The police department in Apex, NC, wanted to connect with the community it serves. Promotional Partners (asi/397983) answered the call.

Police Chief Jason Armstrong presented a concept to Officer Victoria Carter: a book about the Apex police officers. It was a great idea, says Carter, but a broad one. As Carter recalls, the instructions were, “I want something the kids are going to like. Make it happen.”

When Carter got the assignment, she knew exactly who to ask. Olivia Scott, president and owner of Promotional Partners and a former art teacher who started her North Carolina distributorship with her husband in 2007, has had a years-lasting relationship with the Apex Police Department. “A lot of what she does goes unnoticed, a lot of effort she puts into making sure that we’re happy,” Carter says of Scott’s work ethic. Despite getting offers for cheaper service from other businesses, the department has stayed loyal. “It’s one of those relationships where if it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” says Carter.

In creating Who’s Behind the Badge, Promotional Partners Graphic Designer Isabel Impink says she and Scott were determined to get as creative as possible while keeping the officers and Chief Armstrong satisfied. After sifting through strategies, the team decided to rely on Impink’s artistry for the design. She took images submitted by each of the officers, hand drew each officer, then used her graphic design skills to create print-ready illustrations and formatted the content describing the officers’ hobbies and personal lives.

“It’s what a promotional product is supposed to do. It’s allowing you to do something that really hits on a meaning and a purpose.”Olivia Scott, Promotional Partners (asi/397983)

The biggest challenge was obtaining and sifting through the personal details of the Apex officers – less a mountain and more an anthill. Police are generally protective of their private lives, Carter and Scott say, and some were initially unwilling to get creative with their responses. In those situations, “Officer Vic” went to work with loving tenacity.

Carter lists how she posed the task to the police officers: “Describe something about yourself, or I’ll write something; I can contact your wife for a picture of you; I could sneak a picture of you, but we’re going to make this happen.”

“That’s probably how we got 75% of the officers in the book,” Carter notes.

As they sewed a cohesive storyline together, Impink says she had to maintain focus on the end product: “How many pages was this going to be? How many officers? It was narrowing down these details that we needed to make this work.”

After smoothing out the kinks over four months of work, Scott called upon Lippman Printing to produce the picture book when it was finalized and approved. In total, they printed 3,000 copies due to its resounding popularity. “The first time we took them to an event, we didn’t think we were going to pass out that many – and we ran out,” Carter says. “I was so excited to hop in my car and go back to the office and get more.”

The book’s success drew the attention of the Shaker Heights Police Department, which had its own version made. Local and national media caught on; the books were featured on Good Morning America.

Children could get their books signed by the officers featured and some made it a mission to get every signature. Pictures of the officers playing guitar or fulfilling their police duties gave them personalities, made them relatable and more accessible: “It’s humanizing the aspects of the role they’ve chosen to fulfill in their career,” says Scott, a 2023 ASI Media Salesperson of the Year finalist.

The reach of the project’s impact didn’t end at the children who received the book. It helped the officers too. The experience of having kids running up to them and asking for an autograph reminded Carter of her passion for police work and love for her community.

“It’s what a promotional product is supposed to do,” Scott says. “It’s making the impact ... it’s allowing you to do something that really hits on a meaning and a purpose.” – Phineas Hogan

It can be hard to keep big news under wraps. Even if you’re sworn to secrecy, leaks sometimes happen. But have you ever considered hiding your big news in a cake? That’s how Consolidated Marketing Services and Progressive Promotions sat on their rebrand as Dryvve (asi/154912) and allowed its customers to celebrate once the time was right.

About 500 of the newly combined distributor’s customers received a chocolate smash cake with a branded gavel and QR code. The cake came in a branded box that read “Do Not Open Until 1/22/24,” and the cake itself had a design of a scientist pouring two beakers with the Progressive Promotions and Consolidated Marketing Services logos together.

