Company is now Crayola

The name change will help the company's marketing efforts.
EASTON, Pa. (AP) -- As CEO of the nation's best-known crayon maker, Mark Schwab is tickled pink -- or is that magenta? -- about Binney & amp; Smith's decision to take the name of its iconic product, Crayola.
The name change, effective Jan. 1, was celebrated Thursday as Schwab unveiled a new sign at the company's headquarters plant 60 miles north of Philadelphia, where 13.5 million crayons are churned out every day.
Because Crayola is one of the nation's most recognized brands, it made sense from a marketing standpoint to drop the comparatively obscure Binney & amp; Smith name, Schwab said.
"What it really helps us do is be recognized for who we are," he said. "We're known as Crayola. That's the brand that children, moms, parents and teachers really associate us with."
Crayola was launched more than a century ago by cousins Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith, who started out making red oxide pigments for barn paint, carbon for black automobile tires and slate pencils for schools.
They soon identified a market for affordable wax crayons and in 1903, Binney & amp; Smith sold the first box of eight for a nickel.
Source of name
Alice Binney, Edwin's wife, coined the Crayola name by joining the French word for chalk, "craie," and "ola," short for "oleaginous," or oily, because crayons are made from petroleum-based wax.
Binney's great-granddaughter, Sally Putnam Chapman, said her ancestor wouldn't have minded the loss of the Binney & amp; Smith name.
"Edwin Binney wanted to further his company and expand it, and I think he would have agreed the best way to do it is to switch over and let it become Crayola," said Chapman, 69, of Fort Pierce, Fla., whose father was on the company board of directors and who grew up with "stacks" of Crayola products.
James Maskulka, a marketing professor at Lehigh University, said the changeover to Crayola LLC allows the company to streamline and simplify its marketing.
"People don't connect with Binney & amp; Smith, they connect with Crayola," he said. "In branding, simplicity is the key. People understand Crayola, and that's why they're doing it."
Binney & amp; Smith became a subsidiary of privately owned Hallmark Cards Inc. of Kansas City, Mo., in 1984.
Despite ever-increasing competition from video games, talking dolls, kid-proof digital cameras and other high-tech toys, Schwab said the company recorded its highest sales ever in 2006. Although Crayola does not divulge profits, he said revenues grew between 13 and 19 percent to more than 500 million last year.
How Crayola survived
Innovations to Crayola's venerable crayons, markers and pencils -- they now come in washable, twistable, erasable and scented varieties -- as well as popular new products such as Color Wonder and Color Explosion have helped the company keep pace. The company also makes Silly Putty.
"Children have a lot of choices," he said. "We are seeing our products not only doing well at retail, but we're hearing back from the consumer. They're having fun."
While other industries have become almost completely mechanized, crayon making continues to be labor intensive.
Inside the plant Thursday, Becky Snyder worked at a 50-year-old labeling machine, scooping up as many as 300 crayons at a time and quickly scanning them for defects before depositing them in a plain brown box for delivery to the packaging department. Chipped or cracked crayons are removed and melted down into another batch.
"This is a job that still needs a personal touch," said Snyder, 54, whose headband, T-shirt and socks perfectly matched the red-violet shade of the crayons she was inspecting.