Reliable Marketing Services, co-owned by John Doering and Larry Stock, was recognized by Wayland, Massachusetts-based iPROMOTEu as being the company’s top affiliate in terms of total annual sales in 2008.
Read MoreLocation: Las Vegas
TSC Apparel Gambles with New Las Vegas Promotion
Cincinnati-based TSC Apparel announced its 2009 promotion, the Wildcard Advantage. TSC Apparel, along with mill sponsors, Anvil Knitwear, New York and Gildan, Montreal, will send 10 winners and guests to the January 2010 PPAI Las Vegas show.
Read MoreLeed’s Garners High Industry Honors
New Kensington, Pennsylvania-based Leed’s, a member of Polyconcept North America, accepted awards in January from the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI), based in Austin, Texas, the Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI), based in Trevose, Pa.; and Promotional Products Professionals of Canada (PPPC), based in Saint-Laurent, Québec. In addition, Leed’s received awards from leading distributors Jack Nadel International of Los Angeles, the multilocation PeerNet Group and San Jose, California-based Brandvia. Several sales and service representatives from Leed’s also received honors from distributors and associations.
Read MoreBoy, Are My Arms Tired
Just got back from ASI Orlando and I’m grudgingly accepting that it is indeed still winter. The show was great, and unlike last year (when global warming played a nasty little trick on us and made it 40 degrees), the weather was just gorgeous.
It was a nice way to ease back into the traveling whirlwind that is January and February—my feet are now primed and ready for PPAI next week, that’s for sure. I’m still a little foggy from the lack of weekend (you can’t have everything, I guess), so I’m a little short on repartee. I hope you understand.
Instead, let
Guilt Trip
We travel a lot as an industry, I’ve come to learn. And being that I just finished my first-ever promotional products trade-show cycle, I feel a little trepidation at the thought of starting all over come January. I just booked my flights for ASI Orlando and I’m tired already.
I realize making face-to-face connections is invaluable, particularly with you party animals, and maybe that alone is worth the price of admission (flights, booths/accoutrement, shipping, client dinners, etc.). But in terms of ROI, at what point do they stop being valuable and start becoming “same old, same old”? How many times a year do
Manifest Destiny
IT’S HARD NOT to detect a sense of pride in the tone of business owners who manufacture domestically. The whole thing can be likened to a proud father announcing the birth of his firstborn son. At this year’s PPAI Expo in Las Vegas, this writer marveled at the countless booths that donned the “Made in the USA” designation. From household items constructed of plastic derived from U.S.-grown corn to U.S.-manufactured T-shirts decorated with crystals, the selections were endless. Then, it suddenly made sense—despite all the hype of overseas manufacturing purported to being the wave of the future, American manufacturing continues to thrive in
Read MoreNew Video From Carrigar and Humphery Line
After spending many hours filming at the recent Orlando, Las Vegas and Dallas trade shows, the first two new Promo Marketing videos are up and ready for viewing. Take a minute to hear sales director Gary Garrison talk about the new line of environmental bags at Carrigar and then click on the Humphery Line video to hear owner and president Mel Ellis talk about the new bio-degradable plastics line. For information on Carrigar, visit www.carrigar.com and for information on Humphery Line, visit www.humpheryline.com
Read MoreIT’S NOT THAT EASY BEING GREEN
T’S NOT THAT easy being green. When Icelandic musician, Bragi Thor Valsson penned this lyric decades ago—which later became famous in the 1970’s by everybody’s favorite frog, Kermit—he couldn’t have known how prophetic the words would one day prove to be. Aside from providing a lovable children’s puppet with a cathartic means by which to come to terms with his self image, the lyric has, for this writer, come to epitomize the largely unspoken sentiment felt by much of the industry—What exactly does it mean to “go green?” For many suppliers, such as Fenton, Missouri-based QuickPoint, going green has to do with the incorporation,
Read MoreVisstun Launches Hot Cup Product Line
Las Vegas-based Visstun announced the launch of its new line of paper cups for hot beverages with a low minimum of 250 pieces and the 11-day turnaround on a four-color process. Currently, the line consists of a 12-oz. cup and a white, cappuccino-style lid with other sizes becoming available in the future. Visstun feels the product is appropriate for business meetings and provides a more economical alternative to our plastic cups for those promotions that do not require the cup to be reusable. In addition, Visstun announced their reusable plastic cups, launched in June of 2007, have passed the lead and
Read MoreRandom Ramblings
This blog is being written LIVE from the PPAI Expo in Las Vegas!
There’s so much to blog about, like the “Miss America” actresses that hoover outside the exhibit entrances (complete with red, slinky evening gowns and bejeweled crowns) directing conventioneers to a prominent apparel supplier’s booth to redeem a free shirt or the (little, old) lady that guards usage of the computers in the Internet Cafe like an angry hawk. Ahhh, sorry readers, but I’ve opted to take the high road and will instead highlight a selection of products in the famed New Product Pavilion. Perhaps, this is a topic more befitting of