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    Inside MacPherson’s: Emeryville, It’s Our Home!

    MacMessenger is MacPherson’s very cool internal newsletter. Here is an article written by Alyssa Bardini from our HR Dept that explains the many charms of our home base. “Ever wonder where in in heck MacPherson’s headquarters is located? Emeryville is a small town of 1.9 square miles and approximately 10,000 residents, but you’d never know it. Decidedly urban, “E’ville” is situated between Oakland and Berkeley, and is literally at the base of the Bay Bridge to San Francisco. If asked to describe Emeryville, I’d say it has three parts. These aren’t geographic distinctions, but rather distinctions in purpose and feel – industrial, commercial, and a third category that is much…

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    Chroma Understands . . .

    Chroma, maker of the groundbreaking Interactive Acrylics recognizes that the economy is taking its toll on everyone. Customers are spending less money and only buying what they need – not what they want. Chroma wants to help you, the retailer . . . – draw consumers back into your stores – increase your foot traffic and sales – battle through this turbulent economy As a result, Chroma has taken the bull by the horns and developed an aggressive new “Artist Friendly Pricing”  program that MacPherson’s can offer to you. Continuing with Chroma’s approach to offer an affordable painting experience, this new program offers lower costs to you, the retailer, as…

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    Elmer’s News, May 2009

    Mike Mankowsky writes… “It was great seeing everyone at the NAMTA Show in Louisville and what a privilege to have such a wonderful venue to showcase our new products and promotions.  For those of you unable to attend, here is a brief recap of our show highlights. Elmer’s General Craft Products: Our newest product launch…..a comprehensive line of kid’s crafts and general craft products.  From pom poms to feathers, from magnets to gemstones, we have it all. Over 240 line items are available, all under the Elmer’s brand name…..a  name Moms and all consumers know and trust.  Now you can offer a great range of craft items in a limited…

  • Industry News

    Industry News

    Big News from ColArt:  In August/September Justin Wraight, head of ColArt Americas will be returning permanently to England to become Chief Commercial Officer for the ColArt Group, responsible for the commercial activities for all key ColArt markets namely, North America, UK, France and European Subsidiaries, together with the International Sales teams. He will report to Thomas Bräutigam. The new president of ColArt Americas is Doug Johnston and he will report to Justin. A.C. Moore Arts & Crafts announced that David Stern will join the company as its Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer effective  June 8, 2009.  Mr. Stern, 42, served as the Divisional Vice President, Financial Planning and…

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    Letraset Aqua ProMarker; A “Breakthrough” Item that’s a Sleeper!

    Consumers are still willing to part with their hard won money for new products, but you’ve got to show them that it will help them achieve more that what their current tools will do. Here is just such an item. It turns out that Letraset’s new Aqua Promarker was one of the top picks for truly new and unique items from the NAMTA show in Louisville. The buzz words are “Pigmented” and “Watercolor” and Aqua ProMarkers twin-tip versatility produces amazing and  different tonal affects or blending even after the ink has dried. Acid-free and lightfast, Aqua ProMarkers are perfect for scrapbooking, stamping, and watercolor-style illustration. Each twin-tipped marker features a…

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    Value Innovation: New MABEF Easels Series

    The new value version MABEF sketchboxes and easels offer the same high quality Italian craftsmanship, life-time guarantee, and durable oiled beechwood construction as their regular version counterparts, but at super hot prices that are 30-45% less! With a few adjustments to bring the prices down, these easels and sketchboxes offer big value at smaller prices! Perfect for today’s economy-minded shopper. Compare the value version retail pricing to the regular version retail pricing below; Ask your MacPherson’s rep for more details!

