It wasn’t very long ago, working as a promotional products end-user client that I thought of product safety as pretty much a black and white issue. Products were either safe, or they weren’t. If you’re sourcing and buying promotional products, and keeping up with the increasing discussion and awareness of product safety and compliance in our industry, you likely know that’s not the case.
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Commissioners of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, old and new, are in print this week. While style and subject are in stark contrast, both are worth a read.
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There is much to-do about magnets lately. We wrote previously about the lawsuit filed by the CPSC against Craig Zucker, CEO of Maxfield and Oberton, the manufacturer of Buckyballs. We then heard from Scott Wolfson, director of communications for the CPSC, who offered some observations as well as some clarifications.
Read MoreJason Vorhees. Freddy Krueger. Michael Myers. Three classic horror movie villains that can send shivers down the spine with the mere mention of their names. But nothing strikes fear in the heart of product managers everywhere more than one thing: Recall.
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Recently the CPSC took the first steps in more than a decade toward banning a type of product, but that is only one of many actions the commission has taken against businesses recently.
Read MoreIn the four years since the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) was signed into law, the promotional products industry has struggled mightily to figure out how to apply it to what we do every day. Nothing has come easily. Perhaps because most promotional products don’t start out as children’s products and perhaps because the “toys” we sell are mostly for adults, there always seems to be a “yes, but” when we try to understand CPSIA in the context of the world we live in.
Read MoreIf attendance at ICPHSO’s 2012 Annual Meeting and Training Symposium is any indication, then the promotional products industry should feel proud of the strides it is making in product safety awareness.
Read MoreJust for a moment, try to imagine that a promotional product you sold to your largest customer has suddenly become the subject of a government recall.
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I can vividly remember the day Pearl Jam’s first album was released, the first time I heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and can with 100 percent certainty recall what I was wearing—flannel. Yes, that ultra soft, plaid delicacy that I also vividly remember donating when I could no longer even glance at it in my closet.
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