Types Of Paper In Catalog Printing

There are many things that are important to catalog design. Your images must be sharp and appealing. Your text and even the font you use for the text is important. The cover page design and the design of your catalog’s product pages all play important roles in designing a catalog that will bring in new customers and sales.

However none of the things mentioned above are more important than the type of paper you will choose to print your catalog on. The “feel” of your catalog is important to your potential customers. The longer they have your catalog in their hands, the more products they will buy. In this article I will go over some of the many paper choices you have to print your catalog on.

First you need to decide if the cover will be the same paper as the rest of your catalog. In most cases the cover will be of heavier weight then the interior pages.

Second you will need to choose coated or uncoated paper for printing your catalog. Coated paper is for the glossier layouts and uncoated is more economical, but can still display your products well.

So you have two things to consider first, “Will it be glossy paper or not?”, “Will my cover be the same weight as the interior pages of my catalog?”

Once you have answered those two questions the next decision is what the weight of the paper will be. Most catalogs go with 60, 70, or 80 lb. weights. So it would be 60lb uncoated or coated, 70 lb. Coated or uncoated. 80 lb. Paper usually is only chosen for 80 lb. Weight and above. Also, not all paper is measured by weight. Some is measured by thickness or “points”.

Now the above is really over-simplified. There are other types of special paper you can choose from. There is textured paper, photographic paper, and other more expensive paper to choose from if you are selling a high-end or expensive product.

There are also other considerations when choosing the paper your catalog will be printed on. Such as the method of printing you are going to choose.

If you are going to have your catalog printed on a hot-set web press, then you can choose uncoated or coated paper. The heat will dry the ink as it prints your catalog. If your printer uses a cold-set web press then the ink air-dries and is absorbed into the paper. A cold-set web press cannot print on coated paper.

If your printer uses a sheet-fed press then you can choose from any of the high quality papers they have available. The same goes for printers that do digital printing.

It will depend a lot on the printer you choose. You need to find out what type of paper is available and you will want to see samples of the paper to get a better idea of which one you want to print your catalog on. Also ask your printer to suggest the different types of paper they think will be the best for your catalog.

Here is a list of some of the types of paper your printer may have available for you to choose from or may be able to order for you.

Dull Coated Paper
Matte Coated Paper
Glossy Coated Paper
Antique Paper
Vellum Paper
Wove Paper
Smooth Paper
Felt Paper
Linen Paper
Fiber-added Paper
Laid Paper
Parchment

Four things determine the quality of the paper, opacity, brightness, finish, and ppi. (Pounds per inch) Brightness affects the contrast and brilliance of the paper. It affects how your text will stand out on the pages of your catalog. Opacity is how much your ink is visible from the back of the page. If a paper is too opaque, your text and images from one page will be seen through onto another page that your customer is trying to read. The finish affects the feel of the pages and also how your images will look. The lower grade finishes produce grainier images while high quality finishes sharpen the look of your images.

Ask your printer to provide you with samples or swatch booklets and a price list for printing your catalog on the various types of paper before you decide. You know what your budget is and paper is only one of the expenses you have to consider.

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Advertiser Editorial: Be responsible citizen; vote today

By now, you're probably sick of politics, or at the very least you're sick of the attack ads on television and the taped telephone messages designed to make some candidates look bad.
But we urge you to try to put your disgust with the dirty politics aside and go to the polls today to vote.

We also urge you to try to look past the attack ads -- most of which have little to do with reality -- by studying the actual records and positions on issues of the various candidates. One place to do that is on the Montgomery Advertiser election website at www.montgomeryadvertiser.com; click on the elections logo.

A list of our editorial recommendations are reprinted below, and the full endorsements can be found at our website. We hope you will not blindly follow our endorsements -- or anyone else's, for that matter -- but just use the endorsements as one of many factor in reaching informed decisions.

The Alabama League of Women Voters has another good website, especially for statewide judicial elections and other election information. It can be found at www.lwval.org.

If you're not already a registered voter, it is too late to vote in today's primary election. But you still can register to vote in possible runoff elections or in the general election in November.

