fidespromotion: The cardboard and paper experts

From a small printing shop for office supplies to experts for paper and cardboard in the promotional products industry – that is the history behind fidespromotion. On visiting the company’s headquarters, the company owner, Peter Grammer, explained to eppi magazine why his business is particularly interesting for international distributors and why a parking disc makes an ideal promotional product.

It seems tranquil and peaceful in the border triangle between Germany, France and Switzerland. Neuried lies embedded between the Vosges and the Black Forest. One hardly expects to find factories here in-between the Tudor-style houses. A small handicraft manufacturing company perhaps. When Peter Krammel founded the company Fides Druck & Medien, known as fidespromotion today, around 40 years ago, he primarily sold office items and business cards. The passionate crafting enthusiast was able to make the latter in his own garage and sell them. However, Krammel found out that printing machines reach their limits when the material that has to be imprinted contains parts made of metal. But that was no problem for the DIY enthusiast – he was able to fit the cut-outs and the metal parts together by hand and that is how the parking disc found its way to the placid town of Neuried.

A lot has changed since the first parking disc left the company: Whereas employees put the discs together manually in the past, today the only two full-automatic parking disc machines in the world are located at fidespromotion. “The automation halved the delivery time and has reduced the defect rate down to almost zero,” explained Peter Grammer, who took over the company in 2017. Grammer is totally convinced by the core product. “The parking disc may seem old and boring, but the number of parking disc zones in Europe increases every day,” the expert reported. His Google Alert regularly shows where new parking areas have been introduced in Europe, on which cars can only be parked if a parking disc is displayed. From city centres, to supermarket car parks, through to special parking spots for electric cars that have special parking discs, news about parking disc zones is reported almost daily.

“The parking disc is more topical than ever today. There is an increasing number of cars and less and less parking spots. The free spaces left over are managed and parking discs are implemented,” stated Grammer.

The parking disc culture is also becoming more and more popular abroad. Particularly Austria, France and the Netherlands are rapidly growing markets, but fidespromotion also produces parking discs for Sweden and Italy. A parking disc isn’t merely a parking disc, though: It is specified in the traffic regulations of the respective country what the parking disc has to look like. That turns the parking disc into the probably only promotional product where the form, size and colour is prescribed. And yet there is room for individual advertising messages on every disc. However, many printing shops that receive orders for parking discs, aren’t aware of these regulations. The result is that the end customers still have to reckon with a fine even if they have displayed the parking disc. This doesn’t happen at fidespromotion. The legal specifications of all European countries are at hand so the distributors can be sure that they get the right disc for each country. “Especially in the case of a favourably-priced product, the distributors expect everything to be correct,” emphasised Grammer. “From the delivery date, to the appropriate quality, through to the order quantity, because the order has to remain lucrative,” he continued. In just under 40 years of company history, according to Grammer’s estimations, around 50 million parking discs have been produced at fidespromotion, which makes the company the biggest cardboard parking disc company in the world.

Of course, a true parking disc expert doesn’t shy away from innovations: In addition to the classic parking discs, fidespromotion also offers special models that can be folded open and work like flyers. Whilst the minimum order volume of standard parking discs is 500 pieces, special discs are already available for volumes of 250 pieces upwards. The special models are not only sturdier, the advertising surface is also much bigger than that of a standard parking disc. Both models can also be implemented as a so-called mailing booster. “Whereas conventional mailings all too quickly end up in the trash, the parking disc serves a practical purpose. The mailing is thus postage-optimised and sustainable,” is how Grammer explained the procedure.

Local and sustainable

Sustainability is one of the major themes for fidespromotion. All products the company manufactures are made of recycled cardboard. Whereas elsewhere a lot of raw materials have to be imported first or have at least put long transport routes behind them before reaching their destination, the waste paper that the boxes and discs of fidespromotion are later made out of stem from nearby Baden-Baden or from the waste paper factory in the vicinity. The transport of the cardboard to the company’s premises only takes just under half an hour. The company building itself is also a role model for sustainability. Ten years ago the founder decided to erect a wooden building as the company headquarters. The building comprises of nine layers of wood that are connected using wooden dowels. Instead of a conventional heating, the building has a heat pump and a photovoltaic system. The heat pump is actuated by a time switch, even when the temperatures drop down to zero it is nice and warm in the office. “We not only produce sustainable products, our building also reflects this claim,” today’s Managing Director of the company stated.

New ways

Whilst the automation of the parking disc production ensured faster delivery times and a lower rate of defects, it would have meant the majority of the approx. 30 employees lost their jobs all of a sudden. “We work with a high number of home workers, who all come from the region,” reported Grammer. “For us it was clear that we had to make sure the people kept their jobs, because some of them had been working for us for over 30 years.“ Because the printing machines and raw materials were already there it was also clear straight away that the new products, which were to be manufactured to secure jobs, would also have to fit in with them. For example, folding boxes as packaging for promotional products were introduced to the line-up of fidespromotion.

