Star Cutouts, a company which prints and distributes life-size cardboard cut-outs of celebrities, Disney and Star Wars characters, has invested £30,000 in software that will enable it to monitor media to help improve its speed and accuracy in reacting to trends, such as the South Korean survival drama Squid Game.
The company, which is based in Ashton-under-Lyne, prints a selection of 3000 characters, including the Royal family, celebrities, sports stars, as well as film and TV stars. It is anticipating ‘game-changing growth’ following its investment, which was facilitated by Made Smarter’s North West adoption programme.
‘Our strategy is to combine the latest digital tools to understand our customers and increase production through new machinery and continuously improve processes. This is a major first step. We predict the impact of our strategy will be huge and we are grateful to Made Smarter for supporting and accelerating the opportunity.’
One of Star Cutouts’ major challenges is managing the risk of launching new products. Mr Ravey explained, ‘Selecting the right character is extremely time consuming as it involves research via social media to spot who and what is trending. Sentiment also changes so quickly day to day. When you are spending a considerable amount on licensing agreements you need to be confident in your investment.’
The new software will monitor a huge archive of characters, as well as identify new trends and analyse other metrics including geography. This vital business intelligence will be instantly fed to the management and design team via a bespoke platform to support decision making on product development.
