Web firm goes traditional

The company, which prints and sells customized business cards, brochures, and calendars over the Internet, will spend $200 million on advertising this year to expand its online branding into television, radio, and print.

To make the transition from Internet advertiser to a traditional media buyer, Vistaprint is expected to say today that it has hired Don LeBlanc, a former Staples Inc. marketing executive who helped create the ubiquitous “That was easy!’’ campaign.

As its new chief marketing officer, LeBlanc, 42, will be charged with engineering the same sort of memorable identity for Vistaprint and selling it to millions of customers, primarily small businesses.

“We need to be as smart about broadcast as we are about e-mail and search and display,’’ LeBlanc said. Traditional media will be the key, he said.

One of LeBlanc’s first goals will be to help make Vistaprint better known.

Vistaprint began in 1994 as a more traditional company: a direct marketing catalog produced from a small apartment in France. Five years later, it was conducting business on the Internet. The company’s marketing went viral before the term was well known — by offering free business cards to people the company hoped would then become repeat customers by purchasing other products.

Through the dot-com bust, which almost toppled Vistaprint when venture capital dried up, into recent years, the company relied on its Web presence to build business. As recently as 2005, it was spending a relatively modest $32.7 million on advertising.

And even though Vistaprint now has 2,700 employees around the world — including 500 in Lexington — and generates annual revenue of $670 million, it remains a low-visibility brand among consumers.

That’s why it’s diving into television, radio, and direct mail — essentials of old-fashioned, pre-Internet advertising.

“Vistaprint started as an online business,’’ said LeBlanc, sitting in his new offices in advance of the announcement of his arrival. “Now we are looking to take them into other places where they haven’t played in the past.’’

Vistaprint was moving in that direction before it brought LeBlanc on board. In 2009, it hired an advertising agency for the first time. Arnold Worldwide of Boston created two national television spots with the tagline “Make an impression.’’

One commercial introduced an older man with a conservative appearance. The camera pulled back to reveal that he was actually “DJ Russ,’’ spinning music in a nightclub. Vistaprint’s message: “Get the right business card — first impressions are always good.’’

LeBlanc said future advertising will work off that theme, but he declined to elaborate.

Vistaprint is doing the reverse of what most brick-and-mortar companies do, said Geoff Klapisch, an advertising and media professor at Boston University. It is using traditional media to reach the next level of promotion after years of chasing customers through the Web and social media.

“They’ve inverted the pyramid, in terms of their approach,’’ Klapisch said. “By taking the more traditional media route, they are looking to cast a much wider net to capture market share, something that traditional media can do very effectively and very quickly.’’

Johnny Diaz can be reached at jodiaz@globe.com.