So if you are a registered voter, find the time today to vote. If you're not registered, please register soon.
Our Endorsements
* If you choose to vote in the Democratic primary:
Governor: Artur Davis
Attorney general: Michel Nicrosi
State treasurer: Charley Grimsley
Montgomery County Board of Education, District 7: Jane Ferguson
Montgomery County District Attorney: Ellen Brooks
* If you choose to vote in the Republican primary:
Governor: Bradley Byrne
Lieutenant governor: Kay Ivey
Attorney general: Luther Strange
Agriculture commissioner: John McMillan
State treasurer: Young Boozer
Public Service Commission, Place 1: Twinkle Cavanaugh
Supreme Court, Place 2: Mike Bolin
Supreme Court, Place 3: James Houts
U.S. House of Representatives, 2nd District: Martha Roby
Montgomery County Board of Education, District 7: Lori White
Autauga County sheriff: Herbie Johnson


Source : http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/20100601/OPINION01/6010301/Advertiser-Editorial-Be-responsible-citizen-vote-today

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Montgomery Advertiser, Ala., Brad Zimanek column: NEWS AND VIEWS: Major leagues need to give SEC tournament clock closer look

Source : http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/yb/145686892
By Brad Zimanek, Montgomery Advertiser, Ala.

Jun. 2--Expect Lakers to get nod in latest NBA Finals battle with Boston . . .

News:The SEC Baseball tournament used an experimental clock between innings and half-innings to speed up play.

Unless there were base runners, the pitchers were limited to 20 seconds between receiving the ball and winding up. An infraction would add a ball to the batter's count. The batter was assessed a strike if he was not ready in the box with five seconds left.

After a third out of each half inning, the teams were given 1:48 to take their positions and be set for the first pitch of the next inning. A defensive violation meant an extra ball with the batter's count. An offensive violation resulted in a strike. ReadMore

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Women in Advertisements

Featuring a female model in advertisements initially started with advertisements on products like alcohol and adult entertainment. The trend then spread like a wildfire in the market and is still being widely used although being exaggerated. It has become a compulsion now to have a beautiful model in all kinds of advertisement, which sometimes seems unnecessary. They seem to sell anything from shaving gel to cars.

Many women right activists say that the women are being projected as merely an object by such advertisements. But the harsh truth is that advertisements featuring women is influencing viewers of all ages and advertisers have realized this. The advertisement starts with an attractive woman posing in seductive ways followed by the product or the service offered by the company. The beauty of the model already lures the customer, so advertisers do not have to put in more effort to motivate them.

But there are certain drawbacks in using women models in some advertisements and if a consumer is smart enough, it won’t take time for him to realize that. It is totally irrelevant to feature a female model or an actress in advertisement promoting men products. Some good examples of this point are showing a woman in axe deodorant commercial and comparison of a partially nude woman’s body to the body of a car. Second drawback is due to more concentration on the model, the attention deserved by the product is not sufficient. The main focus of the advertisement is lost.

Surprisingly only few male models advertises for male oriented products. Even a picture of a woman on an Internet commercial seems not logical to some extent, as there are thirty percent of female internet users and seventy percent of male internet users, worldwide. To add to it, advertisers cannot explain why beautiful bodies bring success to advertisement.

Advertisements are convincing and motivating tool, which can leave a deep impact on the minds of the viewers and plays a major role in molding the culture and attitude of the people. Expansive and extensive portraying of women in this manner merely reduces their image to an object of passion. Emphasis is laid only on the physical beauty of the woman like features, body curves. After the commercial has been shot, using graphical technology, any kind of imperfection of the body is altered which in a way sends out the signal that only perfect people are meant to use the product.

The companies have a moral responsibility also in the society. These commercials have a negative impact on the society and leads to problems faced for the common woman. The major ill effect is the pressure on woman to get those near-perfect bodies. They get so pressurized that they take the unhealthy way to reach the set goals. They develop eating disorders; their health gets affected which may sometimes result in irreparable damages. And those who never make it to that point face humiliation and get taunted by everyone around them. This results in depression and other long-term psychological diseases.

According to researches and surveys conducted, most of the women vow that commercials lower their self-confidence and they visualize themselves as unattractive due to the image being portrayed of the perfect woman in ads. In America, seventy-five percent of healthy females think that they are over-weight. Half of the women populations are on some kind of diet program and nearly ten million women suffer from serious eating disorders. The weight of a fashion model is twenty three percent less than an average weighed ordinary woman.

Advertisements haven’t spared women being beaten up. In a particular after shave lotion commercial, the background voice says that its essential to learn martial arts because once a man applies the company’s product, women around will be attracted and will pounce on him. Towards the end of the commercial, they show a male model kicking several women model that seem to have attracted to him. This is degradation of respect of women to the lowest level.

