AUTUMN//WINTER 2017 7 NEWS Pilot FriXion celebrates 10 years Once in a while the writing instruments market witnesses the launch of a product that shakes things up, reinvigorating the market to become an iconic market leader within its category. Sometimes it even creates new categories. Think about how the Bic Cristal ballpoint and the Sharpie permanent marker have become household names and sell in enormous volumes worldwide. Stuart Barker, marketing manager at The Pilot Pen Company, shares some insight about these ‘must-stock’ consumer favourites:“Pilot also has such a track record over the years, with theV5 needle point rollerball and then the G2 retractable gel pen. For Pilot, such innovation comes out of its Japanese R&D team every decade or so. “In late 2006, Pilot launched an erasable pen called the FriXion, based on technology which Pilot originally developed decades earlier, but put on hold until they felt the time was right to introduce the world to their ‘thermo-sensitive’ erasable ink technology.” And the rest, as they say, is history. Just over a decade on from its launch, the Pilot FriXion has evolved from a fun, novel and practical erasable pen with a tattoo-print barrel for kids to a market-leading product range universally used and loved. Stuart continues:“The range has expanded from the original ‘FriXion Ball’ stick version to retractable, fine-line and felt-tip versions in a range of different ink colours. In recent years, other brands have seen the success of FriXion in the market and released their own thermo-sensitive ink pens to try and challenge Pilot. “Some would have thought that would decrease Pilot’s dominance in the erasable ink category, but 2017 has so far seen double-digit percentage sales volume growth of the Pilot FriXion range.We have also seen success in the off- shoot category of FriXion refills.They are a major seller with strong consumer demand.” www.pilotpen.co.uk Register at www.stationerymatters.news to receive our biweekly industry e-newsletter 72 73 19th Century Hard pencils (F and H) contain more clay and less graphite and so are lighter and scratchier, while soft pencils (B) contain more graphite than clay and so are darker and smudgier. The Pencil Perfect: The Untold Story of a Cultural Icon Part elegy and part historical insight into this humblest of writing instruments, The Pencil Perfect is ‘the tangible tale of the pencil’, authored by pencil connoisseur Caroline Weaver. Caroline is a self-confessed pencil obsessive, whose childhood fascination with the tool led her to open her own shop dedicated to the pencil, CW Pencil Enterprise in New York, and to write this book. Oriana Fenwick, an artist from Zimbabwe, contributes the illustrations – all drawn in pencil, of course. In tune with the current curiosity and enthusiasm for small, everyday analogue objects, The Pencil Perfect features profiles of pencil makers, anecdotes about famous writers’ favourite pencils, and essays revealing the surprising role pencils played in world history and culture.Weaver compares how the pencil looked then and now, and how its uses have evolved. Described by the publisher as an endearing and enlightening biography of an inanimate object, The Pencil Perfect is a book to read and to cherish. Be prepared for a sudden, irresistible urge to buy and use more pencils! The Pencil Perfect by Caroline Weaver was published in the UK in May by Gestalten. www.gestalten.com Illustration by Oriana Fenwick,from The Pencil Perfect, Copyright Gestalten 2017