When I worked in the corporate world, I worked for a Fortune Global 500 company. When it came to sourcing brand merchandise, protecting the corporate image by mitigating damage from an unsafe promotional product was the only way to do business. At the time, at least in my mind, safety was pretty much a black or white issue. It was either safe, or it wasn’t. Since then, I’ve come to understand that product safety is more like a thermometer.
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What does this week’s settlement between the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the founder of Buckyballs mean for your business? What does it mean for the industry overall? And most importantly, what does it have to do with YoYos?
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In the year since the devastating factory collapse in Bangladesh killed more than 1,100 workers, efforts have been continuing to improve safety in the country’s garment industry. Although progress has undoubtedly been made, two recent reports highlight how divisions within and among some major brands may be hampering efforts to prevent another catastrophic collapse or fire.
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I wrote recently in this space about swag that went wrong for Goldman Sachs at a conference for women in tech. In fact, the comments on that post continue over in the Promo Marketing LinkedIn Group (If you’re on LinkedIn, and you aren’t already a member of this group, you should be—there are some very interesting contributors and some great discussions).
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We all love swag. From T-shirts to stress balls, free stuff is fun except when it goes awry. Goldman Sachs recently sponsored an event and provided the guests with a swag bag that resulted in some unanticipated results.
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When the discussion turns to delivering safe and compliant promotional products, and specifically how difficult it is to do, I usually go with this response: “You can either run toward the problem, or you can run away from it.”
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There’s no avoiding the fact that safe and compliant promo products come at a price. Rarely is a product that has been manufactured and shipped in a socially responsible and safe manner without a competitor in the marketplace at a lower price.
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For a word that means so many different things to different people, it makes sense to ensure that we’re all on the same page when it comes to our understanding of compliance. Particularly so when it comes to the manufacture and supply of promotional products, where the meaning and application of the term differs from company to company. And with the industry focus shifting more and more toward compliance, I thought that for this week’s column a review of some of the most frequently asked questions that we get about compliance might be helpful.
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“Thank you.” Powerful couple of words there, right? Thanks for holding the door. Thanks for introducing me. Thanks for helping with my dead battery. When someone does something for you, a sincere expression of gratitude is just the right thing to do.
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The reality of product failure for a supplier is not “if,” but “when,” so the ability to demonstrate the protocol for the process of a recall is just one of many components of the QCA accreditation process. But now, companies considering a product recall may be facing a legal minefield.
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