New Graco® Paint Sprayers Go Mobile

MINNEAPOLIS (April 8, 2011) — Bolin Marketing has teamed up with Graco, Inc. to create the manufacturer’s first-ever mobile web site, Gracotour.com, supporting the launch of their new line of paint sprayers.

The site is intended to assist consumers making purchasing decisions at the point-of-sale in a  national home center retailer, and features a product selector tool, a project checklist, plus a product detail and review section. The product selector tool guides customers to the right sprayer choice through a series of questions about the type/size of the project, the materials they will be using, as well as future projects they may be considering. The project checklist compiles a list of necessary tools and supplies for a variety of painting projects. The product detail and review section highlights key features and benefits of each sprayer, products specs and accessories, plus actual user comments.

Consumers also have access to a variety of videos available on Youtube.com, which contain product overviews and demonstrations. The videos incorporate extensive titling to compensate for in-store noise that may compete with the audio.

In addition to creating the mobile site, the team placed mobile tags next to product descriptions on the retailer's new 16 foot paint sprayer shelf set display. Using Microsoft’s TagReader “app”, customers simply take a picture of the shelf tag with their smartphone to bring up more product information in their phone’s web browser. The TagReader smartphone app is available for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7.

According to David Newman, Graco Director of Global Sales and Marketing - Hardware/Home Center, “Our number one goal with this technology was to make it easy for consumers to shop. By harnessing the power of mobile, we were able to show how the sprayers work and help them choose the right sprayer for their project. Plus, we provide shopping lists so consumers leave the store with all that’s needed for their project.”

The new Graco® Sprayer product display, merchandised with the new mobile site is now appearing in 1,700 home center stores across the U.S.

About Bolin Marketing:
Bolin Marketing is a Minneapolis-based growth catalyst firm that combines the strategic rigor of business consulting with a color-outside-the-lines agency attitude. The result is pragmatic innovation that drives measurable business growth. Our growth catalysts have led marketing and business teams in small upstarts and Fortune 500 corporations alike.  From branding to licensing, distribution to digital, Bolin provides marketing, business development and creative services for our local, national and international clients.  Other agencies build brands. We build business.  Bolin was founded in 1950 and has offices in Minneapolis, Chicago and New Jersey. For more information, visit www.bolinmarketing.com or call 612-374-1200.

About Graco:
Minneapolis-based Graco Inc. supplies technology and expertise for the management of fluids in residential, industrial and commercial applications. It designs, manufactures and markets systems and equipment to move, measure, control, dispense and spray fluid materials. Graco offers products that help consumers update and protect their home as well as offer companies, governments and contractors a wide variety of equipment to solve difficult manufacturing processes, increase productivity, conserve energy and apply simple and complex coatings/material. Graco Contractor Equipment Division designs and markets sprayers to apply architectural coatings such as paints, stains and texture materials as well as sprayers for line striping and pressure cleaning applications. The Division supplies products through a worldwide network of distributors that sell to home owners, trades people and contractors in the painting, roofing, texture, corrosion control and line striping markets. Graco has earned the annual Frost & Sullivan United States Paint Contractors’ Choice award for “Overall Best Brand of Spray Equipment” since its inception in 2007. For additional information about Graco Inc., please visit us at www.graco.com.