Panini has released a video on its blog, The Knight's Lance, that just may be the smartest move ever made by a card company, and might be one of the most reassuring videos about a company you'll ever watch. Sounds like hyperbole, but this is no exaggeration.
The video is straight forward and simple in its concept. Tracy Hackler walks into a Quality Control session for Panini 2010 Certified Football cards, being conducted by Panini America's Football brand manager, Carlos Torrez and Product Development Director, Ben Ecklar. But this is not just the two of them going over card designs, or checking individual cards, sent from the factory, for manufacturing defects. They are sitting in a conference room busting open a case of product AFTER its already been fully packaged and is ready to go to market.
If you've been collecting long enough, odds dictate that you will open a box that is short a hit or contains dinged cards. For some of us lately, it happens a little too often. To point where you start to think "Is anyone checking these boxes? Do they even care?"
As a customer, you expect a company to do Quality Control checks all the way through the manufacturing process, but to see that Quality Control is still being conducted right at the point of customer delivery, essentially role playing the experience of a collector busting open a box, really gives you the sense that for Panini, ensuring their cards arrive to the customer in good condition and with the correct number of hits is AS important as the design of the cards.
Do I think that every box coming from Panini will now be perfect? Of course not. Mistakes will happen even when a company is diligent. But it is clear from this video that Panini does care and they are putting forth as much effort as can be reasonably expected of a company, if not more, to ensure that we receive a quality product. To witness this on video, instead of being given the standard company PR line that they care about their customers, makes you feel completely confident in your purchase and that Panini truly stands behind what they sell. That's the brilliance of this simple and straight forward video. As with all things, transparency leads to confidence.
To see this video for yourself, use this link to visit their blog. The video is just after the gallery.
I'm not going to hold my breath about seeing a video from Topps anytime soon.
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