Textile and uniform manufacturer.
It’s the battle of Penn State Textile versus the giant companies in the uniform rental and medical supply industries.
Penn State Textile (PST) offers some unique advantages compared to their competition, such as their items always being in stock every day and their competitive pricing. We developed a branding campaign that would showcase their superior customer service, using the branding slogan, “Where service is sewn in to every product.” In addition, we wrote the “Penn State Promise” about every item being in stock every day with prices that are most competitive. We highlight the promise in a yellow box in every ad. The creative advertising generated the highest recall scores in various trade magazines. In addition, the campaign helped distinguish PST, build its brand, heightened the credibility of its salespeople, and led to increased sales.
For years, PST only sold white goods - everything from chefs coats to tablecloths to napkins. Then, they decided to add products made with the colorful VISA cloth to their line. To introduce it and to stand out, we created the white man or butler figure as a symbol of our customer service and in sharp contrast, he served the colorful products. This creative visual, used in trade ads, mailings, trade show displays, and more helped introduce the VISA cloth line quickly and more successfully than they ever thought possible. This dramatic symbol also helped customers remember PST and remember to order from them.
PST developed a new line of products for the nursing home market. The only problem was that it was controlled by a few big distributors who sold products only from PST’s big competitors. PST could not get a meaningful distributor to bring its products to market. We worked with them to develop a strategy that would do an end run around the distributors - we would sell directly to the nursing homes at a lower price. We created a direct-response strategy of ads and direct mail to nursing homes and PST developed a telemarketing staff that aggressively took orders that were shipped quickly and less expensively. After 2-3 years, PST was so successful that those same distributors that refused to carry PST products were now begging to sell their line.