Sticker Shock: In-plants Savor Sticker Boom

People just love stickers, and savvy in-plants are taking advantage of sticker mania by printing growing volumes of them. But will the excitement stick around?

By: Kalie VanDewater

Oregon State University (OSU) Printing Services got serious about stickers three years ago. The 33-employee in-plant started marketing its services with stickers in the holiday thank-you cards it sent to customers. They were an instant hit. Inspired by a local coffee chain that gave away a monthly sticker, the Corvallis, Oregon, in-plant then decided to do the same.

“Within the first three months or so, we had people showing up at our shop [for stickers]. We are about two miles off campus,” says Jeff Todd, associate vice president of Marketing Services & Solutions. “We had people showing up on the first of the month to get their new stickers. Then from there it’s just grown and grown.”

In fact, Todd says his team printed nearly 700,000 stickers last year.

Mail truck stickers produced by Oregon State University Printing Services have proven very popular on campus. | Credit: OSU

Hearing about the success Todd’s team had, Justin Van Nest, Communications and Printing Operations manager at Oklahoma City Community College (OCCC), started a Sticker of the Month program as well. It did so well that the in-plant had to eventually discontinue the monthly stickers to focus on customer orders.

“The sticker of the month is what really took our sticker program off,” says Van Nest. “Prior to that, in fiscal year ’23, we did about 3,000 stickers the entire year. We did a quarter-million last year.”

Around the country, in-plants are getting in on the sticker craze. Like any new offering, stickers are helping to raise awareness of their services and bringing in new customers.

In fiscal year ’23, we did about 3,000 stickers the entire year. We did a quarter-million last year.

—Justin Van Nest

Peel the Excitement

In the Southwest, Northern Arizona University (NAU) Printing Services began looking into stickers around 2019 to fill an apparent need.

“People were ordering the labels and expecting them to be outdoor durable and putting them on water bottles and stuff like that. They were paper [labels] — digitally printed with no lamination or anything,” says Dylan Turner, assistant director of Printing Services. “So, we started thinking: Well, we have a large-format department, we have a latex printer, we have a laminator, we have a contour cutter. We have all the tools that we need, [and] we’re producing vinyl decals on a bigger scale. Why don’t we see if we can create a workflow that does it on a smaller scale for these shorter-run applications?”

Because of the Flagstaff, Arizona-based in-plant’s dedication, the operation churned out just over 5,500 stickers on average each month in the last fiscal year, while leveraging external shops to provide an additional 4,600 stickers per month on average. Turner says those numbers fluctuate from month to month, but normally reach peak demand at the beginning of each semester (January and August).

Samples of stickers produced by Northern Arizona University Printing Services. | Credit: NAU

A Tacky Trend

Palm Beach County Graphics Division, in Greenacres, Florida, started dabbling in stickers during the COVID-19 pandemic when it added a 65" Roland TrueVis VG2-640 wide-format printer with contour cutting. The in-plant still uses this machine for short runs, but Manager John D.L. Johnson knew the shop would need something that could better keep up with demand. That’s where the Mark Andy Digital Pro 3 came in.

“We didn’t really look at a lot of other options out there prior to that because we were very comfortable with Mark Andy and the folks there,” Johnson says. “We had done several deals with them, and what they were offering with this hybrid Digital Pro 3 that has two flexo units on either side of a toner print engine. You could actually print six colors, [and] the finishing … was built into the thing.”

Palm Beach County’s Graphics Division uses a Mark Andy Digital Pro 3 flexo hybrid machine to print stickers. Showing off samples are Manager John Johnson (left) and Assistant Manager Carlos Duenas. | Credit: Palm Beach County

At NAU stickers are printed on either an HP Latex 365 or an EFI Pro 16h and cut with a Graphtec FC-8600. For protecting stickers, the shop uses a 63" GFP 363TH laminator, which helps increase the stickers’ longevity when exposed to moisture or other damage such as abrasion.

“The laminated stickers are coming out really nicely,” says Sara LaRosa, senior printing coordinator at NAU Printing Services. “We have different options paired with different laminates, or PVC-free options paired with a glossy laminate. Right now, our standard stickers are a matte laminate that may be shifting over to glossy, but as of right now, there’s several different types and finishes of stickers that we offer. And this laminator has made it way easier than it was before, way more streamlined of a process.”

Sara LaRosa and Dylan turner of Northern Arizona University (NAU) Printing Services.

In Oklahoma City, Van Nest says his shop prints stickers on a Mimaki CJV330-160 eco-solvent printer and cuts them with a Graphtec FC9000. The in-plant offers white and clear vinyls, as well as a very popular holographic sticker material, which was recently released. Because the substrate was so new, he admits there were a few hiccups at the start.

At Oklahoma City Community College, Sara Bakke prints stickers on an Epson Colorworks 6500A. The shop also uses a Mimaki CJV330-160 wide-format printer to print stickers. | Credit: OCCC

“When we got the new sparkle holographic, it took tweaking and figuring out exactly how to get the machine to recognize and cut that material,” he explains, “because it uses a laser to figure out where everything’s at. Well, that spark holographic is sending lasers in all sorts of different directions.”

Luckily, Sara Bakke, print technician at the in-plant, was able to figure out a solution.

“That’s really fun — being able to get new materials in our hands and figure out what to do with them and create something new with them,” Bakke says.

Stickers produced by Oklahoma City Community College’s in-plant. | Credit: OCCC

Sticky Business

According to Todd, stickers are very popular across OSU.

“Pretty much all departments across campus at this point are ordering them,” he says.

The in-plant uses two Mimaki UCJV300s — one printing stickers full-time, the other half-time — and an Epson SureColor P20000. They work together to create 50,000 to 60,000 stickers per month.

“Our biggest users are our admissions and recruitment department,” he continues. “We started making them designs. At the time we started all of this, they had two stickers that were basically our beaver head — our athletic logo — they had a big one and they had a small one. The bigger one got included in our letters of acceptance packages. The smaller one, they would hand out at events. I think now they’re up to 50 different versions of stickers that we keep on hand for them all the time that they use at different events.”

Things are much the same in Palm Beach County. Johnson says orders range from medical labels for IV bags for the fire department all the way to stickers for the Parks & Recreation department and the library to hand out to kids.

People are dreaming up things that only they can dream, and we’re helping them make that happen.

— John D.L. Johnson

At NAU, the in-plant currently creates vinyl stickers (with and without lamination); PVC-free vinyl stickers (with and without lamination); clear stickers that can be printed with white ink; and sticker sheets. Turner says the shop is also investigating glitter and holographic stickers.

The rise in popularity of stickers was unexpected but welcome. Will this business stick around though? OCCC’s Van Nest thinks so.

“Stickers aren’t going anywhere,” he says. “I remember back in the ’80s, we collected Garbage Pail Kids and Lisa Frank stickers, so there’s a longevity to it. … It’s something once you get into, you’re going to have an easy way to continue to generate revenue and to generate interest in your business.”

At the end of the day, Bakke says, “the possibilities are endless with stickers.”

“They’re just fun,” Van Nest adds.

Justin Van Nest and Sara Bakke at Oklahoma City Community College.