ASI Awards Three Industry Interns $1,000 College Scholarships

TREVOSE, PA – September 16, 2019 – The Advertising Specialty Institute^® (ASI) today announced it awarded $1,000 scholarships to three college students who wrote winning essays about participating in ASI’s industry-wide internship program, working at member companies Americom Marketing, IMS Branded Solutions and VisABILITY.

“I’m incredibly proud of our scholarship winners for working hard while learning all they can about the promotional products industry,” said Timothy M. Andrews (@Tim_Andrews_ASI), president and chief executive officer of ASI. “It’s clear from their winning essays that they have real futures ahead of them as entrepreneurs and creative marketers. Their energy, ideas and zeal are exactly what we need to keep our industry relevant and growing.”

The ASI Summer Internship Program is free to ASI members who hire one or more interns to work at their company for the summer. Since ASI started its program in 2016 to attract more young professionals to the industry and get them excited about the power of promotional products, nearly 1,000 interns have participated. During the summer of 2019, a record 316 interns worked at 21 supplier and 222 distributor companies.

ASI supplies participating interns (#PromoInternASI) with training webinars, free access to ESP^®, invitations to ASI Chicago and ASI Roadshows, digital subscriptions to ASI magazines, a gift pack, certificate of completion and the chance to compete for a scholarship by writing about what they learned over the summer.

“Our company has offered internships to college students over the years, but partnering with ASI’s Internship Program was a game-changer,” said Janice Gavan, president and owner of VisABILITY. “ASI provided educational training that boosted our intern’s understanding of how the promotional products industry serves our special market niche.”

Below are excerpts from the three winning essays. Click here to read the essays in full on ASI’s website:

Taylor Abraham, of Cedar Rapids, IA, and Coe College. Interned at IMS Branded Solutions (asi/231482):

• “When it comes to pricing, I learned that customers who are looking for the absolute lowest price on everything may not be for our company. We focus on what else we can offer. We are providing more than just a product – we are providing an experience.”

Madison Apshire, of Silsbee, TX, and Lamar University. Interned at Americom Marketing (asi/159113). In addition to a $1,000 scholarship, Apshire won a Lenovo T520 laptop donated by ASI Business Savings partner Lenovo:

• “Through this internship I have learned that promotional items are so much more than clutter jammed into your kitchen junk drawer. They are opportunities to present tangible brand engagement and calls to action that get results.”

Nina Auslander, of Lyons, CO, and Oberlin College. Interned at VisABILITY (asi/202720):

• “Working for VisABILITY this summer taught me the role that promotional products play in establishing our own personal brands, how the ethos of a particular brand can stretch beyond their logo, and how vital personal touches can be in establishing one’s brand.”

For information on hiring an intern in 2020 and participating in ASI’s program, please contact ASI Senior Marketing Manager Christine Shaw at cshaw@asicentral.com.

About ASIThe Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI^®) serves a network of 23,500 suppliers, distributors and decorators in the $24.7 billion promotional products industry. ASI’s flagship product, the technology platform ESP^®, manages the industry’s entire supply and marketing chain. ASI also produces award-winning digital and print content, live events and educational programs that enable companies in 55 countries to be more efficient, productive and profitable. ASI’s Counselor^® magazine provides the most authoritative business content in the industry, and the ASI Certification Program features 500+ live and online education courses for over 40,000 professionals. The company, family owned and operated since 1962, is proud to have been consistently ranked among the “Best Places to Work” in Philadelphia and Bucks County, PA. For more info: asicentral.com.