Jeffrey Court, a Norco CA.-based tile manufacturer and marketer, recently found itself with a growing need for a new sampling system that would allow its dealers and distributors to showcase a wide breadth of products in a relatively small space. “For the longest time, we had over 500 core products that needed to be showcased; it simply became an impossible task trying to showcase all of our products on our montage boards (concept boards),” said Andrew Casanova, the firm’s marketing director.
Casanova added that wall space is premium to many of its retailers, and the company also found it unrealistic for designers to have to lug around these montage boards so customers could touch and feel the products. “We were at a crossroads. We knew we had to make our new display system compact, portable and ‘off of the wall’.”
Ambitiously, Jeffrey Court’s design team designed a compact 6 X 12 plastic board, affectionately called a “Touch Board”, to be the vehicle by which the samples would be carried.  According to the company, it was compact enough to be placed in a sample room, carried from meeting to meeting …and, included a hang tab so the showroom had complete flexibility on how to display them. The notion was that the company would showcase its entire active mosaic SKU’s, and for most ceramic collections, would make miniature concept boards to showcase the different color offerings.
“Our debuting collection for the Touch Boards was an all glass line, and we really wanted to give an extra pop to our sampling, and cement grout just did not do the line justice. It was a no-brainer when we chose Bostik’s Dimension^® Rapid Cure™ Grout to be paired with this line,” Casanova added. “We reached out to Bostik, and they really stepped up to the plate. They coached us on the best uses of their product, helped us through the R&D of our Touch Boards, and supplied us with the amount of grout needed to do all of our sampling for that line.”
The Touch Board program gained popularity, and it wasn’t long before Jeffrey Court needed to expand its Touch Board offerings to its ceramics and natural stone. Once again Jeffrey Court turned to Bostik to assist in its R&D, and Bostik came to the table with its TruColor™ line of urethane-based grouts — offered in colorways similar to cement grout.
“It was a perfect match. The TruColor™ line complemented our products perfectly, and was offered in colors similar to those of cement-based grouts. But, it didn’t crack or pop out of our Touch Boards. They still look fantastic today,” said Megan Weintraub, lead product designer at Jeffrey Court.
The Jeffrey Court design team was then tasked with making a fixture that could house a large number of boards in a small space. After a long period of design research and testing, the Jeffrey Court team developed the Touch Board Rack. This flagship display holds 80 Touch Boards and can be displayed as a stand-alone fixture on the showroom floor. Measuring six feet tall and having a footprint of only four square feet, it is a prominent fixture, and a true testament to the collaboration between Jeffrey Court and Bostik.
Moreover, the Touch Board Rack was designed by Jeffrey Court and manufactured in the United States. Currently there are over 900 display racks and over 120,000 Touch Boards showcased throughout the United States at tile dealers, distributors, Kitchen & Bath showrooms and Home Design Centers.
About Bostik, Inc.: Bostik is a leading global adhesive specialist in industrial manufacturing, construction and consumer markets. For more than a century, they have been developing innovative adhesive solutions that are smarter and more adaptive to the forces that shape people’s daily lives. From cradle to grave, from home to office, Bostik’s smart adhesives can be found everywhere. With annual sales in excess of $2 billion, the company employs 4,800 people and has a presence in more than 50 countries. Bostik is a company of Total. Visit bostik-us.com for more information.