WHSmith Travel, sole supplier for design & print

One of the UK’s leading retailers and aims to be its most popular bookseller, stationer and newsagent. With over 500 High Street stores, over 120 stores at airports, train stations and motorway service areas

With the blessing of an amazing Marketing Director at WHSmith Travel, Redface were given the opportunity to re-design the entire printed portfolio for the WHSmith Travel brand. Ranging from Line and Price POS, to News and Mag's, to the Books section. An incredible opportunity which we embraced.

How it began

Whilst at a catch-up meeting at WHSmth Travel, with an old Safeway friend, Rob, our MD, asked the question, why are your posters printed on PVC, when your stores are based within units, such as train stations, motorway service areas, airports? They will never see a single rain drop!

One year later, with Redface as sole supplier, WHSmith publishes the following figures...
- 27% saving on print costs
- 57% reduction in artwork costs
- 19% reduction in print material costs
- 21% reduction in print management fees

Point of Sale

It may not look very exciting, but it's a critical part of all retail operations. Often overlooked, but without it, stores lose a huge amount of sales opportunities. The biggest issue POS has is that it's not sexy, it's purely functional, so designers aren't inspired by it and marketeers would rather focus on the more exciting/creative aspects of their job - but wait a minute, it's also often the largest print and distribution spend! See the dilemma?

We wrote the line and price guidelines for WHSmith Travel, a boring job? Not to our MD, he loves it (weird!). A pet hate is line and price POS which is inconsistent, off-brand, confusing to the customer. So we fixed that!

And if you look at the WHSmith cost savings, we think we did a good job!

Red Face Design were commissioned to create and manage WHSmith design, artwork and print production process.

The artworks that we now hold are comprehensive and created to a high standard. Now with Red Face Design in control of our artworks, we have the confidence and flexibility to move print suppliers to gain best service and best price.

Red Face Design created a streamlined briefing process to ensure the team use best practice as business as usual. Red Face Design facilitated a team away day to brief the team.

The team’s efficiency has increased, as has their attention to detail and moral.

Red Face Design consistently employed leading-edge technology to reduce costs and Marketing hours. We now have full access to the RedFace Design knowledge base. Our email accounts which are managed by RedFace are regularly updated, responded to and targeted.”

Marketing Director, WHSmith Travel.

Ready to talk?

Drop us an email, just might be the best thing you’ve done today!