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    Princeton Real Value Brush Sets are a Smash Hit at NAMTA

    Princeton had a big hit at this year’s NAMTA Show in Louisville. The new Real Value Brush Set end-cap program received rave reviews for the huge upgrade in packaging and its complete merchandising system. This new 9100 series updates Princeton’s 9000 series pre-priced brush set range that has been so successful for retailers across the country. The new 46-set range is arranged in 8 distinct price categories with lists from $3.99 to $18.99. Each price-point is color coded on the display. Pricing signage bars are provided with multiple graphic inserts allowing you to show the sets at list, 25% off, or 40% off. The same pricing bars flip-up to reveal…

  • Industry News

    iHockney: Artist David Hockney Uses his Apple Phone to Paint Mini Masterpieces

    By Beth Hale of the Daily Mail In a lengthy career as one of Britain’s most celebrated artists he has embraced most art forms. Now David Hockney has mastered the art of communication  –  by using his phone to paint pictures. The 71-year-old has taken to using the touchscreen of his iPhone to create mini-masterpieces. Hockney has had the phone for only four months, but he has already turned it into a hi-tech canvas. It even fits neatly on a miniature easel in his London studio. He has painted flowers and drawn landscapes on the iPhone, which is manufactured by Apple and lets users input commands directly on the colour…

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    ColArt’s Hot May News

    ColArt’s Fall Back-To-School promotion has all these essentials to stimulate the second half of 2009! (+10%) ·         All Winton Oil Colours ·         Galeria Acrylics (60ml & 200ml) with 9 new colors ·         All Liquitex Painting Knives and sets ·         Liquitex Professional Acrylic Inks ·         Reeves 22ml tube sets & New Water Soluble Wax Pastel Sets CAP Dealers will enjoy the added margin on these critical cash generating ranges! (+10%) ·         All Artist Oil Colour! ·         All Artisan Water Mixable Oils! ·         All LIQUITEX Heavy Body Acrylic Colors! DERWENT: All Pencil Tins: +20% OFF! There’s still time to buy the ColArt NAMTA “Extreme” Deals featuring the all New W&N Artist Acrylic…

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    Strathmore Artist Papers™ May 2009 News

    Back-to-School is under way! By now you should have received Strathmore’s aggressive 2009 BTS flyer. To help you nail down your share of the most important selling season of our industry, Strathmore has all of the essential art pads on sale, 31 of them with an extra 20% off! In addition, buy 8 cartons of 8 items from the 20% off group on a drop ship and we’ll help with your advertising and promotional efforts with an extra 5% off! Your MacPherson’s rep has an order form and can help you build a great promotion, or ask your local Strathmore rep. If you haven’t already added Strathmore’s exciting new Sequential…

  • Industry News

    On A Personal Note…

    Some of you may recall that in 2001, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and made the decision to have surgery to remove my prostate. The surgery seemed to go well and I was back to work within a month at my usual energy level. In a small percentage of patients the cancer can return. Short of intrusive biopsies, PSA tests are the only real way that doctors have to determine the presence of cancer. Over the past 8 years I have been retested regularly and 3 years ago my PSA began to slowly rise. Unfortunately, the presence of Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) is not de facto proof of cancer.…

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    Three New “Golden Promotional Opportunities” for 2009!

    GOLDEN Offers Three Exciting New Promotions in 2009 1.     GOLDEN Back-to-School “White Hot” Promotion Recognizing that core products are a cornerstone of the high-selling BTS season, GOLDEN has designed a promotional campaign to both engage the value-conscious artist and to stimulate increased sales at retail. Consumer Offer: Buy 6 tubes of GOLDEN acrylics, get one 5 oz. tube of Heavy Body titanium white FREE! How to Participate: For every six 2 oz. Heavy Body tubes you order, you will receive one promotional 5 oz. box of Heavy Body Titanium White at no cost. A magnetic rack-top magnet is available to help communicate this offer to your customers. For more details…

  • Industry News

    Another Supplier Rethinks MAP

    We received a letter from Artograph’s President Don Dow announcing that effective immediately Artgraph would discontinue its Minimum Advertised Pricing (MAP) program. This is the second such letter we have gotten in the last month (Logan was the first.) And we heard at the NAMTA show in Louisville, KY that many other manufacturers are reconsidering the merits of these kinds of efforts to control brand-destroying price wars. Don Dow pointed out that Maryland recently passed a law that prohibits manufacturers from requiring state retailers from charging a set minimum price for their products. Thirty other states are considering similar legislation. For further information on this new law go to Wall…