The product range is enhanced by a new item almost every week, which Grammer informs everyone about via his LinkedIn page. Here, interested parties, whether promotional products distributors or industry customers, can find information about new ideas, successful cooperations or exciting implementations – a weekly best-of fidespromotion. Each box is developed individually together with the customer. Orders are already possible for minimum order quantities of 100 pieces. The customers are contacted via the promotional products distributors – fidespromotion itself doesn’t have an own sales department or web shop. “We are very comfortable in our role as being a pure manufacturer. Promotional products distributors are our born partners,” laughed Grammer.

The production of a sample only takes a few days. The sample is then passed on from the distributor to the industry customer, who can then make changes. Once the customer has given the final OK, the boxes go into production. “The joint development is an immense advantage for the customers. They know exactly what they are getting at the end and have a unique product that is tailor-made to meet their needs,” is how the professional for promotional products made of cardboard and paper explained the advantages of his company.

Unlike the parking discs there is no limit regarding the form of the boxes. Particularly the small handbags are extremely popular: They are ideal for cosmetics, but also small filled chocolates or other promotional products can be easily transported and are well-packed inside the small bags.

Boxes with magnetic closures have also been produced. “We try to realise all of our customers’ wishes and our colleagues from the product development department love these challenges,” said Grammer. Whereas the cases and boxes are imprinted in an automated process, the boxes are folded by hand. “Here we rely on our home workers completely,” is how Grammer explained the new field of application of the flexible employees. “We have around 20 employees on call, who can come in from one day to the next. The team is highly-motivated and some of them have been working together with us for years. This group is the basis for our picking and packing tasks,” he explained.

The home worker team is responsible for all of the manual tasks, such as folding, sticking or filling. Volumes of 1,000 pieces can thus be produced in one day. “The picking and packing team is unbeatable compared to a machine for quantities up to approx. 50,000 pieces. The costs for machines and maintenance also have to amortise themselves.”

Constant optimisation

Whereas the automation of different processes frequently leads to the loss of jobs, fidespromotion has succeeded in introducing a further service to combat this. “We still see ourselves as a product manufacturer, but thanks to the automation we are now also service providers,” the Managing Director explained. fidespromotion is thus the perfect partner especially for the promotional products distributors. “If an industry customer requires special packaging for an article, the distributor can simply send us the item. We design the box and the picking team assembles it and fills it with the desired product. We then send the finished goods to the distributor with the delivery note for the industry customer,” Grammer explained. “This procedure is also very convenient for the distributors, because everything is carried out in one place as a one-stop solution.”

Grammer set himself the task of optimising the processes when he took over fidespromotion in 2017. He was faced with a small company with highly-motivated employees, who could act flexibly and fast. “But small companies are sometimes rather disorganised,” he noted. “Big companies on the other hand are usually very well-organised, but not the fastest,” Grammer knows from his own experience. According to Grammer the art lies in taking the best attributes out of both worlds and turning them into a flexible, motivated, family-like company that works professionally and which can fall back on automated and standard procedures. “Only then is it possible to also carry out big orders within short lead-times,” the head of the company emphasised.

This year Grammer plans to represent fidespromotion more. “Especially the Netherlands, Italy and France are on our agenda as big markets,” he explained. At trade shows that the Managing Director attends himself, of course, a red heart on his jacket pocket makes him easily recognisable.

From coincidence to bestseller

Expanding the line-up is almost a daily focus at fidespromotion. In this way, one packaging doubles up as a bird feeder and later as nesting material, another box doesn’t require any adhesive at all. Slat cards for short, concise messages or sturdy fans also make up part of the product range. “We are simply experts when it comes down to paper and cardboard,” the specialist grinned.

Even when Grammer is visiting trade fairs, he always carries a box of sample parking discs, boxes, and fans with him. One customer liked the samples box so much that he ordered it as a welcome box. Since then, the fidespromotion range also includes these popular boxes. “We weren’t aware that there was such a high demand for such boxes with a divider – now we produce them regularly,” Grammer explained how the welcome boxes came about. Grammer considers the business with the welcome boxes to be very attractive primarily for distributors: “Ideally the distributor sells several boxes or promotional products and outsources the production.” Here too, Grammer, likes to fall back on his 40-man-strong assembly team. Because the warehouse is located directly on the other side of the street, promotional products can be temporarily stored there until the boxes are finished. This not only offers advantages for promotional products distributors, but also for the end users,” as Grammer knows: “The customer can choose from the entire promotional product market and can select appropriate items or have the boxes filled with own products, of course. The one-stop process has direct advantages here.” Whereas other printing shops dictate specific dimensions for welcome boxes, fidespromotion designs the boxes to suit the customers’ requirements.

The success of the southern German company shows that haptic advertising doesn’t just start with the promotional product itself. The packaging is also an important part of the overall concept. The more beautiful and more individual the packaging’s design, the more successful an impression the promotional product leaves.

// Sophia Arnold

www.fidespromotion.eu

Photos: Sophia Arnold, © WA Media (2), fidespromotion (5), Shutterstock.com/alexgo.photography (1), Shutterstock.com/Piotr Krzeslak (1)