Cary Sherburne: Hi, I’m Cary Sherburne, Senior Editor at WhatTheyThink.com, and I’m here with Tim Flaman, who’s from West Canadian Digital and Orange Door Direct, up in Calgary. Welcome.
Tim Flaman: Thank you.
Cary Sherburne: To our nation’s capital.
Tim Flaman: It’s exciting to be here in Washington.
Cary Sherburne: Yeah, with the cherry blossoms they’re great.
Tim Flaman: Oh, the timing is perfect.
Cary Sherburne: You know, I’m kind of, I’ve known about West Canadian for quite a while, you guys have been around 60 years. Started out as…
Tim Flaman: Yeah, it’s 60 years this year. It’s pretty exciting. And we are really – it goes back to Repo Graphics.
Cary Sherburne: Mm-hmm, like an engineering business.
Tim Flaman: Engineering, architectural, feeding blueprints into an ammonia machine.
Cary Sherburne: Oh my gosh, I remember that. Yeah.
Tim Flaman: You know, getting fumes, you know, microfilming as well. And a wholesale photofinishing business where we would print film for drug stores and that and send it back. So, all of that changed in the ‘90’s, right, when things – digital came out on the print side, digital cameras on the photofinishing world. And document scanning instead of microfilming. So, all of our businesses were very separate before and they started to get melded together with technology. And since then, you know, we’ve been – we always try to find technologies where we can double up on some of our services, so…
Cary Sherburne: So like a digital press that can do photo and do your document work at the same time.
Tim Flaman: Absolutely. We use it, you know, and we use digital presses for direct mail, direct marketing work, photo books and general corporate marketing collateral. So those presses see all of that work.
Cary Sherburne: And where did or how did Orange Direct come into the picture?
Tim Flaman: Well, in the ‘90’s, again, when we had the, I think we have the first digital color copier in Calgary. We were the first ones to get it in 1991 or something like that. And of course, we had this great copier and, you know, we had a PC connected to it and then we realized, well, really, everybody that needs this has a MAC.
Cary Sherburne: Yeah.
Tim Flaman: They go buy a MAC and all the software that went with it to open the files, there was no PDF or anything, you know, it was all native. So, we looked all the software and we’re going, man, we got to start using this for something else other than opening files.
Cary Sherburne: Right, right.
Tim Flaman: And so we hired a designer out of the local Acad or local design college and, you know, they’re like going; I’m not designing that crap I want to design nice stuff. So...
Cary Sherburne: Yeah, right, right.
Tim Flaman: So, you know, we started doing some really nice design, right. You know, that you might not expect to come from a printer.
Cary Sherburne: Especially coming out of the Repro Graphics business.
Tim Flaman: Right. And so, you know, we just thought, well, people aren’t going to buy this from the printers, so we need another brand. And it really started out as West Canadian Design, and I think in about 2000, we changed it to Orange Door Communications just to sort of have a better brand and then we just got even more focused and went to Orange Door Direct, so to really leverage our other technologies that we were using on the print side. Now, we still do a lot of corporate brand and design, and direct is one component. But…
Cary Sherburne: And are they in the same building together?
Tim Flaman: Yeah. So we carved out a really cool funky design space for them. You know, we got the Sales Department over here, kind of in regular cubicles. You go around the corner and it’s like you’re in an agency. So…
Cary Sherburne: That’s great.
Tim Flaman: … we got the field, you know, we bring clients in, it’s really that same feeling. And then we just kind of kept them separate and, you know, it’s really about doing great communication that works for the client. And hopefully all of that feeds the press. It doesn’t always, but we’re okay with that.
Cary Sherburne: Yeah, you know, a lot of time what, you know, especially when it’s been a difficult couple of three years and there’s a lot of change, you know, from a lot of directions and printers have it or, you know, are being told, oh, you should be a marketing services provider. And it’s difficult, you know. Do I rebrand my whole company? Do I start a new business that’s separate in a different building? Do I put it altogether? What would be your advice, you know, based on your experience?
Tim Flaman: Yeah, well, you know, we had the software first, and then we had to get somebody that knew how to use it. That’s where we came from. But to kind of scale it up and do it more on a more serious level, you know, you have to invest in the talent, for sure. And have the right kind of client base. Right? It really helps if you’re not trying to do something brand new with brand new clients.
Cary Sherburne: Right, right.
Tim Flaman: And so existing clients, new service, and get in it that way. And having them adopt some of the print technologies that we use where, you know, a designer agency might not be, say near a variable data tool, like XMPie or something, which, you know, we were an early adopter of and now our designers love the effects that we can produce from that. Right? Because it just blows the print off the page. Right? And really, it’s the database and all the stuff behind it that does that. And then the designer, it’s really up to them to say, well, how do we make it not look like data, right?
Cary Sherburne: Right. Right, exactly.
Tim Flaman: And really have a great marketing message on there and with imagery that just, you know, really gets people’s attention.
Cary Sherburne: You know, and it’s interesting, I’ve talked to, obviously, a lot of printers over the years. And one story I’ve heard a number of times from people is, you know, I started this up – I started up my own design group or agency group, but my clients are agencies and they think I’m competing with them and I lost them as clients. Do you run into that?
Tim Flaman: Well, we – I was very conscious of that. In the beginning, we were worried about that. But really, back then, we didn’t, you know, an agency’s print spend on digital was pretty insignificant. And we didn’t really – we weren’t in the offset business. So, you know, you could argue, we didn’t have a lot of those clients. And I think we did, it just didn’t do a lot of business with us because most of it was going to press. So I think at the time, I was really trying to work with them and I just finally said, you know, we just got to do this ourselves. Right? We’ve got the technology, you know, we got to convince them to use our technology to create, say, one-to-one marketing pieces. And it was very difficult because they just, you know, they wanted to do it their way, not to say, you know, they were blown away, but when they went back, they still controlled the client and really decided, maybe it was media buying that made more sense for them.
Cary Sherburne: Yeah.
Tim Flaman: And again, not to say we wouldn’t do the right thing for the client, but, you know, that was our business model, not theirs. So, I didn’t feel like we were competing against them. And now, we’ve done a lot of project where the design comes from them and we do the technology part. And we’re okay with that. We’re not offended by that, so…
Cary Sherburne: That’s great. So, you have the design and the design agency can use that sometimes, sometimes use outside resources and whatever it takes.
Tim Flaman: Yeah. So, it’s really, again, client-driven. Sometimes the end client tells their agency to work with us, which is beautiful.
Cary Sherburne: Yeah.
Tim Flaman: We’re not maybe doing all the design, but we’re doing all the other stuff.
Cary Sherburne: That’s great.
Tim Flaman: The sweet spot is when you can do it all. Absolutely.
Cary Sherburne: It’s a great story from Western Canada.
Tim Flaman: Yeah, thanks very much.
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