SJG Print & Design: the shop that stopped advertising and started hosting

Print shops sell a commodity. Banners, shirts, signs, stickers — the same list every competitor in town puts on the same kind of website. When the product is interchangeable, marketing collapses into price, and the only lever left is being cheaper than the shop down the road.

The obvious move was a promotional video for SJG. It would have looked like every other print shop's video, and competed on exactly the ground SJG couldn't win on.

The shift

We stopped trying to advertise the shop, and built a show around its owner instead. NTV Presents: SHOPS is a maker-world series where Sean visits other shops — their machines, their people, their craft. Not competitors to be beaten. Peers to be introduced.

A commercial asks an industry to look at you. A show gives you a reason to walk into everybody else's building. That's the whole difference.

What changed

Episode 1 — the one above — is SJG's own shop floor. Every episode after it is a different business that agreed to open its doors to Sean: Josh Evans of LoneStar Adhesive, Jason Rife of JER Custom Designs, Thunder Laser, and a brand challenge with Blake. Four more shops, on camera, in his industry. You don't have to take our word for it; you can watch them.

In Sean's words:

Video now drives our business, from our ads to our daily content. Working with Eric has now become the fuel to our business.

A note on this one

Sean hasn't filled in our questionnaire yet. When he does, we'll run it here exactly as written, the way we do with every client. Until then this is our telling, with his quote and the episodes as the evidence.

Read the full case study · Watch NTV Presents: SHOPS · Book a free 15-minute Vision Call