Introduction of a new concept to the Los Angeles market

After successfully operating in the window film business for approximately 10 years in the South African and UK markets, Klingshield made a decision to expand their product range and created a new product called “Window Graphics” using non reflective, reflective, translucent and opaque window films to create visual artwork on glass.

After completing hundreds of graphics on store windows throughout the London and Johannesburg markets, Klingshield decided that this window graphic market needed to be expanded into the United States of America. Much research and development went into this concept and Klingshield South Africa patented the process in numerous countries as it was the first see through signage available on the world market.

Realising the potential of our wonderful product, we decided we needed to open up a studio in Los Angeles to create window graphics for the Californian market. With lots of passion and energy we headed out and landed at Los Angeles airport to endeavour to launch our new window graphics product.

Being immigrants and never having been to Los Angeles before, our gut feeling was that this was the right place to launch our new wonderful product. After arriving in L.A. and hiring a car, we headed out and were amazed at the glitz, excitement and life that we experienced.

We checked into a hotel in Irvine and the next day set out to find premises to start operating our window graphic studio. Within a week we had rented space from an accountant after seeing a “To Let” sign on a busy road. The studio was fitted out with all the necessary equipment required to commence business.

Armed with brochures, literature and a strong presentation prepared prior to arriving in the USA we hit the road and starting calling on retail stores such as hairdressers, car dealers, computer stores, dry cleaners, travel agents, florists, coffee bars and restaurants.

The going got tough as the first objection to our sales presentation was “where can we see a window graphic installed?” This objection was a difficult one to overcome as we only had photographs of graphics installed in the U.K. and South Africa. The response to our product was positive, however, we realised that we had an uphill battle as the American retailer was sceptical as we had a new product, were new immigrants and did not understand the American culture. With much persistency, we soon overcame this problem and proved our worth and our product to them when we offered a money back guarantee should they not be totally satisfied with the end result.

With a bit of luck and a lot of hard work, we eventually started to crack the market open and beautiful window graphics started appearing on all major corners and streets within the L.A. area.

Our next break was the opportunity we were given by the hairdressing industry to participate in a show at the Long Beach Conference Centre. After much negotiation the organisers allowed us to install our huge window graphics at the entrance of the show in exchange for a booth within the show hall.

After spending days manning our stand and collecting leads from all over the USA from excited potential clients we landed up with hundreds of leads all over America. We realised at this point in time that this was a problem as we could not service these markets.

After the show a decision was made to have our window graphics printed on static cling window film which would be removable and reusable for all retail store windows. We started printing our graphics in Mexico on self clinging film for all industries.

The next show we did, we were well armed and prepared with tons of stock printed on self clinging film, rolled up and secured in a core and ready to be promoted and sold to all visitors at the show to be taken home with them and easily installed on their shop windows. This exercise turned out to be hugely successful and at the end of the show, instead of having hundreds of leads, we had thousands of dollars stashed in our pockets!

The retail stores continue to enjoy the benefits of window graphics and this proved to be a highly successful product and has been sold in the USA over the past 30 years via a “do-it-yourself” product to American retailers.

This marketing exercise demonstrates what can be done within in any market if one has the correct formula which makes any product or business work. This formula has been discussed prior in our articles under “How to Run a Window Film Business”. Photographs of window graphics can also be viewed on our “Image” page and should more information be required please contact us.

Please also visit our photo galleries: Gallery 1, Gallery 2