Our Latest salute to product invention…
As in my post 3 weeks ago, it really does appear that SplashMaps® Toobs™ customers know more about what works than SplashMaps! This really doesn’t surprise me at all. Working in innovation you often need to follow where your target customer leads. So our latest salute to product invention goes this week to Amy!
Christmas and Birthday Presents
Some weeks ago I was contacted by Amy. Amy, like most of our customers, was already ordering maps for people as Christmas and Birthday presents. The most popular Toob of the Central Lake District and a personalised map on an area of Dartmoor.
Something we’d not done before
But now she was ready to move to a multiple purchase and wanted something we’d not done before.
“I love the idea of the design service, but I want something a bit different!” she started.
“So I’ve found the Toob that I want but also, I wonder if it would be possible to print a union flag on to a Toob, as if the Toob itself were made from a union flag….I have looked everywhere for this design and you are my last chance (tbh I don’t know why I didn’t think of asking you before!).” Me neither Amy!
Current products weren’t up to the snowy conditions
Amy was also after a piste map of which we hold the most popular in stock. But her request led to some research. We looked at what was available and what quality was available for a union jack neck warmer map. Amy was right, and though we could find flags of most places in a form you could put around your neck, when you dig around, the image quality, thinness and rough texture of material meant the current products weren’t up to the snowy conditions she expected.
A perfect result… a much lower price
I accessed a great image and worked with our printers to get this reproduced perfectly on our more dense microfibre stretchable fabric. We chose this fabric forr its quality feel and its opacity (it’s not very see through). Some customers like this as they can have images printed on both sides to make a reversible, plus its added warmth and stretch mean it’s great in all seasons. Expensive maps licenses and map adaptations aren’t needed when making Toob flags. This means we can use our finely tuned map printers for a perfect result, but still be able to put a product onto the market at a much lower price than our famous mapwear. The result was great and the response even more fun…
Super warm and rather stylish
“Thank you so much for the Toobs, they went down very well with my instructor friend …they’re super warm and rather stylish don’t you think?!” [super patriotic I would add: Ed] responded Amy when she returned this week.
The next innovation
After this initial inventive success Amy’s already got her eye on the next innovation as she signed off, “Anyway….I think I may be chatting with you quite a bit more in the future.”
So we’re open to ideas? What’s the next application of SplashMaps’ unique and high quality print, map and fabric capability?
More simply, which flag shall we do next?
