Fans of NBC hit comedy "The Office" are already familiar with fictional paper company Dunder Mifflin.
Now, Staples-owned Quill.com will use the Dunder Mifflin brand name for copy paper under a licensing agreement with NBC Universal, the reported.
(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)
The Dunder Mifflin paper packages will feature slogans that fans of the series will recognize, including "Our motto is, Quabity First" and "Get Your Scrant on.”
Financial details of this two-year so-called "reverse product placement" deal weren’t disclosed. But the Journal said as part of the deal, Comcast-controlled NBC Universal would get about 6 percent of the revenue from Dunder Mifflin paper sales. If sales targets are met, the licensing deal can be extended.
The paper brand will be priced largely above private-label copy paper, the Journal said.
Copy-paper sales are down amid the growing use of email and PDFs, and consumers often choose based on the lowest price, the Journal said. The new marketing effort is using a brand from a beloved TV series in an effort to draw attention and combat the "race to the bottom in the paper business." Quill's chief marketing officer Sergio Pereira told the paper.
Other deals that have seen companies bring products and brands featured in films and TV shows and other media to life include Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, a candy featured in the Harry Potter series, and Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurants, based on "Forrest Gump."