Kall Kwik leading the franchise brand evolution!
Kall Kwik, one of the UK’s leading providers of business design and print solutions, continues to evolve from its familiar high street presence for traditional copy and print to a wider and deeper consultative strategy and design approach. Offering a complete Design to DeliveryTM (D2D) solution, services include creative design, direct mail, email services, large format poster print and corporate image development within its portfolio of full service marketing solutions.
MARKET
In the UK, more than £1 billion is spent every year on design, printing and copying services, generally described as the ‘print on demand’ sector; Kall Kwik is the biggest player, with a market share of seven per cent. It is a large and highly fragmented sector, with Kall Kwik competing against a wide range of other service providers, ranging from traditional small quick printers, to larger commercial printers, design and direct mail agencies as well as full service marketing agencies.
However, in another sense, Kall Kwik is unique – no other network player can consistently offer such a broad and integrated range of design and print-based solutions.
Adding value beyond just printing services is an important factor in this market, and is something that Kall Kwik has tapped into.
Research undertaken by Cap Ventures reveals that for every £1 spent on print, businesses normally spend at least £6 on the design and fulfilment of the printed material.
Marketing, sales, training and human resources departments are often the main clients of the sector, requiring corporate brochures, product and sales literature, direct mailers, email on demand, display materials, reports, training course manuals and presentations.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Kall Kwik’s biggest achievement has been in making on-demand print equally accessible to small businesses and corporate users, providing complete marketing packages.
In a challenging and rapidly changing market, Kall Kwik has also achieved strong growth through diversification – for example, its corporate brands team, which works in partnership with national corporate clients with dispersed locations to provide complete marketing solutions. Kall Kwik’s success can also be attributed to its award-winning franchise-based business model, with Kall Kwik UK providing intensive marketing, training and operational support to its franchisees to ensure all services and products are delivered to a consistently high standard.
Kall Kwik UK has consistently been recognised as a leader in the franchise field, winning a host of awards, such as the British Franchise Association’s (BFA) Franchisor of the Year award in 2005. Many of its franchisees have also won awards, such as Kall Kwik in Edinburgh winning BFA Franchisee of the Year and the Kall Kwik franchise in Middlesbrough who were named Best in the World 2007 at the National Association of Printers’ annual conference in Chicago. Kall Kwik is the first brand to be recognised within both the franchisor and franchisee categories.
Kall Kwik has also won accolades for the quality of its communications, winning Marketing magazine’s Connections 2000 award for Best Use of an Intranet.
PRODUCT
Kall Kwik offers its business customers a complete range of print-based services for all of their communications needs. It describes this integrated service package as Design to DeliveryTM.
This service offers access to eight key product fields: design; direct mail; client service; expertise; oversize print; technology; print; and delivery. The strategy was developed in response to client requirements and market trends that highlight a gap in the marketplace for an accessible and single-source provider of design-led communications.
Kall Kwik has a rapidly expanding network of design agencies, employing over 250 designers. This is more than any other private sector company and reflects the business’ ability to offer creative solutions.
Direct mail has always been a staple of Kall Kwik’s offering, with locations able to manage the whole process, from coordinating a campaign to completion. As well as its creative design skills, Kall Kwik has the technology to offer digital personalisation and can improve targeting even more by sourcing targeted mailing lists.
Print services are at the heart of Kall Kwik, with the business committed to continuous innovation in the fast-changing and hightech print sector. Careful pre-planning means that Kall Kwik can help choose the most cost-effective option from a wide range of techniques and processes, from ondemand digital, to litho print, personalised communications and custom finishing. It can also produce jumbo-sized print for exhibitions, banners, signage, advertising, display stands and posters.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
Kall Kwik has recently supported franchisees who wish to develop a second income stream from high-end creative design. Today, there are more than 40 k designgroups in the UK and new k design studios are opening every month throughout 2008. The new k designgroups are structured as a confederation of local design studios, each with a shared approach to business design and common mantra of ‘accessible creativity’.
Set up to offer an intimate local design service, but with all the resources of a national organisation, k designgroup’s teams can take on a wide range of projects, including logo design, advertising, business branding, marketing, e-media, graphic design, and multimedia (including web design).
PROMOTION
Kall Kwik aims to produce proactive and welltargeted marketing, reflecting its ability to serve its clients’ own marketing objectives.
As it is a franchise-based business, Kall Kwik’s franchisees initiate promotion in support of individual locations, albeit in accordance with guidelines from Kall Kwik UK.
Direct mail is Kall Kwik’s preferred promotional medium, with mailers, awareness cards and ‘D2D’ magazine distributed to clients and prospects. The business uses the Mtivity marketing asset management system to enable individual franchisees to select and personalise their marketing materials.
Kall Kwik also uses the internet to advertise its services, along with local and UK-wide promotion via traditional and new media routes to market.
The company also teams up with strategic alliance partners, such as Canon and Pitney Bowes, to undertake joint advertising to cut through to the business audience.
BRAND VALUES
The Kall Kwik brand personality is unpretentious and aims to be ‘on the same wavelength’ as its clients. It is professional, with a touch of design flair. The company has a vision to make Kall Kwik the leading and most innovative national branded design to delivery network, enabling B2B communications with continuous profitable sales growth.
Ultimately, Kall Kwik aims to satisfy the need to make B2B communications stand out in a crowded, competitive marketplace. This is expressed through the tagline ‘look the business’.
