B-loony: helping retailers make an impact for over 30 years

Need to make an impact? For more than 30 years B-Loony has been working with retailers to supply low cost promotional items to support product launches, promotions and store openings. From their iconic printed balloons to flags, bunting, banners, staff sashes and store opening ribbon, B-Loony is experienced at finding the right product to ensure you’ll always be noticed and remembered.

“I want one of those!” Printed latex and foil balloons are walking advertisements for promotional events especially for products associated with children and of course they make great in-store displays. Sales Director, Mike Cussell said “It has always been our mission to make balloons easy to use. They are very rarely used on their own and we have designed a range of accessories to help get the best out of a promotional event, be it hand held sticks that are child-safe, fitted valves and ribbon for helium filling, floor standing display stands or counter-top stands.” Mike added “we also arrange for the most cost effective helium cylinders to be delivered and collected from stores once the event is over”.

Multiple sites nationwide? Not a problem! B-Loony has a Promotions Team that can cover the whole country so is able to manage installations for customers who want to roll out promotions in a number of stores at the same time. Louise Tame, B-Loony’s Events Manager explained “We have often organised balloon decorations, for example clusters of helium filled foil balloons tied to tills, in literally hundreds of sites. I think our record is about 460 for one promotion. This means that our staff will be working through the night so that these were on show when stores open.” Balloon arches are also really spectacular decorations for new shop openings and B-Loony regularly arrange these for many well-known national retailers.

Bunting is a product that has become really popular in the last couple of years, perhaps as a result of the 2012 Olympics and Queen’s Jubilee celebrations. You can’t go into a supermarket without there being bunting advertising fresh fruit or seasonal specials. B-Loony manufactures bunting in their factory in Chesham, Bucks and according to Mike “We are making literally hundreds of miles of bunting. By the time you add up the amount required in one large store and multiply that by the number of branches, the overall length can be enormous so we have now developed automatic machinery to cope with demand”.

B-Loony offers a number of options to suit different events and venues. Paper bunting is only really suitable for indoor use (as well as fire retardant paper where health and safety is an issue), while synthetic paper is certainly OK for one day events outdoors but B-Loony’s poly-bunting will be supplied when the bunting needs to be left on show for longer periods. All types are suitable for full colour printing and any number of different designs can be included.

Still focusing on what customers need for in-store promotions, B-Loony has become the leading manufacturer of staff sashes in the UK and the only one supplying multi-colour-all-over digital printing. The great advantage of using sashes for staff is that they are both reusable and one size fits all. “We had to make a sash especially large recently because it was being worn by a charity worker dressed as a bear! We’ve also been asked to make a sash for a cow at an agricultural show” Mike told us. This means that unlike printed T-shirts for example, sashes can be shared by shift workers and used over and again without needing to be washed. This also is more sympathetic to individual staff dressing preferences and when uniforms are worn.

Similar printing techniques are used for wide ribbons at one end of the scale which B-Loony supplies for store and other event openings occasions. At the other end the same poly-soft satin material is used to print promotional banners, wall hangings, table cloths and many other bespoke uses.

B-Loony have recently invested in a new automated production line making paper hand waving flags, another low cost favourite give-away for promotions. This makes B-Loony the largest manufacturer of flags in the UK.

Continuing their efforts to be coming up with new ideas for customers, B-Loony have developed another couple of flags that are proving really popular. There is the DOODLEFLAG® which is a paper flag fixed to a pole that contains crayons for colouring in bespoke designs on the flag. These are ideal for keeping kids occupied in stores and in restaurants for example. Another great new idea is the GLOWFLAG® this time with the flag fixed to a glow stick. What a brilliant thing to hand out at evening shopping promotions at Christmas, for Victorian evenings or for Christmas lighting events in High Streets.

To see examples of all B-Loony’s products look at their website www.b-loony.co.uk