Blooms Blossom at Harris Ideas

ATLANTA Harris Ideas has been tapped by Fantasy Bouquets to develop a corporate image campaign that promotes the flower importer’s products as a cut above the rest.

According to Stan Harris, founder and president of Miami-based Harris Ideas, the business of marketing perishable commodities, such as cut flowers, is largely based on price. Fantasy Bouquets and other flower importers traditionally would call mass marketers and major supermarket and offer their product. “Sales would depend upon which importer had the cheapest prices,” Harris said.

Fantasy Bouquets was looking to “break out of the commodity clutter,” said company president Frank Layne. “We want to change the way people look at buying flowers at mass retail,” he added.

The company’s 23,000-square-foot headquarters in Miami is supported by flower farms in Columbia and Ecuador. Its customers are grocery chains such as Winn/Dixie, Giant Food Markets and Bilo. Layne said the firm’s patented arrangements, such as its Valentine’s Day vase with roses and a heart-shaped box of chocolates, and affordable bouquets, already double wrapped in water-filled vases, are customer favorites.

In early July, Harris Ideas will help launch two new Fantasy Bouquets products, said Layne. The 12-month program will include guerilla and word-of-mouth marketing as well as some national television, radio, print and outdoor ads, he said.

Harris said campaign spending would be “well into seven figures.”

The client also has selected Acosta of Jacksonville, Fla., to manage the sales and distribution of its products.