Beth Sagvold happened upon us by accident.

Sort of.

The Creative Director at Sentry Data Systems, Inc. wanted to do something unique - a piece made entirely of paper - for an upcoming marketing campaign and took to the Internet to see if anyone out there could make her vision come to life.

“I looked around, did some Googling and found Structural Graphics,” she said. “When I looked a little deeper, I found that you have this separate business that would allow us to make a similar piece, but at a much lower cost.”

Sentry Data Systems holds two large trade shows a year and, with one approaching, Sagvold said she was looking for a clever way to let customers know the date, their booth location and, essentially, what they could expect from the event.

“In the past, we’ve typically done a simple postcard and knew we wanted to do something a little different,” she said. “At the same time, we were also in the process of revamping our messaging to ‘Expect more with Sentry’. When we saw this piece, we thought this was a really cool way to reveal this message because you’re always getting more.”

The piece she’s referring to is called The Flapper®. It’s a unique piece that folds into itself allowing for multiple panels to showcase graphics and brand messaging. Not only can it be customized on RedPaperPlane.com, but it also ships flat and can be shipped in a transparent sleeve addressed to the recipient.

“Our prospective customers are hospitals, so they don’t usually get something like this,” Sagvold said. “[The Flapper] is something you play with; my kids, the people in the office. You just can’t stop playing with it,” Sagvold said.

Overall, the piece was very well received and turned out exactly how the Sentry team envisioned it would. So good, in fact, that they’re planning to use the same Flappers for their winter trade show.

“I was really excited about your business model: cool pieces that are out of the ordinary that are cost-effective,” Sagvold said. “That’s the kicker right there. It’s really hard to find a piece that cuts through the clutter that doesn’t break the bank.”