Ray Rodriguez, managing partner of Multiline Marketing Group (MMG) and Jules Scheck, president of Jules Scheck Associates (JSA), Wayne, N.J., and managing partner of Multiline Marketing Group Northeast Division, recently announced the merger of the two companies and the supplier lines they represent in the Northeast. The merger became effective Aug. 1. Under the new organizational banner, JSA and MMG will continue representing industry suppliers in the northeast, including Spector & CO, Gordon Sinclair, Mid-Nite Snax, Pioneer Balloon, Compass Industries, Pedre and Headwear USA. Primary contact for distributors and suppliers will remain at JSA’s Wayne headquarters. When asked for a key benefit of the merger, Scheck
Read MoreVantage Apparel to Offer Laser Imprinting
Vantage Apparel, Avenel, N.J., has installed a Tajima SEIT Laser System, which specializes in appliqué letters and engraving on fleece and tees. The central beam is more than 20 meters long and can laser or engrave up to 24 garments in one pass. “It’s an absolute game changer,” said Ira Neaman, president. “By integrating both the embroidery and laser process, you eliminate the need for die cut letters and the resultant labor costs to set them down on the garment.” While currently in the testing phase, Neaman expects the roll-out of the new service to give customers a significant edge over their
Read MoreLeed’s Holiday Gift Guide Features New Brands
The 2007 “Brand the Holiday” catalog from Leed’s, Pittsburgh, includes the addition of Dockers, Alicia Klein and Day-Timer branded products. The catalog features 128 pages dedicated to new products in six categories: lifestyle gifts, business and travel, drinkware, executive and desktop, stationery and technology. The three new brands join Cutter & Buck, High Sierra, Laguiole, Wenger, Slazenger, Stanley and Garrity branded products, in addition to a wide selection of exclusive items. “This year’s holiday gift is a labor of love,” said Erin Lewis, manager of marketing promotion. “We know that our customers share suppliers’ catalogs with their customers, so we’ve taken the time to
Read MoreBodek and Rhodes, JERZEES Launch iPhone Giveaway
Bodek and Rhodes, Philadelphia, has teamed with JERZEES to help promote JERZEES fleece through the autumn selling season. In a sales incentive on its Web site, Bodek and Rhodes is offering a free Apple iPhone every weekday through the months of August and September to the account that places the largest daily online order for JERZEES fleece. “August and September is the time our customers start focusing on fall programs,” noted Mary Ellen Pahlka-Hudicka, director of marketing. “So to get the word out about all our JERZEES fleece, we wanted to promote it with a really hot item, and what’s hotter than the iPhone?”
Read MoreMaple Ridge Farms Joins the Fight Against Breast Cancer
Maple Ridge Farms, Mosinee, Wis., in conjunction with the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF), is offering six of its best-selling food gifts in a promotion titled, “Help in the Fight Against Breast Cancer—Give Twice the Gift this Year,” from which a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Foundation. The promotion became effective Aug. 1. All pre-selected food gifts are priced exactly as similar items in the 2007 Maple Ridge Farms Catalog. Each gift will include a distinctive card that features the NBCF logo and details about the promotion. Special gift boxes designed for the program feature a rich, pink ribbon and
Read MoreSilent No More
IN AMERICA’S NOT-so-distant past, there was a time of blissful and quiet ignorance. Some would say the 1950s was the climax before the fall of this silent era. It was a homogenous time, when women were expected to be housewives and men breadwinners for the family. An individual’s role in this world was unquestionable and very clearly defined. There was charity, but primarily the kind that conjures up images of 1940s era black-and-white films, a women’s auxiliary and a cause that was to be triumphed from a distance, while wearing crisp white gloves. There were a great number of taboo topics, and if they
Read MoreEat Your Heart Out
FOOD SEEMS TO be a favorite topic in circles of every kind. It is discussed in boardrooms across the country and in bedrooms late at night. After reporting to work following a fun-filled weekend, one of the fondest memories is usually the dining experiences one had, or wished to have. It is precisely for these reasons edibles are stand-out promotional products. What better way to get people talking about one’s brand, products or services than by serving up irresistible food items? Distributors who take heed will have more than their fair share of the profits available with edible promotions. “Everyone loves food and candy,” observed
Read MoreThe Picture of Hard Work
WHEN IT COMES to office attire, individual style is something to be celebrated. Depending on the employer, stiletto pumps, ruffled blouses and form-fitting pencil skirts are acceptable corporate wear. However, there is something special—dare to say, desirable—about those businesses that maintain a traditional, uniformed dress code in a modern corporate culture that encourages individuality. Employees in these kinds of businesses tend to carry a certain decorum and professionalism about them—if not innate, perhaps deriving from their uniforms and what they represent. Think travel, hospitality, fine dining and automobile sales. It’s as if a uniform has the power to transform the most unlikely employees into
Read MoreDesign in Mind
THE PROMOTIONAL PRODUCTS industry is a hungry beast. It feeds on new ideas, designs and innovations. It is insatiable. One product enters the scene, only to be greedily consumed and fed to end-users in an endless attempt to set a logo apart from the crowd. This is hard work for suppliers of promotional products who must continue to fulfill a demand for products possessing nebulous adjectives, such as “new,” “hot” and the oft-cited “unique.” Many suppliers are left waiting to hear of new inventions, which can then be added to a line, but a few suppliers are taking a different approach. This rebel bunch goes
Read More0807_FSG_Intro
hile many people have attributed changes in temperature, increases in the damages caused by sunlight, loss of species and destruction of various ecosystems to pollution and human interference, there is another almost entirely undocumented and unstudied change in the world that is having equally devastating consequences: The speed at which time passes is increasing. While a year still contains 365 days, and a day 24 hours, somehow it diminishes, and there is less time in time. It may seem an outrageous claim, but evidence exists and is visible to everyone. Case in point: The holiday season is almost here yet again, and most people
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