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Apr 22, 2009 6:46 pm US/Central
Hirshfield's Gets Creative, Reaches Out Overseas
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ―
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For the past 10 years, Hirshfield's Paints has been growing the overseas relationship as a way to branch out and find untapped business opportunities.
CBS
A long-time Minneapolis business is reaching across the ocean for new markets in this new economy. Hirshfield's has been helping homeowners with their painting and wallpapering needs for over a century but now the Minneapolis-based company is looking to Japan to generate more business.
Inside a Minneapolis design studio Drew Beninati wasn't teaching his normal wall covering class. His students had come from a world away to learn the technique of hand-troweled plaster and paint finishes.
"Taking a nice big pull here," Beninati instructs to his class of five Japanese interior designers.
They're spending the week at the Minneapolis offices of Hirschfield's Paint and Wallpaper. The women are learning the fine art and techniques of alternative wall finishes. Its part of a growing business venture that Hirschfield's has with independent paint stores in Japan.
"In challenging times, capitalism demands reinventing yourself and growing market share in a shrinking market," said company owner Hans Hirschfield.
For the past 10 years, the company has been growing the overseas relationship as a way to branch out and find untapped business opportunities.
Hirshfield's is bringing Japan more than style and technique, but also stocking their paint stores with unconventional wall covering products to help expand the choices of Japanese consumers.
In Japan, housing is much smaller and more austere than in America, so homeowners there are just beginning to experiment with a wider range of interior design.
Chiemi Akiyama is a store owner who came to Minnesota to learn the new techniques.
Speaking through her interpreter, Akiyama said, "90 percent of the wall in houses in Japan is plastic vinyl. So to learn this new techniques for Japanese people, this can be a new method of expressing themselves."
Because many in Japan live with the constant threat of earthquakes and small tremors, walls continually crack. Painting alone can't cover those cracks, which makes other wall coverings, like vinyl, desirable.
So the new troweled plaster and paint textured finishes will be a popular alternative to Japanese interior designers.
Hirschfield's is doing more than just teaching these unique applications at its Minneapolis design center. The company is also helping grow the market in Japan. Paint made at the company's Lyndale Avenue plant is given a Japanese label under the trade name "Hip" and then shipped off overseas.
With the information and expertise the five Japanese designers are learning this week, they will be going back to their stores, armed with new ideas and new skills. That will give their respective stores an added edge in the marketplace -- simple, yet elegant styles for their customers to change the characteristics of their homes.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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