  • Industry News

    Industry News

    Celebrating a Super Rep; John Colbert, serving the Pacific Northwest for 39 years. Here is John’s bio in his own words: 1970 – Joined Chartpak as a factory sales rep in the Northwest. Territory was expanded to Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska and Hawaii. 1980 – All Company reps became Manufacturer’s Representatives for Chartpak. 1983 – Joined Rhodes & Co as the Manufacturers Rep in the Northwest. 1997 – Started CER (Colbert, Eichinger, Rhodes & Co) along with Tom Eichinger covering the 13 western states. 2005 – Tom and I agreed to split the company and I started Northwest Sales Assoc.,Inc. 2009 – Mooney Sales &  Marketing to take over…

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    Montana Hardcore Marker Demo, Louisville, KY

    Bill Cavanagh of CC Lowell in Worcester, MA approached me at the NAMTA convention last week with a simple proposition. Any new product that we introduce ought to have a short YouTube demo video that retailers can use in email blast marketing (Constant Comment) to educate customers and thereby create interest and ultimately sales. There is a beautiful simplicity to the idea and what better place to test it out than at the mother of all art supply gatherings, the annual NAMTA convention. So I whipped out my Lumix point and shoot camera, with HD video capability, and shot Mel Waters doing a “bubble” letter style marker demo. Short and…

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    NAMTA 2009 Retailer Breakfast & Show Highlights

    Each trade show we enlist a small group of retailers to help us zero in on the best new opportunities. At the Louisville NAMTA show, we met bright and early on Saturday morning. Here’s what we gleaned in two categories; New Vendors and Items Worth Mentioning. New Vendors Encaustics: Clearly the show buzzword. The “Hot Cakes” line from Enkaustikos got all the attention for having a compact display and easy to understand merchandising. Sold in tins instead of the traditional stick form, it was hard for many retailers to pass up the drop ship show special. Get your Hot Cakes here! We’ll support the open stock colors and accessories. Woodland…

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    Watercolor Artist Susan Tilton Pecora … Seen Sketching Historic Boston Scenery

    Wherever watercolorists roam, Sakura of America’s KOI® Watercolor Field Sketch kits are handy to take along.  Light-weight and affordable, on-site watercolor painting is simple with a studio right at an artist’s fingertips. Highlights include: •    Specially formulated half pan watercolors blend easily to create an endless color range. •    Water brushes have a unique water reservoir barrel to carry water in the compact kit. •    Each kit is packaged in a peg-able outer box, and has the ACMI “AP” seal of approval Three convenient and portable sizes are available: •    12-color ‘pocket’ size: #XNCW-12H, MSRP $26.49, •    ‘Postcard’ size sets with a detachable, pegged palette, pull down ring on base…

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    First Look at NAMTA Louisville!

    So… How was it at the 59th annual convention of the art material industry? That is the question everyone asked when I got back to the office. Wellllllll… what do you want first, the good news or the bad? Let’s start with the “not so good”. While pre-registrations showed that the number of retailers (buying companies) was slightly up compared to last year, the number of pre-registered people was down. In this catastrophic recession that makes a lot of sense. Companies need to save money on air travel, lodging and the like by reducing headcount, but they also want to make sure that they don’t miss out entirely on all…

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    Sanford News- April 2009

    •    Prismacolor introduced a new Archival Marker Display at NAMTA that features our Fine Line, Brush Tip and Chisel Tip Marker products Here are some upcoming events at which our Prismacolor Consumer Specialists will appear: Diana Garrett •    April 24- SAIC •    April 28- Joliet Jr College •    April 30 College of DuPage •    July 2009- Northern Illinois University Art Camp •    July 2009- Columbia University AP Art Workshops Shelley Minnis week of April 27-May 1st •    San Diego State University •    Art Institute San Diego •    Art Institute Inland Empire