News
July 24, 2019Image 360 Ribbon Cutting
The Capital Region Chamber along with its Ambassadors, elected officials, supporters and company representatives were thrilled to cut the ribbon and celebrate a new collaboration between the Daily Gazette and Image360. The Daily Gazette is excited to announce the opening of its new graphics, signage and display business, Image360 Schenectady. The Daily Gazette and Image360 share a customer first approach to business by focusing on results and by investing in the best team, products and service possible. Image360 has over 140 franchise centers nati
onwide and will allow our Schenectady location to open with the support, experience and expertise of the best sign and graphics people in the country.
On Tuesday, July 23rd, Image360 Schenectady opened, offering Capital Region businesses an extensive array of printing and graphics services. The franchise operation is located within The Daily Gazette Building and owned by the same shareholders who own the newspaper. It is a separate company, though it will be supported by the back-end departments of The Gazette, such as human resources and finance. “If you need a sign, you should call me,” said Gary LaBelle, the former Daily Gazette advertising executive who is now general manager of Image360 Schenectady. “If you think it, we can do it.” But it’s more than signs and more than marketing, company leaders said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday outside The Gazette building: Image360 can help its clients create an atmosphere. Mike Marcantonio, president of Image360 parent Alliance Franchise Brands, said the concept is known in the industry as experiential graphic design — it seeks to shape an experience rather than influence a buying decision. “You can put a graphic just about anywhere. We have a member that wraps MRI machines for kids at children’s hospitals … You’re going to put a different image in the children’s wing than you are in the ICU.”
Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy spoke at Tuesday’s ceremony, and noted the longevity of The Daily Gazette, first published in 1894 and owned for five generations by the Hume family: “125 years, a significant milestone for this organization, for the city of Schenectady, for the region.” He also noted the pressures facing local newspapers nationwide as digital media cuts into the print business. The Gazette, he said, is rising to the challenge, one way it’s doing this is by evolving. Gazette Publisher John DeAugustine, who also is president of the new Image360 franchise, said: ‘What’s it take to run a business for 125 years in the same community? It takes innovation. It takes commitment. Those are the things we have at The Daily Gazette.” Few businesses touch as many people every day as the newspaper, he added, and the graphics business is a new way for it to do that. He added that the newspaper interacts with more than a thousand small and midsized businesses each quarter, each of them a potential client of Image360 Schenectady. Marcantonio said: “This is the first time that we’re partnering with a newspaper to launch an Image360 under the same roof,” he said. “We’re humbled that this venerable organization chose us.”