After all this exposure, women viewers identify themselves as the weaker sex. Some think that males decide their self-worth. Over exposure of women as sex objects, have triggered cases of physical assault and rapes. Majority of the women are taking the wrong way to get those stick figures, which are results in diseases, sometimes leading to death. And most of this is attributed to the advertisements that pour into the lives of innocent people everyday. Marketing ethics should be built to raise the status of woman in the society and give them the due respect but not degrade them.

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Creative strategies in advertising

In advertising, different creative strategies are used in order to obtain consumer attention and provoke shoppers to purchase or use a specific product. Advertisers use different ways of thinking to create catchy slogans that capture consumer attention. Creative strategies promote publicity, public relations, personal selling and sales promotion.

These ways of thinking are divided into three basic descriptions: Weak strategies, mid-strength strategies and strong strategies. The strategies labeled "strong, mid-strength, and weak are generic phrases used in the text books referenced below to help students understand the intensity of each different type of advertising strategy. Advertisements, weak, mid-strength, and strong can be found in television, radio, and magazines/print.

Since the beginning of advertising, strategies have been created, starting with the simplest (weak) strategies in the 1940s.


1 Weak strategies
2 Middle-strength strategies
3 Strong strategies
4 References

Weak strategies

Generic and Pre-emptive strategies describe the two weakest forms of advertising that were most popular through the 1940s.

* A generic strategy gives a product attribution. An example of this would be how the beef industry chose to advertise their product. With their slogan, “Beef, it's what's for dinner,” consumers aren't learning anything new about the product.
* The Beef slogan simply states beef as a dinner item. It enhances the product in no other way.

A pre-emptive strategy is a form of advertising that makes a generic claim stronger. An example of a pre-emptive strategy can be found in Folgers Coffee. As many of us know, most all coffee is grown in the mountains. Folgers took that fact and claimed it as their own with their slogan, “Folgers: Mountain Grown Coffee.”


Middle-strength strategies

Secondly, are the mid-strength strategies: unique positioning strategy, brand image and positioning.

A unique positioning strategy is proving that something about your product is truly unique. This is commonly found when producers take an average product and add a new, unique element to it. An example of Unique Positioning Strategy would be in Crest toothpaste. Crest added the unique feature of Scope in their product to differentiate it from other brands of toothpaste.

* A downfall in Unique positioning strategy advertising is that if a unique feature increases sales on one product, many other brands are likely to adopt the “unique” feature, making the end product not so unique.

Positioning is one of the most common forms of advertising. It was developed in the 1970s and is still widely used today. In positioning one brand will take its product and “position” it against a competing product.

* An example of positioning can be found in the rental car company Avis slogan. With The Hertz car company being the leader in rental car services, Avis took their number two position and used it to their advantage by creating the slogan, “When you're number two, you try harder.”

Brand Image is another very common way companies choose to advertise. In brand image, an advertiser is not trying to create rational thinking. This type of advertising strives to create emotion and give a brand a personality. A common way of doing this is by using a celebrity as a spokesperson.

* A great example of brand image is found in Proactive Acne Solutions. In each of their commercials they have celebrities sharing their Proactive experiences, giving the brand a face people want to be.

Strong strategies

The third and strongest form of creative strategy includes affective advertising and resonance advertising.

Making people feel really good about a product is called affective advertising. This is difficult to do, but often humor and an honest character can make affective advertising possible.

* A great example of affective advertising is found in the “Geico” commercials. By creating a friendly, honest, funny gecko as a spokesperson, consumers tend to trust what the gecko is saying and find humor in his actions. This creates a good feeling about the actual service “Geico” offers.

Lastly, resonance advertising is a way of identifying with consumers. If an advertiser can create a campaign that certain target markets identify with, then resonance advertising has been achieved.

* An example of resonance advertising is in “Tide” detergent ads. Many times mothers are busy doing laundry in between sports practices and driving their children around in mini vans. Their recognition with soccer moms makes “Tide” a favorite pick among women with children who are very involved in activities.


References

* Peter, Paul J. & Jerry C. Olson. 1990. Consumer Behavior and Marketing Strategy, 2 ed. Irwin Publishing, Boston.
* Schwartz, Shalom H. 1994. "Are there universal aspects in the structure and contents of human values?" Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 50, no. 4, 19-35.
source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_strategies_in_advertising

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