How Printers Learned to Love It

When Yupo Corporation of Japan set up shop in the U.S. seven years ago, the company had zero brand recognition. Today, Yupo America posts double-digit annual sales growth. Its 160,000-sq.ft. plant in Chesapeake, VA produces 10,000 tons of synthetic paper annually for the U.S., Canada, South America and Europe.

"The greatest benefit of synthetic paper is its durability under almost any condition," notes Michael Ducey, Graphic Arts Monthly paper editor. Its construction of minerals, resin, adhesive and a high-tech coating provide tremendous resistance to tearing, fading, abrasion, moisture and oil penetration, he says.

Yupo executives credit the firm's U.S. success to best-management practices focused on people, marketing, establishing credibility and investing in customer support. Before building a U.S. plant, the company had imported product produced in Japan and sold—at the time—by Kimberly-Clark under the Kimdura brand.

The company opted to enter new markets with an effort based on customer feedback. "When we started the U.S. operation, we put a plan in place to sell a branded product called Yupo to the commercial print market—a market Kimdura had not penetrated," recalls Paul Mitcham, national marketing manager of Yupo Corporation America.

"Customers wanted to know when they bought synthetic paper that they were going to have access to inventory, delivered quickly, able to print it without a lot of problems, and high product confidence. And, we gave it all to them," recalls Jeff Morgan, Yupo's Sr. VP of sales and marketing.

Morgan says end-users learned that while the paper costs more, it delivered value. The company held focus groups and strategic meetings with paper distributors, printers, converters and designers. It also launched a comprehensive education effort to teach best practices for successfully running Yupo paper through the press.

"We invested in a large marketing effort to educate printers, graphic designers, converters and paper merchants on the product and its many attributes," says Morgan. The company's initial marketing message focused on Yupo as a fun product to work with, with the initial tag line: Yupo is Child's Play.

"Up until then, the market perception of synthetic papers was it is tough and durable, but that there are problems printing on it and it is expensive," reports Morgan.

He says the company wanted to tell the market that synthetic paper can be used to create fun projects. The current marketing message—Do It On Yupo—emphasizes versatility.

The company also has built an aggressive technical-service program. Every order, no matter how small, triggers a phone call from a technical service manager—within 24 hours—inquiring whether the product purchaser has any questions or special needs.

"We've created very high expectations with our customers that they will get personalized and responsive technical service," explains Mitcham. The company fulfilled this expectation by making a significant investment in a database system to power its technical service.