Boosting Brand Awareness in the Digital Age

In 2014, we invested significant resources in customer communications in order to increase brand awareness and drive sustainable performance for our business.

Uncover All the Ways Sappi Has You Covered
In 2014, Sappi made upgrades to our manufacturing process, providing more cover stock availability and ending our volume restrictions. As a result, numerous cover weight varieties are now available across our lines. This promotion provides information on each brand and a cover weight specification guide helps customers pinpoint the grade and items that meet their technical needs . Now, more than ever, Sappi has the perfect cover weight paper for any project.

The Power of Play and Giving Back
Ethan King founded Charity Ball in 2010 at the age of 10, shortly after he visited Mozambique with his father. Ethan played soccer with the village kids and decided to give his soccer ball away, quickly discovering the power of generosity. After returning to the United States, he decided that he wanted to do more; since 2010, Charity Ball has raised funds to make soccer balls accessible for thousands of kids in poverty-stricken communities around the world.

Sappi helped Charity Ball produce a promotional publication to share the story of “Pass the Ball.” The piece is printed on Somerset 90lb and includes information about the Somerset brand. This is just one more example of how Sappi supports projects that make a difference with paper that makes a difference. To learn more about Ethan’s work, watch the documentary short sponsored by Sappi at charityball.org.

Discover Sappi Digital Papers
In today’s printing market, most customers use both offset and digital. Sappi’s new swatchbooks feature a complete digital solution. From premium experiences to practical quality, our expansive digital line-up is engineered for superior performance on the most popular digital presses. McCoy offers guaranteed photobook quality and exceeds the most demanding standards in premium digital printing. Opus DX is a cross-platform sheet that works on both dry and liquid toner digital presses—an advantage for printers that use multiple kinds of equipment. Flo Digital provides maximum output and minimum impact to the budget without sacrificing quality and performance.

Somerset Cover Comparison
One of the best ways to demonstrate the quality of Sappi products is through printed comparisons. To highlight the benefits of Somerset Cover, we created a printed comparison of Somerset Cover weights versus its major competition. The shrink-wrapped package contains seven double gate-folded samples printed on comparable basis weights with similar finishes, allowing potential customers to review the products side-by-side. The result? People recognize that Somerset consistently delivers better heft and smoother surfaces than the competition.

Printer of the Year
Throughout our history, Sappi has celebrated the power and versatility of printing. We continue this deep commitment with the Printer of the Year Program, which showcases the precision and skill of printing. Printers are judged on innovation, meticulous craftsmanship and thoughtful technique. The 2014 competition celebrated one printer for producing smart, beautiful work with enormous impact. In addition to the Printer of the Year award, we recognize ten Gold and five Silver winners across a number of categories. Sappi features these winners on our website: www.sappi.com/na/poy.

Building a House Sheet—Sappi Flo
Building a house from the ground up is a complicated process. It takes expert planning, careful selection of materials and skilled craftsmanship to get it right. Similarly, printers need to consider performance characteristics, user requirements and end goals when selecting a house sheet. Our Building a House Sheet promotion supports the sales teams’ efforts to help printers do just that and consider the benefits of selecting Flo.

The Collected Works
This postcard series, sent to Sappi customers at the corporate, design and printer levels, promotes the Sappi etc. site. This free website provides access to more than a century of rare historical documents, detailed case studies and expert technical advice. Visitors can search by keyword for instant results or browse by topic for unexpected inspiration. This is another way Sappi provides information and inspiration to our customers in a smart, fast and effective way.

Broadening Our Visibility in China
Release paper customers can see all 200+ Sappi textures and experiment with color in the palm of their hand. Sappi’s powerful texture app uses high-resolution, artful images to inspire users. In 2014 the release business improved access to the breadth of our patterns for our Chinese customers. We did so by insuring our latest version of the texture app was made available for the first time in Mandarin Chinese and was accessible for Android devices (not just iPhones). This was an important step, as 85 percent of our Chinese customers do not read English, and many use Android devices. This broadens our reach in China, one of our most important markets.

An Idea That Really Matters
Each year, Sappi awards Ideas that Matter grants to designers who work with charitable programs so they can use design to help make a difference in the world. And over the years, Naomi Usher of Studio Usher uses the Ideas that Matter grant as a way to reach out to non-profit organizations that are addressing social concerns through innovative and interesting activities.

When she heard about EducationSuperHighway, a non-profit that is working to modernize the Internet infrastructure in US public schools, she thought it would be a perfect client and a great match for her skills. In 2013, Studio Usher was awarded an Ideas that Matter grant to help EducationSuperHighway garner support from the White House, Congress and FCC commissioners. An animated piece and microsite followed to reinforce and extend the message. But Usher believes it was the broadsheet, printed on 70lb/104gsm Sappi stock, that set the tone for the campaign. “It printed really beautifully…and there’s something about having a print piece that makes you commit to your message. With digital, you can tweak whenever, but once something’s in print, it’s out there for all to see. Because of the print deadline, there was a big push to perfect the story and visuals. Fine-tuning these elements was an invaluable aspect of the grant.”

When President Obama tweeted his support for the initiative, Usher realized the message was being heard. To date, the FCC has announced a $5 billion initial upgrade in funding, and the Obama administration promised to connect 20 million kids to Gigabit broadband within two years. EducationSuperHighway also secured $9 million from Mark Zuckerberg's education foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. And Usher appreciates the critical role that Sappi played, enabling “us to transform a white paper, something that is typically dry, and visually predictable, into an effective call to action.”

Read the full Sappi North America Sustainability Report 2014 by downloading an online PDF version directly from our website here or for more on sustainability, check out our eQ microsite at: http://www.na.sappi.com/eQ/index.html.