Let me preface this by stating I have never sold a stadium cup in my life. Granted I have printed hundreds of millions of them for our industry, but I have no experience in dealing with end users. Yes, I have been doing this long enough that I have seen the type of clients that purchase stadium cups & have talked with many distributors. My discussion here will deal in generalities. What I wish is for you distributors to provide the true case histories. I do not wish for you to disclose your clients but to provide some details; such as type of client, position of person who authorized the purchase and actual use of the cup.

To properly sell stadium cups it is important to understand some basics of the drinkware industry and how it relates with our industry. The drinkware industry is made up of several big manufacturers who generally are not associated with our promotional products industry. They make large volumes of product & sell directly to the bigger users such as the stadiums at major colleges, pro sports teams, fast food franchises, etc. These manufacturers primarily offset print and have rather high minimums. The stadium cup decorators in the promotional products industry specialize more in the smaller quantities. Of this group of suppliers, some are purely decorators & purchase blank cups from the drinkware giants while some have smaller molding operations & produce their own cups. Since decorators in our industry specialize more in the smaller quantities, you will find much more varied imprint methods… including offset, screen print, thermal, and pad printing.

The importance of this knowledge is to understand, generally, whom to sell to. Don’t expect to sell the concessions at a major university. Don’t expect to sell to corporate restaurant chains. These type clients are typically already serviced by representatives from the drinkware industry. However, even with these type clients, there are openings for promotional products distributors. Yes, at a major college, you will not sell to the stadium however you can easily sell to departments on campus. Many orders are generated from departments such as alumni, development, social groups (such as greek), programming board, health department, etc. Also, suppliers in our industry provide much quicker service, so when a university has an unscheduled event, such as maybe their basketball team advancing in a tournament, then you have an opening to provide a service which can not be duplicated by the huge drinkware manufacturers. The key is, these direct reps from the big manufacturers are looking for the big sale from the big client. They do not have the resources or contacts that you should have. Their minimums are too large and production too slow to handle most clients. They will not be calling on most high schools, community colleges, university departments, churches, local restaurants, pubs, bars, banks, politicians, realtors, etc.

Now that you understand the basic type of client to deal with & have an understanding of the printing processes; let’s put it all together. Take advantage of the fact that most suppliers offer the back side imprint, even if different than the front, at no extra charge. Don’t just print a logo on the front… put something on the back. If dealing with high schools, put their schedule on the back or maybe some sort of say no campaign. Find a sponsor, such as a bank, put the sponsor info on one side & the school’s info on the other, and donate the cups to the school. It is very common for distributors to find a sponsor for all local schools, and by doing such, the distributor can receive combined quantity pricing. Each school can have their own cup color & imprint color combinations… and still get combined quantity pricing. In this way, the sponsor gets better pricing and great advertising… the schools get free cups.

Please don’t limit yourselves to “traditional” markets. Schools are not our biggest market. Many people also think of pubs & bars, and they are great clients but we actually run more church imprints than imprints for alcohol consumption. In my opinion, a huge untapped market involves the smaller restaurants. These establishments are too small to be serviced by direct marketers but still can use rather large quantities of cups. Several establishments around here use nothing but stadium cups for their beverages… even if you eat in. This saves them the expense of maintaining and cleaning other drinkware and almost everyone brings their cups home. A distributor friend has a long time client in a small college town. This client started out as a one store pizza shop that offers delivery to the school but has grown to three locations in the past two years. Every few weeks they order 20,000 22oz stadium cups with lids. During a conversation with the owner of the small chain (distributor requested this contact), he explained that he used to deliver canned drinks with the pizza but when he switched to stadium cups… his business doubled. The advertising obviously helped but my understanding is the students play games with the cups also.

Jim Knecht, President of the Dooley Company, USA makers of premium stadium cups and an Educator Member / Advisor to SellPromos.com presents an ongoing discussion to assist Promotional Product distributors on How To Sell stadium cups, who to target and how to present the concept.

There are two primary methods of imprinting stadium cups… screen print & offset print. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages. Some suppliers might pad print cups but that is not the norm. Some suppliers also can apply a foil film and have the imprint thermally adhered to the cup.

Screen printing is typically a manual process, where one cup is placed in the press by an operator, the press is activated, and upon completion of the printing, the operator removes the cup and the cycle continues. The operator places the printed cup on a conveyor belt and the cup runs through a heat dryer (typically) and is stacked by another employee. A good operator can print in excess of 2000 cups per hour of a given design. Some suppliers might use ultra violet (UV) inks and in that application, the cups are passed through a UV chamber to cure the ink.

