Fusion Cross-Media Reinvents Business to Support Frontline Workers

Fusion Cross-Media, a commercial print provider, shifts its business focus to adapt to challenging times, meeting customers’ changing needs while contributing to local charities. After stay-at-home orders began, the Manchester, Connecticut-based business leveraged its capabilities and began producing lawn signs honoring “healthcare heroes” for their role in the coronavirus response.

While Fusion, a second-generation design, marketing, and print communications company, was designated an essential business, the vast majority of its customers were not. To keep producing and strengthen existing relationships with surrounding communities, it needed a new approach to business.

Fusion looked to lawn signs to spread awareness and gratitude. It now prints full-color, double-sided lawn signs, direct-to-substrate, using its RICOH Pro TF6250. The signs are customizable, reading “(Municipality name) Loves Our Healthcare Heroes” or, in some versions, “(Municipality Name) Loves Our First Responders.” The back of the signs read, “Support Your Community Heroes. Wash Hands, Social Distance, Give Blood.”

Each sign is numbered to help track the spread of the campaign and encourage participation, which has now touched six states. Fusion donates $2 from each lawn sign order to local food distribution charities.

“At the end of the day, print is all about connection. We see these signs as a great way for the community to connect, showing our shared concern for one another and our gratitude for those on the frontlines,” says Zach Schwartz, president, Fusion Cross-Media. “There were several ways we could have taken this initiative, but lawn signs are so uniquely community-oriented, we knew that was the way to go.”

“Right now, many print providers are re-evaluating their offerings, looking for innovative ways to not only keep work coming in but also to strengthen customer relationships for the future. Fusion Cross-Media’s approach is a picture-perfect example,” adds Heather Poulin, VP, marketing, commercial, and industrial printing, Ricoh USA. “Fusion has responded to this crisis quickly, compassionately and intelligently. This is a print provider who understands that putting in the effort to engage communities in a meaningful way isn’t just smart business—it’s the right thing to do.”