The Prepaid Press - June 15, 2008 - (Page 8)

PREPAID BUSINESS June 15 · 2008 - 8 Harvey Caron, VP/Marketing Director, Pentagon Graphics Interviewed by Gene Retske Pentagon Graphics has been around a long time, producing the basic common denominator of prepaid, the plastic card. The Montreal based printing company started as a conventional printer in 1974, then moved into calling card manufacture in 1996. Harvey Caron, VP/Marketing Director, has maybe not seen it all, but probably more than most of us. He has a unique perspective, from an industry point of view, being a printer, and being located a bit north of the US. 5 MINUTES WITH GR: What are the advantages of plastic? It’s cheap and disposable, right? HC: That’s interesting, because it is not disposable. The plastic itself, the PVC, is not recyclable and it’s not biodegradable. Which means, if you throw it out, it stays in a landfill forever and ever. The big push right now is to find a green plastic. GR: But, one that will be durable enough to last the life of the consumer? HC: yes, it will last the life of the consumer, and if the consumer wants to recycle it, they can put it in their local compost or their local recycle bin and it will get recycled. I know that there is a corn-based product out there. The product is called PLA. The problem with that product is that, in its purest form, it is clear, and is extremely brittle and hard to work with. So, they have to add additives into it to give it a little white color and to make it workable. The problem is that the additives are not recyclable. So, it may degrade to a certain point, but it is not biodegradable. GR: I saw something in your ad in TPP, called the Pentagon Green Card. What is that? HC: That’s a different type of plastic. It’s also agricultural based. It is made out of starches of corn and potato, among others, and is a nonpetroleum based product. So, the company that produces it is using a renewable resource, and we don’t have to add anything to it, and it is 100% biodegradable. And, it is 100% recyclable, if your recycling system takes #7. GR: Is this going to make the cost of French fries go up? Like ethanol caused the price of popcorn to go up? HC: It may. GR: HC: I have heard that corn, right now, is a very wanted item, so it may raise the price of food. That is one of the problems. But, our green card is recyclable, the inks we put on it are recyclable. The one change that consumers and retailers are going to have to make is that a lot of the cards out there have a lamination on them to give them a nice, beautiful gloss, so And, this way, when you buy a gift card from XYZ Retailer, and you use it up, you can feel confident putting it your recycle bin, your own compost pile or an industrial recycling facility… the card looks nice and shiny. Right now, there is no green lamination. So, if you put a lamination on your card, the cards may still biodegrade a little bit, but it has been sandwiched between two pieces of lamination that are not biodegradable. GR: So, it is protected. HS: What we are promoting is that your design will be matte. It doesn’t mean it is ugly. Doesn’t mean it is not pretty, just not glossy. And, if your art department can do a nice job of it, it is still a beautiful card. And, this way, when you buy a gift card from XyZ Retailer, and you use it up, you can feel confident putting it in your recycle bin, your own compost pile or an industrial recycling facility, knowing that it will biodegrade back to its organic elements. GR: Could it be made edible, so, after you are done using it for a calling card, you could just eat it? HC: No. Harvey Caron is VP/Marketing Director for Pentagon Graphics. Visit Pentagon online at www.pentagon.ca. GR: What is the overall trend with plastic cards? Are they being used as much as they were in the past? HC: If you go way back to the beginning, for me, 1996, POSA cards existed to a lesser degree than they do now. In 1996, everyone was doing phone cards in a blister pack. That was are running many thousands of cards in an hour. The problem with the blister packaging was that they were very light, but cumbersome to pack, shipping was costing the distributors a fortune. GR: You’re shipping a lot of air. HC: A lot of air. It was very light in a large box. Then, one day, the industry said, ‘no one is going to do blister packing anymore. We are all going to do detachable cards.’ So, instead of having 500 cards in a box that was 2 feet long, you have 500 cards in a box that is 5 inches. It was a huge difference. The machines that were able to run these cards were running much quicker. So, we went from blister packaging to detachables. Once mag stripes came in to play, people stuck with plastic because all the mag stripe readers out there were designed to read your credit card. 30 points thick. Running 24 hours a day meant I got maybe a couple thousand a shift, if I was lucky. Now, the machines are running many thousands of cards in an hour. extremely slow. I had 3 machines running 24 hours a day. I was just a small guy. Running 24 hours a day meant I got maybe a couple thousand a shift, if I was lucky. Now, the machines http://www.payzone.biz http://www.pentagon.ca http://www.payzone.biz

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of The Prepaid Press - June 15, 2008

The Prepaid Press - June 15, 2008 Contents The Retske Report: The More Things Change… Regulatory Rundown: June 2008 5 Minutes With Harvey Caron VP/Marketing Director, Pentagon Graphics TPPExpo’08 Spotlight Handset Trafficking Dealt Blow Prepaid Wireless Roundup Virgin Mobile to Use Platform-A Sprint Reports Lower Wireless Revenues Virgin Mobile Adds Samsung to Offerings States Considering Photo ID for Prepaid Wireless Prepaid Reviews Podcast Includes TPP Editor Prepaid Wireless in Brief Managing Equipment and Capacity Upgrades Atlantax Systems and TMI Form Alliance The Legal Line Spot Rates FTC Halts Bogus Prepaid Phone Card Claims Titan Global Re-Appoints Kurt Jensen as Pres/CEO Calling Cards in Brief TX AG Files Suit Against Calling Card Company Startec Moves to PhoenixSoft Cirrus Ringplus.net Offers Free Calls Interchange Fee War Begins edo Interactive Launches Networking Card MasterCard Uses CSC Platform nFinanSe Gets $15 Million Line of Credit Travelex Cash Passport Debuts at US Retail Stores CardEx Offers Cost-Free Gift Cards Payments in Brief Altair and Blueberry Launch a Prepaid Card for Moms FrontStream Acquires Direct Technology Innovations New Etelcharge Version Goes Live Prepaid 101: POSA Retail Focus in Brief NRF Says Retailers Fighting Organized Crime Blackhawk Announces Annual Hawk Awards NRF Says Retail Sales Showed Resiliency in April TravelCenters Adopts Coinstar Pay As You Go Marriott Offers a $25 Visa Gift Card NRF Favors Law Protecting Retailers from Lawsuits Starbucks Card Members Get Free AT&T Wireless Wi-Fi Our Advertisers Classifieds Contact Us

The Prepaid Press - June 15, 2008

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