Case Studies

Here at Design My Idea we pride ourselves in our reputation for quality of work and repeat clientele. Every month we want to bring you one of our success stories: some product, idea or service that we were able to add key-value to.

Plane Clean Air Case Study

By Salem October 2007

“I can design products as an engineer all day, but I don’t know how to formulate logos or branding.” Said Neal, “Brian understood it even better than myself the direction it was to go.”

Introduction

Just try it, Google Plane Clean Air and see just how many online parties are selling Neal Avery’s successful airplane air filtering system. This section of our monthly spotlight takes you inside to the one of our long-term clientele (three years now), who came to Design My Idea with a fully designed and production ready product but needed marketing materials: logo and product branding, packaging and ultimately a powerful standalone sales website.

History

Plane Clean Air had its inception in 1996 and with two different patents, Neal Avery’s Plane Clean Air emphasizes healthy and comfortable flying by attaching to the air-conditioning filter above the passengers flight seat. Filling a personal need after getting sick on a flight years ago, Neal’s product filters the air around your seat, shielding you from smells, germs and other airborne particles. Officially on the market for 18 months, Plane Clean Air introduced in 2006 has already doubled its sales. A successful engineer and inventor, Neal Avery lets us inside his success, tips and how Design My Idea has been with him for the last three years.

Neal Avery worked on Plane Clean air part-time for nearly a decade to get his dream off the ground. An Engineer by career, Neal designed and had Plane Clean Air fully spec’d before working with Design My Idea, looking for an expert with design and marketing materials.

Marketing Push

Marketing and Branding: “I can design products as an engineer all day, but I don’t know how to formulate logos or branding.” Said Neal, “Brian [Design My Idea] understood it even better than myself the direction it was to go.” Working for over three years together, Design My Idea has done every marketing-based design for Plane Clean Air, from the logo and branding to the packaging and full website development.

First Impression

Neal first started marketing his product through networking, which was done primarily via phone with various manufacturing and other companies. Like any sale, making sure within even the first 30 seconds that you have garnered interest is extremely important, sometimes you only get one chance for a major deal. Establishing confidence early avoids the creation of doubt in the clients' mind. Since this was a new and innovative product, explaining the idea for Plane Clean Air to companies was taking too much crucial time to safely pass that first impression. The solution was for Design My Idea to create an animated Product Simulation of Plane Clean Air, which outlines exactly what the product is, what it does, its potential, all the while keeping it consistent within the logo schema. This usefulness, as told by Neal is summarized below:

In the early days for potential clients, I would refer them to the website...with the 4-5 step animation, it was very key to get the product idea across right away. Within 30-45 seconds the demeanor completely changed from “What is this? Who are you? Ok I’ll check out the website..Ok I’ll walk through this” to “Oh yeah I understand, where do I buy this?” Where previously, it would take a long explanation.

The Big Break

Armed with a solid product, solid packaging and an eagerness to get rolling, Neal had Design My Idea design print marketing materials for the Travel Goods Show; complete with a 9 foot banner and Sales Sheets which were “very well designed for catching people’s eyes.” With the numerous distributors and other companies, these materials and Neal’s perseverance helped Plane Clean Air get picked up for a 40 second blurb on CNBC! That would be an incredible break for any new product, yet Plane Clean Air was also spotlighted for a short story in USA Today. These subsequently led to a deal for sales distribution with Target.com. This deal with a reputable company selling Plane Clean Air Online led to the many numerous online sites which ultimately led to numerous other online sites selling Plane Clean Air.

Epilogue and Advice

With continued expansion of its online third-party distribution, as well as doubling its sales since last year alone, Plane Clean Air is continuing forward with a more adaptive marketing plan designed to further acceptance of Plane Clean Air.

Neal’s success with this product as well as holding other patents for more products to come, Neal can offer some salient advice for startup inventors.

Networking: Work more on networking sooner! The more established network of people that you know, the better that you will be. The success of the company is not necessarily based upon how good the product works, (that was only the first step), and the rest is spending a lot of time on the phone and making as many contacts as possible.

Patience: Neal sat on his product for numerous years, especially when he was thinking first to bring Plane Clean Air to market in 2001. This of course was the year of 9/11 which led to the decimation of the commercial airline traffic, and patiently, this led to Neal sitting on Plane Clean Air for even longer then originally planned to wait for the market to cool.

Steps: This is not a linear process, as quoted from Neal, “you may find a contact which takes you leaps and bounds forward then you stagnate for a time.”

Focus: Focus on your strengths, and let those around you who are stronger in the other areas run with your project. Neal knew his strength was in his product design and concept, as well as his networking. So, when it came to branding and marketing -- unlike many startup inventors -- Neal found a reputable and experienced company in Design My Idea to help him build his branding and marketing to match his products dream.