Magnetic wallpaper attracts teens

Tag : business card magnet

Like the other girls at Central Catholic Middle School in Du Bois,Sarah Buckel spent considerable energy each year decorating herschool locker.
Like the others, she dreaded the possibility of being caught at theend of the school year with the gummy residue from decorativecontact paper still clinging to the locker walls.
But unlike the other girls in Du Bois, Sarah's dad runs a companythat manufactures magnets. And unlike any other 16-year-old girl,Sarah came up with the idea for magnetic locker wallpaper -- shenow has a patent and $1 million in sales to prove it.
"I'm really surprised that it would go that far," she said. "Itstill hasn't really sunk in."
For those unfamiliar with the role of the properly adorned lockerin many modern middle schools, it is not something to beunderestimated.
The addition of decorative paper, a mirror and magazine cutouts ofteen heartthrobs can transform an ordinary locker into, as Sarahputs it, "your room at school. It's your own little place. It'salmost like a competition, who has the best locker."
In 2006, at the end of Sarah's last year in middle school, shewatched as a friend of hers had to stay after school on the lastday, forced to scrape away the sticky residue of the contact paperfrom her locker before she could leave for the year.
Several months later, Sarah's father, Paul Buckel, became the chiefexecutive officer of a company called MagnaCard, which started outmanufacturing business card magnets, but has broadened to otherproducts, such as magnetic tape and dry-erase magnetic memo disks.
In the eyes of Mr. Buckel, and some of major chain stores that soldMagnaCard's magnets, the product line was getting a little stale.
"We were a neat little company with boring products," he said. "Ifwe didn't do something soon, we were going to lose these guys."
To decorate her new locker at Du Bois High School -- and avoid thesticky contact paper -- Sarah asked her father if he could makesome magnetic wallpaper for her.
"As soon as she told me, I thought that it was going to be great,"said Mr. Buckel. "I just knew it was going to be something."
The engineers that he asked to design the product with weren't sosure. At first, they couldn't figure out how to manufacture thewallpaper so that they could price it under $29.99 per roll.
Within several months, however, they got the price per roll down to$9.99.
Sarah, who is interested in a career in interior design and hopesto go to college at an art school, helped create wallpaper patternsthat she thought would appeal to middle school girls. She suggestedpink camouflage, which had been popular on her cheerleading team,and vetoed some ideas from professionals, such as mini skulls.
She also kept her dad on track in terms of the preferences ofpre-teen and teenage girls. Once, hastily making a sample lockerdisplay to show buyers, he cut out a magazine picture of NicolasCage for the locker.
Nicolas Cage, 44, as a locker-worthy teen heartthrob? Sarah isstill giggling over the concept. On a sample locker wall in herhouse, she points to a picture of the far more age-appropriateJonas Brothers.
Middle-aged celebrity marketing aside, buyers loved the idea oflocker wallpaper. Target, Staples, Rite Aid and other major chainstores all placed orders -- more than $1 million worth.
"The economy stinks right now," said Mr. Buckel. "Friends have lostbusiness this year in back-to-school [products] and we've sold overa million."
They're selling six different wallpaper patterns, from flowers todots to leopard print, and a variety of accessories for thelockers, from heart-shaped dry-erase magnets to decorative wordssuch as "laugh" and "dream."
At Target, at least, the product fit in perfectly with the store'sother back-to-school offerings.
"The trend is to be more of an individual, whether that be withyour backpack or decorating your locker, so a product like thisoffers guests an easy and affordable way to personalize their spaceat school," said Joshua Thomas, a spokesman for Target, which willsell the wallpaper in almost 1,600 stores nationwide.
"It was something unique and different that we hadn't seen before,"said Ashley Flower, a spokeswoman for Rite Aid, which will carrythree designs of the wallpaper in about 5,000 stores.
The whole family -- Sarah, her mother and father and her threeolder sisters -- spent eight hours a day for all three days of theMemorial Day weekend assembling in-store displays for the wallpaperat Staples.
"It was so ridiculous," said Sarah. "I had arthritic fingers fromfolding so many pieces of cardboard."
Sarah and her father have plans to release a locker decorating kitspecifically for birthdays later in the fall, and Mr. Buckel isdeveloping a whole new product line using electrically chargedpaper for decorating dorm rooms and other spaces.
The new products have so bolstered his faith in MagnaCard that hedecided to buy the company.
"When Sarah came up with this, it really put us on the map," hesaid. "I'm just so proud of her."