sealed the back of the frame with packing tape , okay to use to pack the finished frame in bubble wrap or paper
Steve CEO GCF (020) Believed in Time Travel since 2035
Yes, I agree with you Steve, that a Framers label on the back is important.
I guess I think it would look cheap, with branded gummed tape all around the back, like something IKEA would do if they did custom framing ( )
I'm still reeling from taking apart a beautiful hand painted silk, that had been fixed to board using fully branded white packing tape...
When I did some research, it turned out that it had been framed in the business' first year, nearly twenty years ago. I'm happy to report that from looking at their website, I'm guessing they don't use this "technique" anymore. I think I'm scarred, you can't unsee that sort of thing!
poliopete wrote:
The idea of having details of your business printed on good quality gummed tape to finish the back of framed art work is something I have never considered. Other than the back of the frame appearing a tad busy I think it's a great idea.
"It discusses the use of your own custom branded tape for packaging as a way of raising your own brand awareness."
I read this as meaning the tape around the bubble wrap rather than the back of the frame...?
If I was going to spend money on raising brand awareness, I wouldn't spend it on branded tape either around the bubble wrap or on the back of the frame. The customer is already aware of your brand so it would make more sense to spend the marketing budget on potential customers who aren't yet aware of my brand. There are a myriad ways of spending a marketing budget and this would be one of the least effective in terms of value for money and return on investment, IMO.
In view of the score so far, one for and three against, I have changed my mind, ok it's not such a good idea
To be fair the article I was quoting from the June edition of Art framing today does mainly suggest branded tape is used around packaging sent through the post as Steve N picked up on. The branded tape for finishing the the back would be good quality Kraft tape if that makes a difference.
It seems completely pointless to me. Visually it's going to look totally "over the top" when a simple label has always been sufficient for everybody else. Also nobody has considered the fact that you have to get a massive number of rolls of tape printed to even satisfy the minimum number of rolls to make printing your own tape viable.
When you consider the fact the whether these tapes are self adhesive, or employing a water based adhesive, they will be subject to a limited shelf life and given the fact that you will need to order a large number of rolls of tape, any that have not been used before the shelf life is exceeded are potentially to be nothing more than rather expensive waste.
This sounds to me like one of those ideas from the USA, where everybody wants to jump on the band wagon, because they don't want to miss out on being part of the latest trend, but in reality it has been carefully promoted as a means of increasing sales figures for the companies who make these printed tapes. Sorry, but I'm not impressed and I won't be getting any printed tapes any time soon.
Mark Lacey
“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
Not your average framer wrote:... in reality it has been carefully promoted as a means of increasing sales figures for the companies who make these printed tapes.
Yes, that's exactly what it is - Rheanne Pittaway, who wrote the article, is the PR & Marketing team leader at Kite Packaging, Royal Leamington Spa.
Thanks, Steve, I feel better now after a rest and a cup of tea I hope you had a good holiday BTW
Mark and Rainbow, how very astute All the tape pictured over the two pages "article" is Kite Packaging tape. So there's me thinking it was a genuine discussion and not another advertisement.
I'm beginning to think I may be too trusting for this modern world.
It would be interesting to hear from someone on behalf of the FATG with an explanation.
Rainbow wrote:Rheanne Pittaway, who wrote the article, is the PR & Marketing team leader at Kite Packaging, Royal Leamington Spa.
How very surprising. NOT! There was nothing very surprising about that, when a magazine which is printed specifically for the framing and fine art trade runs an article like that, not only their own staff on the magazine would realise what's going, but quite a lot of framers are going to be asking themselves,"who's idea was that". Reading the article (which I can't) clearly reveals where it came from as well.
I won't be the only one who spotted what's going on, there will probably be hundreds of other people too!
Mark Lacey
“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
From a marketing point of view, I find it interesting to really look at the copy sometimes, to see how the professionals get their message across.
Advertorial type pieces can be more engaging that straight box advert.