“It was one of those things where we wanted to articulate two companies coming together to form a completely new entity,” says Erica Smotrycz, director of merchandising for Dryvve. “It’s basically designed like a much larger jewelry box – a chocolate jewelry box.”

When the cake was smashed on the appropriate date, out came little chocolate buttons that incorporated an orange dot in the Dryvve logo.

“We felt like this was the ideal way to unveil our new agency and capabilities, and that allowed our clients to be an integral part of the announcement.”Shari Hoffman, Dryvve (asi/154912)

“We thought, ‘How interesting would that be to actually brand the chocolates with our company name,’” Smotrycz says.

The distributor tasked its in-house graphic design team to create the scientist imagery and worked with Counselor Top 40 supplier NC Custom (asi/44900) to lay everything out on both the branded box and the top of the cake.

“The box itself was wrapped in caution tape in a print style, so it was like, ‘Caution, don’t open until our launch date,’” Smotrycz says. “It was just levels and levels of artistic design.”

It was the multipronged approach to branding that the Dryvve team liked so much about the product. Each piece was a branding experience in itself: the box, the cake, the mallet and the pieces inside. Each component worked together to create a memorable experience beyond just a flier or an impersonal email announcing the rebrand to clients. It reminded them how creative the distributor can be for a campaign.

“From a marketing standpoint,” says Shari Hoffman, director of marketing for Dryvve, “our goal was to create this gifting experience that began with mystery and progressed to anticipation, and culminated in excitement with the customers unboxing the cake and smashing the cake, revealing these logo-adorned candies that led to a final surprise and delight. We felt like this was the ideal way to unveil our new agency and capabilities, and that allowed our clients to be an integral part of the announcement.”

The distributors’ customers immediately started sharing pictures on social media, which spread the word even more. And though the combined companies (Consolidated Marketed Services had purchased Progressive Promotions in 2021) are a sizable entry into the promo space with $20 million in revenue, the self-promo and subsequent attention helped distinguish the woman-owned company as a creative leader.

“I don’t think our clients previously had really thought of us as a full-service agency,” says Charleen Smotrycz, president of Dryvve. “And so we benefitted from that since the launch, with being asked to participate in larger programs with our clients – things that require the creative chops, if you will, to be able to really unlock a whole section of business that we hadn’t had previously.” – Brendan Menapace

SugarSpot’s latest campaign success sure was sweet.

To help launch a selection of new SugarSpot products, Counselor Top 40 supplier HPG (asi/61966) reimagined the board game classic Candy Land into its own version: “Brandy Land.” SugarSpot is an HPG line focused on branded candy.

“We drew inspiration from that nostalgic feeling of enjoying candy as a kid,” says SugarSpot Brand Manager Lily Engel. “I mean, that’s kind of the allure of candy – it’s sweet, it’s fun, it’s bright and colorful.”

The finished product was a fully playable board game that featured both nods to the promo industry and well-placed advertisements for some of the brand’s most popular candy products. Players could meander through “Promo Park” and “Custom Campground,” among other themed locations, as they drew cards to move them around the board. (And, yes, the HPG team did play a few rounds during product development meetings.)

SugarSpot packaged its “Brandy Land” sets into gift boxes, along with a modified version of the line’s new Oh So Sweet gift set, and sent the boxes to 50 distributor partners and influencers in the industry. The supplier also created a promotional video.

The Oh So Sweet gift set typically includes nine 7-ounce jars of candy, with an iridescent gift box and customizable labels for the jars. Selecting that particular product to feature in this campaign was intentional – and not just because it was new, says HPG’s Vice President of Marketing Ben Pawsey. It also offered the most amount of space for candy, from peach rings to prosecco gummy bears.

“Every time we’ve done something creative like this, customers have immediately said ‘Can I buy this?’” Pawsey notes. “Every single time – even if it’s never really a primary item. So we knew it had to be a product, and of all of our kits, this one was the most conducive to doing a game.”

