Brendan Menapace, Author at Print & Promo Marketing

Survey Indicates These Major Industries Are Increasing Their Marketing Budgets

In a Merkle survey of industries such as health care, retail, finance, tech and nonprofit, 52 percent of respondents overall said they’ve increased their marketing spend over the last few months. For promotional distributors, this may be an indicator of the verticals that are able to spend some money again…

Apple Accused of Sourcing Employee Uniforms From Factories Connected to Forced Labor

Apple is facing criticism after shipping records revealed that it sourced apparel from a Chinese company facing U.S. sanctions for using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. The apparel was most likely uniforms for Apple Store employees. The timing is especially poor, as Apple CEO Tim Cook recently told Congress that he would not tolerate…

HPG this week announced the launch of Batch & Bodega, a new brand that brings the supplier into the food gift category, bundling exclusive edible products from across the country with popular hard goods from HPG’s catalog to create unique kits. Customization is a huge part of these “batches,” and customers can choose design elements like high-end retail packaging and handwritten notecards for added personal detail…

FDA Dangerous Hand Sanitizer List Tops 135, Adds Another U.S. Manufacturer

The FDA’s constantly-updating list of potentially harmful hand sanitizers has now risen to more than 135 products. Another U.S.-based manufacturer has now joined the list, too, with Dallas’s Santa Cruz Biotechnology initiating a voluntary recall. Georgia-based SG24 LLC also had to recall its SkinGuard24 All-Day Hand Sanitizer after it was labeled to contain methanol…

The National Museum of American Jewish History hit the jackpot when President Trump accidentally pronounced “Yosemite” as “Yo Semite.” The museum had been selling a shirt with that text on it since 2011, and sold thousands immediately after the president’s mistake went viral, generating $30,000 in a little over a day…

Los Angeles Apparel has responded to a subpoena from the city of Los Angeles looking to enforce compliance rules now that Los Angeles Apparel has reopened. The apparel company, founded by American Apparel founder and former CEO Dov Charney, was in the media spotlight after more than 300 workers in the company’s manufacturing facilities tested…

What Does a World Without College Football Look Like for Small Town Merchandisers?

College sports took a huge hit yesterday when the Big 10 conference announced that it would not be playing a single down of football this upcoming season. It’s not the first conference to do so, but with schools like Penn State, Michigan and Purdue, it’s a huge move for college sports and, by extension, the companies who depend on selling merchandise…

Teespring, the custom merchandise platform, has been growing in both capabilities and popularity, but one logo will be absent from its site. In a controversial move, Teespring announced that it would remove all Antifa-related merchandise from the platform pending review of the content…

Single-Use Face Masks Could Be the Next Major Ocean Pollutant

Environmental experts worry that improperly disposed single-use face masks could make the issue of ocean pollution worse. More face masks are popping up in waterways across the world as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread and people take precautions to protect themselves and others…

Some Distilleries That Pivoted to Hand Sanitizer Are Now Struggling to Sell It

For months after the start of the pandemic, hand sanitizer was in short supply. In response, many alcoholic beverage distilleries stepped up to make it. And they made a lot of it. They made so much that, with the hand sanitizer supply starting to catch up and prices per gallon dropping, they now have more than they know what to do with…