The screen printing technique involves the creation of a screen for each design. This screen is a frame, normally wood or aluminum, with mesh fabric tensioned and attached to it. The image is either photographically or digitally placed into the mesh of the screen. Using a squeegee, the ink is pushed through the mesh, and the image is transferred to the cup. Setup with screen print is normally rather quick, and a change of screens from one job to the next takes only 5 to 10 minutes. Because of this quick setup, screen print allows for smaller minimum quantities, with commonly 100 piece minimums or, with some suppliers, even fewer with a less than minimum charge. Also, since the press prints the design as the cup rotates on a mandrel, both sides of the cup can be printed in the same pass. That is why it is possible to get a cup printed with totally different designs on each side at no extra charge. You can likewise have a wrap design printed, however there is normally a gap of up to 1” between where the imprint starts and stops… again at no extra charge.

The inks used in screen printing are rather opaque and allow for the use of light colored imprints on dark cups. For example, white imprint on black cups is possible, and depending on supplier used, can be very effective. Because of this opacity, most screen printers stock a wide range of cup colors. The majority of screen print designs involve a single color imprint. To print multiple colors, each color is applied individually; the first color is printed, dried, packaged, brought back to the printer, and the next color is applied. Registration is achieved by various methods, with some shifting occurring with each added color. The shifting can be as much as 1/8” of an inch, depending on the supplier and the processes used at those facilities. Because of this, successful screen printed projects are limited by how tight the registration can be on the design. I suggest you submit any multicolor design for review prior to placing an order. Also, because each color is applied in a totally separate operation, screen print multicolor will have a significant running charge for each color added. As far as registration issues, keep in mind, just because a design has more than a 1/8” space between colors, does not mean it is a candidate for a successful imprint. For example, the tightest registration known to man is printing a circle within a circle. If there is any shifting at all, the human eye can see it immediately. The circles could be ½” apart, but your eye would notice a shifting of 1/100”.

To summarize, screen print on stadium cups allows for low minimums, quick turnaround, and imprint on white as well as colored cups. Because it is a manual operation, production costs do not decrease greatly with increased quantities, so you don’t see the really low pricing in the huge quantities, as you might see with offset printing. Also, registration issues and running charges limit the effectiveness when printing multicolor designs.

Jim Knecht, President of the Dooley Company, USA makers of premium stadium cups and an Educator Member / Advisor to SellPromos.com presents an ongoing discussion to assist Promotional Product distributors on How To Sell stadium cups, who to target and how to present the concept.

Offset printing is a method used primarily for multicolor imprints on larger quantity orders. The UV inks used are not as opaque as screen print inks, meaning the vast majority of jobs are printed on white cups. It is a fully automatic process where all imprint colors are printed on the cup in one, single pass… resulting in vibrant imprints with exact registration. The stacks of cups are loaded into the press, flame treated, imprinted up to 8 spot colors, UV cured, counted, stacked & packed… all in one operation. The bigger machines can run approximately 400 cupsper minute. Because of this speed & automation, cup pricing is drastically reduced in the larger quantities & the addition of extra imprint colors incurs minimal costs.

The printing method involves the creation of a metal printing plate per imprint color. Each plate is affixed to its own plate cylinder. During the imprinting, each plate is inked by a series of rollers & this is then transferred to a blanket, which is located on another, larger cylinder. Each plate, in series, transfers its imprint to this blanket & then this combined imprint is then transferred in a single pass to the cup. In essence, we are printing one color at a time to the blanket, and then the blanket prints the completed design upon the cup. The machine then indexes to the next position & the process continues. Full wrap designs with a very small ¼” gap are possible. For most operations, true 4 color process printing is not possible. What is normally used, is what is referred to as modified process, where the artwork is specially separated into 8 spot colors. This process normally incurs a steep artwork charge & higher minimums, but is used by bigger users… such as movie studios & major league sports.

The setup of these designs takes much longer than screen print. It can easily take hours between jobs… including cleanup of many ink rollers & plates. Also, because the press is so fast, manycups can be wasted getting the design in register & printing properly. Several hundred cups can be wasted before the first good cup is ready to go. For this reason, offset print normally has much higher minimums than screen print. Anywhere from 5000 to 25,000 piece minimums are normal, however some suppliers offer as few as 500 piece minimums with a 4 color imprint.

To summarize, offset printing is used primarily for multicolor imprints on white cups & provides exceptional tight registration. The minimums are higher than screen print & the production time is normally considerably longer. Screen print production is measured in hours & days normally while offset is measured in days & weeks.

Jim Knecht, President of the Dooley Company, USA makers of premium stadium cups and an Educator Member / Advisor to SellPromos.com presents an ongoing discussion to assist Promotional Product distributors on How To Sell stadium cups, who to target and how to present the concept.