Full Service: Q&A with Jim Mikula, president, ImageOne Industries

A diversified service offering that includes interior and exterior signage, lighting, specialty contracting and facilities maintenance gives ImageOne Industries an up-close look at the evolving retail scene. Chain Store Age spoke with ImageOne Industries president Jim Mikula about some of the trends the company is seeing.



What trends are you seeing in retail signage and graphics?

The sign has changed and adapted to technology as it became available. With the introduction of the incandescent bulb the sign took on a whole new perspective. No longer was it just an identification piece. It was now a driving force with spectacular movie marquees and moving messages. The electric sign can be said to have created Broadway. Then came the fluorescent bulb and then neon with its ability to bend light into shapes to create illuminated lettering. And of course, now there is the LED, which has given us the ability to manipulate light in ways that were not possible some few short years ago. The same is true for printing and graphics.



The days of the sign painter and their pounce pads and Mahl sticks have been replaced with sophisticated, computerized printers with the ability to deposit your imagination onto virtually any substrate. And it is all not just light and printing. There is impregnated vinyl, Teflon based paints that are self-cleaning and last for 15 years, Aluminum Composite Materials, and aluminum extrusions.



This boom in modern technology has given designers, store planners, and architects a fresh pallet of tools with which to create brand environments with signage and identification as the centerpiece, revolutionizing the way brand experiences are defined.



The objective is to create a space that is the brand. It is no longer a sign on the outside of the building. It is the architecture of the building with the corporate logo that defines reliability of the retailer, the quality of the products within, and creates national brand recognition. Once inside the store, we are seeing greater open space that welcomes in the consumer and offers and air of excitement coupled with a feeling of low pressure sales. This is being accomplished with the introduction of floor to ceiling graphics, indirect lighting, wall washing, exciting displays, and, in some cases, internally illuminated walls of light, all aimed at increasing the consumer’s buying experience.



Retailers are introducing this environmental concept of identification in all of their new store plans but, more importantly, they are accelerating the renovations of existing stores to adapt to an open space shopping experience.



All of these new innovations have been born out of soaring technology development and the concepts are relatively young. We at ImageOne strive to stay on the cutting edge of these developments and be a driving force in innovation in our industry.



What about lighting solutions — is there still a lot of activity in LED retrofits?

Absolutely. While technology and advances in manufacturing and distribution have significantly lowered the cost of LEDs, the cost of a field retrofit is still rather expensive when a lamp change or neon repair will do the trick.



What we have to do as suppliers and manufacturers is continually educate our end users and demonstrate that, although the cost of the retrofit might seem steep, the payback in energy usage, service calls, and maintenance will far outweigh the initial investment. This is easy to say, but if you have a hundred signs and 80 of them are still functioning without issues, it is a hard sell as to why they should make the investment. A lot of commercial users are still holding out, but we have been seeing an upturn. There is still a lot of opportunity in the LED retrofit market and we see it getting better as more and more users are seeing the light



Your Total Support Division provides extensive maintenance services. If you could give retailers some advice in this area, what would it be?

We recommend retailers develop a two-tiered maintenance program composed of Preventative Maintenance and Service as Required to maintain freshness and present a modern and ‘up to date’ appearance. There have been several studies done on the effect of a well maintained and modern presentation of a retail establishment to its customer base. Most notably, a study performed by the University of Cincinnati showed that the look of an establishment is directly related to the perception of quality of the products and services rendered.



A good preventative maintenance program can greatly add to the ability of a retailer to convey the look and feel of a modern, quality establishment. We have worked with several of our partners to put in place programs for lighting change outs, Entrance and Sign cleaning, and annual and semi-annual refrigeration and HVAC maintenance, to name a few. Preventative Maintenance offers several advantages. It can be scheduled for off hours or non-peak business hours where there will be little to no disruption to the customers or facility operations. The perception is that the store is perpetually operational with no disruptions.



My best advice? Develop the programs in unison with your preferred vendor or vendors. You should always establish defined lines of measurable performance and communication. We work with our clients to set and achieve measurable goals throughout these programs. This allows us to establish mutual trust and confidence, as we prove that we understand our clients’ business needs and are able meet/exceed their value expectations.



Tell us a little about the history of ImageOne and its scope of services?

Almost immediately, we realized that signs were good at displaying the customer name, but that image environments were the wave of the future. So, instead of just building the sign, we began building and installing the entire architectural fascia systems. We also discovered that retail interiors were changing. Painted walls of the past were being replaced with large scale graphics and changeable seasonal images were being designed to enhance the interior décor. It didn’t take long before we spun off our graphics department into a full division: Impact Décor.



The same scenario occurred with our service department. Most sign companies offer sign repair, but we were being asked by our customers to go further. Our service department grew into a full facility management division that now boasts of a 24/7 staffed service desk and covers such diverse assignments as snow removal, landscaping, HVAC, refrigeration, and many others. Oh, if you need your sign fixed our Total Support Division will take care of that, too.



All of our divisions grew out of customer need. Our National Banking Environments Division started out making ATM Toppers and Surrounds and soon grew to banking fixtures, teller walls, privacy areas, and specialty furniture.



One Construction followed suit. Since we were already putting graphics on the walls, ceilings, and floors, why not build the walls? It was a natural progression. Now, our One Construction Division does remodels, retrofits, and buildouts for the restaurant, banking, and retail industries throughout the U.S.



We’ve grown rapidly since 2007. We now have three manufacturing facilities in Pennsylvania and Arizona, and a soon to be opened facility in Texas. It’s been a great ride and we’re only just getting started. We owe it all to one simple philosophy: “Excellence, whatever it takes.” It permeates the heart and soul of every member of the ImageOn