Christophe Balaresque is the Luxury Brands & Marketing Director of Arjowiggins Creative Papers. Today, his focus is to develop relationships with Luxury Brands helping them to distinguish themselves from others by using high quality fine papers.
As a Marketing Director for Arjowiggins Creative Papers, a new and innovative marketing approach has been implemented, improving relations with printers, designers and brand owners.
The message that he conveys to his audience is the importance of detail – as he believe that this is what defines luxury. He has trained various paper consultant as well as sales teams on how to adopt the luxury mindset and how to be able to respond to the needs of this very demanding segment.
As Paper Studio launches the second Conqueror Corporate Identity Design Contest 2015, for both design students and creative professionals to demonstrate their ingenuity and talent in corporate identity design, Christophe visits Dhaka to conduct a special session on designing titled “Human to Human” touch. From his busy schedule, he shares some of his thoughts with Bangladesh Brand Forum (BBF).
BBF: This is your first visit to Bangladesh. How does it feel here? Would you please share some of your experiences?
Christophe Balaresque:It’s such a good feeling. I feel extremely welcome by everybody; people from everywhere, even at streets say ‘Hello’! And that is really nice! Everyone gives a beautiful smile. I have a very warm feeling visiting here.
BBF: You have been working for Arjowiggins Creative Papers since 2004. How would you differentiate Creative Paper from the regular used papers?
Christophe Balaresque:The regular paper is the one we use just to print; it’s a medium that just receive ink. A Creative Paper is related with emotion. When you have aCreative Paper with a special design, texture or color, this creates an emotion. So, the paper itself is a part of the message. The main difference is that the Creative Paper itself is a part of your message, and the quality of the paper is a part of that.
BBF: Tell us something about The Paper Book.
Christophe Balaresque:The Paper Book is something we have just launched. It’s a complete collection of different sheets of Creative Paper. We have done it for the designers. When they open it, they see just papers with no print; and immediately they want to touch it. This Paper Book will be available in all of the 120 countrieswhere we sell our products.
BBF: You had a session at Paper Studio premises on the topic ‘Human 2 Human’ touch. In your opinion, why do you think luxury brands should focus on Human 2 Human touch?
Christophe Balaresque:It was a discussion we had with designers along with some students of Architecture. The Human 2 Human touch is the concept that says how people are paying attention to others. You have to have a connection with people to sell your products, and this connection is what we call a Human 2 Human connection. How can we differentiate between two five star hotels? Is it the quality of the rooms and bed? It’s more or less the same everywhere. Is it the quality of the food? Probably not. But in case of the service, it obviously varies.And that is the Human 2 Human touch or connection.
BBF: Would you please share your opinion about the relation between Luxury Brands and Creative Paper?
Christophe Balaresque:The luxury brands, by definition, are extremely professional and they always pay attention to the core behaviors of the customers and that is why they choose only the papers of their quality. But this is not only for the luxury brands, this is for everybody who cares about the communication they would provide for their customers. There are many luxurious places, hotels or restaurants and companies here in Dhaka and they must show to their customers that they care about them. And then, as the luxury brands, they have to use Creative Papers.
BBF: How do you see the growth of the market for Creative Paper in the coming days?
Christophe Balaresque:Well the market has been flattening for some timeas digital communication is now extremely strong. We receive too many emails, faxes, etc. through the internet. But this is time now to rebalance the print-material communication and the digital communication. So, yes, the future is good and I am hopeful about that.
BBF: Share some of your observations about the Conqueror Corporate Identity Design Contest, 2015.
Christophe Balaresque:This is an extremely good initiative from Paper Studio. They have come up with a very good catch line which is “EXPRESS THROUGH PAPER” and this is a pretty clever way to explain the messageto everybody. It’s almost a month long contest. And I am looking forward to it.
