Amy Wolf understands how a branding activation should be immersive and exciting. It’s the kind of thing that requires a creative mind across the print and the promo together.
“It was the actual creative design that was on the merchandise, which translated over to this really cool, compelling reason to engage our audience,” Wolf, CEO and founder of Evo3 Marketing (asi/190628), says. “Then that is what actually jumped us over to doing more print and then full engagement in terms of events. There is definitely a crossover between those two.”
One of the best examples she has of this marriage of print and promo came from a self-promo campaign for customers during the pandemic to showcase what they could do. It was Oktoberfest themed, and blended apparel, food and more. This presented an interesting set of problems when it came to staying on top of design applications across very different substrates.
“When you’re doing design and you’re putting it on a physical product like a hoodie or you’re putting it into a physical food item, like a cookie where the chocolate is molded, then you’re worried about which part of the chocolate is engraved and which is raised,” she says. “And then what does that look like in terms of a sticker? If you’re doing an event, you’re going to have a lot of print. That’s going to be either on backdrops, or there are going to be elements of that design that they’re going to disperse throughout.”
But it’s that challenge that Wolf enjoys in her job.
“I think that’s the most intriguing thing about the promotional products industry,” she says. “Going, like, what are your textures from that physical to print, which can either be a sticker or a note card or really large-scale print.”
Podcast Chapters
0:00: Introductions
1:29: Evo3’s beginning in creative design for print and expansion into promo
3:02: Oktoberfest-themed self-promo case study
5:34: The importance of physical texture, packaging and materials for dimensional design to engage customers’ senses
6:26: Building an employee celebration campaign for a tech company
9:29: Overcoming tight timelines by relying on trusted supplier relationships
11:35: Advice for distributors looking to expand into adjacent markets
Key Takeaways
• Evo3 Marketing (asi/190628) grew from creative design work for print customers into a business that combines print, promotional products and experiential marketing around unified brand activations.
• Successful print and promotional campaigns work best when every element – from signage and apparel to packaging and giveaways – supports a single creative concept.
• Physical qualities such as texture, materials and dimensionality play a major role in creating memorable customer experiences alongside printed graphics.
• A creative employee event featuring custom chocolate “gravestones,” printed packaging and interactive activities demonstrated how print and promo can transform a simple celebration into an engaging brand experience.
• Tight timelines are often the biggest challenge in complex campaigns, making strong supplier partnerships and fast creative collaboration essential.
• Large corporate projects require distributors to present ideas in a clear, easy-to-share format that multiple stakeholders can quickly evaluate.
• Distributors can grow by thinking beyond traditional print or promotional products, leveraging three-dimensional design, packaging expertise and industry partnerships to offer more complete marketing solutions.