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I spent most of my career in Marketing. Some might say it's an unholy alliance between publishers and PR agents - the publisher needs to fill the magazine and a PR agent is only too happy to oblige with page-filling articles. Unless it is marked as "Advertorial", the company would normally not have paid for the article. There are two ways that articles like this get published:
- The PR agent (or the in-house PR officer) contacts a magazine and convinces the editor (or similar) that the article will be of benefit to the magazine's readers. This is the rifle-shot approach, and it can indeed be of benefit to the magazine's readers.
- Alternatively the PR agent writes a generic article and submits it to a number of magazines. The article is written in a generic way, without mentioning any particular industry. This is the scatter-gun approach. Some magazines may print the article and an undiscerning business thinks they've done well because they've got exposure in X number of magazines, irrespective of whether the magazines are relevant or not.
Judging by the first page that Justin has posted, it appears to be the latter approach and I'm surprised the FATG printed it.
I'm not surprised, there's always the possibily that some menbers might like the idea. Bigger businesses, who are also members of the FATG would possibly consider this a good idea. It must be quite hard to come up with enough content for each edition of the magazine anyway and it has some degree of relevance, so it seems reasonable to me.
Mark Lacey
“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
poliopete - we are glad you are enjoying the current issue of A+FT magazine. We feel it is another cracking issue full of interesting articles and useful snippets of information for all our members as well as our wider readership.
We are a bit surprised to see that a Business Section article on custom printed tape has caused such a discussion, but we are happy to explain why we ran the article in the current issue.
As most of you will expect, A+FT runs on a commercial basis and that means we use advertising as a way to help cover the costs of producing the magazine. Kite Packaging are just one of our advertisers, and have been for a while, and many of our members choose to use them for their packaging services.
Art + Framing Today magazine is written to be of interest to all our Guild Family of members. Our membership is made up not only of bespoke framers who tend to hand framing over to customers in person - but many other categories of membership across the art and framing industry too. Membership categories include artists, galleries, printers, industry suppliers, publishers, on-line framers and commercial framers; and of course many of them use packaging when they send goods via courier or post.
Custom printed tape is not a particularly new idea in the packaging industry to increase brand awareness, but it is of general interest. What sparked this article is that Kite have launched a new “custom printed tape tool” that allows people quickly and easily to access this kind of service in a way that many won’t be familiar with.
And to avoid any confusion - the tape that is described is NOT framing tape at all, but is just packaging tape for sealing boxes and parcels.
The article makes clear that using custom printed tape is about increasing brand awareness, particularly for those who use e-commerce packaging. In the photographs only 1 of the 9 tapes featured says Kite Packaging. Kite is mentioned by name only once in the body of the article, and their website is included at the end. The majority of the article talks about brand awareness by using this type of tape and only the last short section describes Kite’s new service.
Our opinion was, and remains, that it is a business article about packaging and brand awareness that is of general interest to our members. It also alerted our readers to a new way of purchasing this particular item so it is industry relevant.
We hope that clears up any confusion there may have been.
Posted by:
Jo Palmer GCF(APF) Adv
Chairman & Master of the Guild
Fine Art Trade Guild
The Fine Art Trade Guild is owned and run by its members, and for the benefit of its members. These members share a common goal, which is to promote and encourage the best in art and framing. https://www.fineart.co.uk
fine-art-trade-guild wrote:
As most of you will expect, A+FT runs on a commercial basis and that means we use advertising as a way to help cover the costs of producing the magazine. Kite Packaging are just one of our advertisers, and have been for a while
This is portrayed as a feature article though, rather than an advertisement. Is it a paid-for advertisement then?
Kite had paid for advertising in this issue that had been arranged some time previously. They have advertised with us in earlier issues and are contracted to do so again in future issues.
This article was separate to that and was not paid for advertising. If it had been then it would have been labelled as an Advertorial. Many of our articles, throughout the magazine, feature items or services that we and they feel would be useful to our members. This article is not unique in promoting a service that we felt would be useful and of interest - as well as being industry relevant.
Jo Palmer GCF(APF) Adv
Textile, Mount Design & Function & Conservation
Forum Moderator & Framing Educator www.pictureframingtraining.com
Guild Certified Examiner & Guild Accredited Trainer
Guild Chair & Master May 2019 to May 2022