PC Marketing
Satisfying The Salon Owner’s Needs
by Matt Morgan
At last year’s ITA World Expo, PC Marketing unveiled the design of a new logo that signifies the strength of the relationship the company has with its German manufacturing partner. The design incorporates PC’s interlocked “P” and “C” as well as “MARKETING” with “uwe” in blue reverse type—all enclosed in a blue-line rectangle.
The combination of the logos lets PC’s customers know what both companies’ staff members have known since the two businesses began working together in 1996. “It signals the strength of our relationship and the closeness,” Miller says. “Every day and every year it gets stronger.”
However, it’s not just a logo that has the company hopping in anticipation for 2005.
The P90
Paul Manke, PC Marketing’s director of sales, calls the P90 “one of the most technologically advanced beds in the industry.” “It wasn’t redesigned from an existing bed,” he says, “it was designed from the floor up. There’s nothing in the industry that even looks like it.”
Manke likens the P90 to a concept car, with one difference: Whereas a concept car, for all of its innovation and looks, may take years to see a dealer’s lot, the P90 is available here and now.
The front skirting of the bed illuminates in blue, as does the uwe logo on the canopy. Also, the frosted, light-blue acrylic that curves up toward the back illuminates onto the back panel of the unit. “If you put this in a black room, it just bellows with blue color,” Manke says. “The acrylic looks like it’s glowing.”
The P90 has one piece of “endless acrylic,” which wraps around the front and then up the back, where it curves up to reveal the P90 logo. There are no edges in which dirt and grime can accumulate, Manke says.
For maintenance, two quarter-turn screws release the top acrylic, which comes down on one door.
The striking looks are fashioned in response to trends showing that tanners are more emotional than ever about their unit of choice. “They want to be in the most futuristic and most advanced tanning unit with the best features—but it still has to have tanning performance,” Manke says. “There’s no question of the tanning performance of the P90.”
The combination unit comes with 12 600-watt Heraeus vertical-plug-in high-pressure lamps and three 1,000-watt Heraeus vertical-plug-in high-pressure facials in the canopy. The lamps have uwe’s cutting-edge XTT™ (Xtreme Tan Tec™) filter technology and four user-controlled intensity settings—high, medium, low and off.
The high-pressure technology is matched by a new bodycooling feature. Quadruple Breeze includes two double jets and wave control, allowing a delay between face and body misting.
The lounge features 20 160-watt Cosmedico CosmoLux VHR-TT low-pressure lamps.
A second version of the P90 has a mattress on the lounge instead of the low-pressure lamps.
Both P90 units feature two 250-watt Heraeus MicroSun high-pressure shoulder tanners. An industry first, the MicroSun lamps can be replaced with the flip of a clip and are housed by a sealed glass reflector, Manke says.
“When the mattress version is used, while you’re lying on your stomach, you can put your hands up to them and they act as hand tanners,” Manke says.
Aside from the P90, the SilverBullet™ has been redesigned and reconfigured to better fit in the uwe line, between the Lotus™ and Cayenne™ models. The new SilverBullet features deeply-radiating facet reflectors, vertical plug-in lamps and a spring-lift system.
Sleek Styling
The P90 is groundbreaking, but uwe isn’t getting all of the attention at PC Marketing. The company’s original line, Montego Bay®, is completely revamped for the new season.
The sleek, contemporary design of the new Cobra™ series brings renewed energy to the line. “This is truly the start of a new era for the Montego Bay line,” Manke says.
The 32-lamp Cobras are available in 20-, 15- and 10-minute versions with and without three high-pressure facials. Salon owners can choose from among seven different models with varying configurations of new 160-watt Wolff System Eternal Sun UX reflector lamps or new 100-watt Wolff System Eternal Sun EX lamps.
Other features include hinged acrylics, T-Max plug-and-go capability, and optional high-velocity body fan.
The beds feature more of a European look that further complements the German-engineered uwe equipment. Montego Bay also has shifted the tanner’s head positioning from the left to the right, again to match uwe and add consistency in the salon.
Continuing the sleek, new trend is the introduction of a high-performance stand-up tanning booth, the V-56™.
The standup boasts 56 2-meter Cosmedico 9K90 VHR lamps; this allows for a 9-minute exposure time. “It’s a very long lamp— 79 inches—when most booths out there today are using the 71-inch lamp,” Manke says. “We can cater to a very tall person. Also, the lamp has a lot of great browning results.”
Maintenance is simplified with separate ballast power packs on slide-out trays, and hinged acrylics for lamp changing and cleaning ease.
A backlit logo on the front door calls the attention of customers, and 360-degree interior illumination eliminates the unnerving darkness that often precedes and follows a booth tanning session.
The addition of the uwe P90 and Montego Bay Cobra and V-56 enable PC Marketing to offer a larger variety of equipment than ever before.
“We’ve become a lot more flexible for the salon owner,” Manke says. “They don’t need to go anywhere else to fulfill their needs. If they want a booth, we have it. If they want high pressure, we have it. If they want a high-pressure mattress, we have it. If they want 360-degree high pressure, we have it. If they want new entry-level beds, we have it.”
Changes Leading To Growth
PC Marketing is expanding as a company to accommodate the growth of its product lines.
In February, the company purchased one of its long-term distributor partners. The Eden Prairie, Minn., location became PC Marketing Midwest, the company’s fourth direct service center. The additional sales force and warehouse help PC better support its customers’ needs.
“We are expanding the operation for the new season and adding more staff at each location,” Miller says. “We have ship points in New Jersey, Alabama and the Midwest, so that really brings us within two-day service anywhere in the country, in most cases.”
The logo change and equipment additions have ushered in an overhaul of PC Marketing’s branding. “The whole look of PC is changing,” Miller says. All this leads to growth in the North American market share.
The company’s guiding philosophy, however, remains intact: dedicated employees forming rock-solid relationships with salon owners to deliver strong brand names and quality tans to the end user.
“The way we’ve done business over the past 20 years is the way we’ll continue to do business—we’ll try to do it better and better every year,” Miller says. “We’re going to offer more to customers—more programs, more units—as our company continues to grow.”
