He didn’t really expect to get the job.
Drew Holmgreen’s career had spanned marketing and advertising agencies and included years of association leadership. He’d helped launch the promotional products distributor arm of a brand agency. And the interviews had gone well. He was certain he could succeed if given the chance.
To Holmgreen, the fit felt… perfect.
But still. He was an outsider to the industry, and to PPAI. The Association’s most recent hires for the president and CEO role had all known both expertly. So, when his phone buzzed in mid-December and the name of then-Board Chair Andrew Spellman flashed on the screen, Holmgreen braced for a polite rejection and maybe some constructive feedback.
Instead, the voice on the other end told him, “This is going to be a really good call.”
Holmgreen felt the chill of a particular emotion. He snuck a quick text breaking the news to his wife, Andrea. She ran to the door, jumping up and down, sharing the same emotion.
The couple had kept Holmgreen’s conversations with the PPAI Board of Directors quiet. As they started to share the word with family and friends, that particular emotion spread. The conversation with his 10-year-old son, George, now brings a tear to Holmgreen’s eye.
“I told him I got the job,” Holmgreen recalls. “And he said, ‘What’s the job, again, Dad?’ And I said, ‘It’s CEO.’ And he says, ‘That’s like … that’s the big boss. I’m so proud of you.’”
The emotion was joy. And the goal is to spread it as widely as possible.
The First Days
As of this writing, Holmgreen is just shy of two months into a job he intends to have for a long time. It’s what everyone says, but he offers reassurance that he means it.
“It goes back to my interest in this from the beginning,” Holmgreen says. “I’m a marketing guy. This is a marketing association. I want to finish my career somewhere that I can make positive change. I’ve had a lot of clients in my past where I’ve lined their pockets with money, and that’s great for them. But the clients I’ve always enjoyed the most have been the ones for whom I’ve done something for the greater good, and this is one of those scenarios.
“I can do something for the greater good in an industry that I love, and for people who I respect and genuinely enjoy being around and want to work for and alongside.”
Drew Holmgreen
President & CEO, PPAI
At the time still technically on the payroll for his previous employer, events trade association Meeting Professionals International, Holmgreen took in the quintessential promotional products industry experience during his first days with PPAI. He officially began his term on January 10, the Friday before The PPAI Expo. He navigated his first Board meeting the next day, pitched in for show prep on Sunday and was introduced to the industry before Monday’s keynote.
In a cue for Holmgreen to take the stage, Spellman revealed that any doubt he could realistically land the position was far from reality. The entire Board had signed off.
“We spent five months analyzing this decision,” said Spellman, now serving as Immediate Past Chair. “More than 100 candidates were screened in an extensive search process that truly left no stone unturned.
“In the end, Drew stood out as the unanimous choice.”
Holmgreen spent the rest of the week in Las Vegas on a breakneck guided tour of the trade floor. He met everyone from large supplier CEOs to distributor salespeople and anyone in between, finding greetings of joy as he began getting his arms around the community, literally.
“At MPI, when I would go to our events, sure, everybody’s super sweet and super nice. At Expo, what I found is people were a lot more welcoming – and much more huggy,” he says. “And that’s a good thing. People are just genuinely interested and welcoming and kind. That’s been my greatest takeaway, just the positivity and passion and interest of the people involved in the Association.”
Holmgreen, 48, knows he has much more to learn. There’s PPAI’s people, portfolio and processes. There’s the Board, with its annually evolving makeup that brings fresh perspectives each year. And there’s the industry itself – its key players, market idiosyncrasies and broad challenges. Partnerships must be readdressed, and strategies must be reconsidered. And yet, for someone who admits he is attempting to “tame the stampede with a lasso,” Holmgreen has hit the ground running.
A native Texan who is in office at PPAI’s Dallas-area headquarters every day, his first actions have been process focused. Whereas the Association had most recently run on centralized instinct, Holmgreen now leans on the team for fresh documentation of standard operating procedures on crisis communication, conflict resolution and all manner of issues that can arise.
- He’s methodically meeting with the staff, past PPAI Board Chairs and CEOs, and executives from leading companies to gain a comprehensive understanding of the job.
- Technology enhancements are on the way to further build upon the Association’s and industry’s digital transformation needs.