And customers did jump on the product – and the brand – after the creative campaign. Website traffic for the SugarSpot site increased almost 70% after the launch, and SugarSpot’s revenue has almost doubled year over year. At least 10 distributors who received the game posted videos on social media highlighting the campaign, ultimately resulting in more than 3,000 impressions when combined with internal content.

“We drew inspiration from that nostalgic feeling of enjoying candy as a kid.”Lily Engel, HPG (asi/61966)

Engel and Pawsey say they were thrilled to see recipients enthusiastic about and engaged with the game, especially in social media posts. One video from Counselor Top 40 distributor Proforma (asi/300094) showed the marketing team unboxing the kit and playing a competitive round of Brandy Land – while, of course, snacking on the goodies in the gift set.

“That’s one of the benefits of candy as a promo item,” Pawsey says. “It gets teams excited – who doesn’t want to check out a big box of candy?”

But this campaign wasn’t just about promoting new products or the gift set – it also played a key role in kicking off SugarSpot’s rebrand.

When the line launched at HPG in 2022, it was primarily a chocolate-focused brand, with sleek, mainly black and gold branding. But Pawsey kept getting requests from customers for colors to match their clients’ branding, which HPG couldn’t do with the product stock they had.

Coupled with the need to shift to a lower price point during the industry’s recovery from the pandemic, rebranding to focus more on gummies and hard candy just made sense. Moving forward, SugarSpot will continue to introduce more candies and colors, with a particular focus on matching candy to corporate colors.

“I think this really helped spark everyone’s interest and get SugarSpot top of mind,” Engel says. “The brand has grown a ton, and I would attribute this to one of those big factors as to why.” – Hannah Rosenberger

Workplace dynamics have changed dramatically in the last several years, and many businesses continue to operate on a hybrid or remote working model for employees. While this shift in office structure is certainly embraced by many, it does pose challenges, including the ability for employees to feel part of a cohesive team when they’re splitting time between home offices and headquarters.

Employers are tasked with finding genuine and effective ways to connect with their teams. If you ask Amber George, CEO and founder of Boundless Collection in Dallas – a part of Counselor Top 40 distributor Boundless (asi/143717) – she’ll tell you: Connection and belonging happens right from the start, and both can be supported with the smart use of promotional items.

Boundless Collection is no stranger to human resource campaigns, specializing in onboarding kits, employee retention, incentives, awards and recognition. To showcase these capabilities, the company launched a video commercial highlighting the use of promotional products in an onboarding process. Though the video was scripted, the products were real – created for Rev.com, an online transcription service with more than 4,000 employees worldwide.

The video, titled “The First Day,” follows a young woman on her first day of work. Visibly nervous, she gets out of her car and shuffles into an elevator with a group of men who don’t engage with her when she tries to crack a joke. She receives a text from her mom (“Good luck on your first day of work!”) and her shoulders relax. Then, entering her new office space, she opens the colorful box on her desk – complete with a welcome note and a branded tumbler, hat, shirt and notebook. She meets her new boss, who welcomes her with a smile and an outstretched hand.

To spread this campaign, Boundless Collection shared the video on social channels and its website, and also produced a custom video card mailer that was shipped to 50 current and potential prospects. “Along with tons of positive feedback about the relatability of the video, we scored three onboarding programs and two years of service programs,” George says. “We also picked up a new account and secured a $90,000 order from them – branded bags, towels, speakers and hats that helped introduce the company’s new core values to employees at six different office locations across the country.”

The campaign, which took three months and $5,000 to create, also opened conversations with HR departments within current clients where previously there was no buying relationship. “Retention is a big challenge in the workplace now, and we’ve shown how promo items can play a role in making new employees feel welcomed and excited during the oftentimes emotional transition to a new company,” says George. “Gifting wearables makes them immediate brand ambassadors, drinkware is popular for everyday use, and a notebook is a practical item for a new role.”

“Retention is a big challenge in the workplace now, and we’ve shown how promo items can play a role in making new employees feel welcomed and excited.”Amber George, Boundless Collection (asi/143717)

The campaign was a measurable success, and Boundless Collection continues to highlight the video on the Human Resources Services page of its website, where it still generates inquiries and new business from HR departments looking for product-driven strategies to attract and retain great employees.

But even more than the financial ROI, George surmises that it’s the intangible effects of “The First Day” that continue to create ripples. “This video touches on our humanity, our shared experience of being nervous on the first day of work, of getting support from someone you love, and of the deep need to feel acknowledged and celebrated,” she says. “We can all relate to that, and that’s what makes this video so powerful.” – Andraya Vantrease

Can a reusable water bottle change a life?

That’s a question MetLife answered with a year-end gift to 4,300 of its employees. The financial services and insurance provider worked with Counselor Top 40 distributor BAMKO (asi/131431) to put together an order of custom drinkware from RIPL Goods (asi/82503) last year.

Each water bottle provides one full day of employment for someone in Bali, Indonesia, collecting plastic from beaches and helping to lift them and their family out of poverty, according to RIPL.

All told, the MetLife campaign equates to 11 years’ worth of employment for Indonesian workers, which will lead to the prevention of an estimated 4.3 million plastic bottles – the equivalent of 15,000 full garbage bags – from entering the ocean. Plus, BAMKO worked with one of its partners to have a tree planted for each of the 4,300 water bottles given out, furthering the impact of the gift.

That was the whole point of the project, says Dan Lunoe, a business development executive with BAMKO, who adds that despite being a promotional products company, he and his colleagues “try to focus more on processes than products.”

Each RIPL bottle was swaddled in a branded burlap bag and packaged in a tube made of recycled cardboard. A prominent QR code on the top of the packaging encouraged the recipient to “Scan here to see the change your gift has made.” Scanning the code leads to a photo-heavy landing page that spells out RIPL’s mission to help people in coastal communities deal with the effects of plastic pollution and quantifies the impact MetLife’s gift will have.

“By employing people to collect plastic, we’re turning waste into a resource, providing a new source of income and empowering them to protect their home,” according to the site. “When we focus our efforts on creating systemic change – like employment and ongoing recycling programs – the impact extends far beyond the initial action, creating a ripple effect of positive change.”

The QR code and associated custom website “reinforces that the most important part of this is the impact, not the gift,” Lunoe says.

That’s not to say the products themselves were subpar; to the contrary, RIPL has made it a point to provide a premium product to help justify the cost of its social and environmental efforts. The stainless-steel, double-walled drinkware with a PMS-matched tactile silicon matte finish is a useful and attractive item that most employees would be happy to receive, and even the burlap bag can be reused after delivery, Lunoe says.

“We’re really trying to change the conversation from what gift are we going to get to what impact are we going to make?”Dan Lunoe, BAMKO (asi/131431)

But supporting environmental and social causes is the entire reason RIPL exists, says Leo Bellis-Jones, an Australia-based ocean activist and founder of RIPL Goods. “It’s not an afterthought,” he adds. “The thought pattern we started with was how can we have an impact? And then we backtracked from there to selling these products in promo. It went the other way around than it does for a lot of companies.”

Bellis-Jones notes that BAMKO’s campaign with MetLife was the largest promo order his young company had received at the time. MetLife, he adds, had a fixed budget that was a bit lower than what RIPL would normally sell its products for. “We reduced our margin by not an insignificant amount because it was still massively worth it for the impact program,” he says.

In its last financial year, RIPL donated more than 30% of its total revenue to its charitable partners, Bellis-Jones says.

The MetLife campaign was so well-received, Lunoe says, that BAMKO has been tasked with doing another year-end gift for the company, following a similar sustainability-focused theme.

“We’re really trying to change the conversation,” Lunoe adds, “from what gift are we going to get to what impact are we going to make?” – Theresa Hegel