The day-to-day work is getting done, often with greater collaboration from industry volunteers. The Government Relations Action Council was engaged to coordinate PPAI’s industry-leading response to new tariffs on countries vital to the supply chain. The DEI Task Force helped finalize plans for official Association platforms celebrating cultural heritage recognition throughout the year.
“This is a little bit of a house renovation,” he says. “Boy, it’s a great structure. The foundation is fantastic. Financially, it’s extremely stable. We’ve got really strong people. There’s just some renovation work that’s got to take place, and it’s the stuff that’s not only very fixable, but will create for a much more positive experience across the board.”
The Foundation
Holmgreen’s own house appears well in order. He and Andrea celebrated their 20th anniversary last year, and he spends his weekends coaching George’s basketball team. He’s a runner and outdoorsman with the goal of hiking the tallest peak in every U.S. state. They vacation in Colorado, where he enjoys the craft beer and mountainous plates of nachos, a holiday departure from his typically clean diet.
“He has learned to purpose his best traits and qualities,” says Steve Smith, CEO of the Dallas-based ad agency Firehouse and a mentor of Holmgreen’s. “He’s grown tremendously.”
Holmgreen refers to his upbringing on the north side of Austin, Texas as “standard.” While raising Drew and his brother, Holmgreen’s father worked 40 years as a pharmacist, and his mother spent 32 years in the registrar’s office at The University of Texas, later Holmgreen’s alma mater. All four of them now live in North Texas – a personal joy in itself, Holmgreen says. He is a proud uncle to five.
His parents nurtured what former co-workers describe as a natural sense of empathy. His cover letter for the PPAI job recalls an instance from preschool – one of his earliest memories – when he approached a new classmate named Marty in the gymnasium: “He was by himself, the only Black kid, and looked kinda lonely. I walked over and said, ‘Hi, I’m Andrew. Want to be my best friend?’ The sheer simplicity and positive purity of that moment was defining. And it worked out.”
Later, when the two friends were set to split off to different middle schools, his mother successfully petitioned the Austin school district to allow the young Holmgreen to attend the same school as Marty. “Forty-four years later, he remains one of my closest friends,” Holmgreen says.
In addition to empathy, his parents also encouraged an adventurous streak. In their attempt to grant him a window to the wider world, they sent him on a class trip to Germany in eighth grade, which promoted curiosity and a love of travel. He’s now visited some two dozen countries for work and play, and emphasizes intentionality toward PPAI’s global goals.
“I think the way in which my parents intentionally curated my exposure provided me the kind of perspective that allowed me to be an open, flexible and creative collaborator,” Holmgreen says.
The Formation
As a kid, Holmgreen had an uncommon infatuation with advertising. Watching cartoons on Saturday mornings, he would place a boom box next to the TV and record the episodes to listen to them later. But he always found himself replaying the commercials most.
Although he was a youth football player (and would even go on to play his freshman year at Macalester College in Minnesota), he realized he cared more about the commercials during the Super Bowl than the game itself. It was the ’80s, and Nike was churning out aggressive campaigns that especially impressed and inspired him, from “Just Do It” to “Bo Knows” and the creation of Air Jordan. His office wardrobe now includes several pairs of Jordan’s in rotation.
Originally, Holmgreen majored in psychology but switched when he gave up football and moved back to Texas. Marketing, he says, is just psychology in business form.
He became an ad man after school, working for one of the largest firms in the world, McCann-Erickson, then later advanced his career through more boutique agencies. His work has supported 7-Eleven, Texas A&M University, E-Z-Go Golf Cars and Bell Helicopter, as well as the state of Texas tourism bureau. As governor, George W. Bush was once technically his client, Holmgreen points out. Memorabilia and branded mementos from some of these projects now line the windows of his office.
It was at one of those boutique agencies, Belmont Icehouse in Dallas, where Holmgreen displayed the kind of appreciation for branded merch that would eventually lead him to PPAI. There, he learned under firm president Tim Hudson, whom Holmgreen says has the best visual marketing mind he’s ever known. It’s Hudson’s philosophy that a brand’s logo should always look good on a baseball cap.
“We started realizing that when we were pitching creative strategies to our clients or prospective clients, we always needed to include some type of merch,” Holmgreen says, “because that was the tangible expression of the brand.”
The products weren’t just brand representation, Holmgreen realized. They were a connection to it. And when done well, that connection came with a spark of joy for the recipient.
Tim Hudson
President/Founder, Belmont Icehouse
He was leading strategy for the firm, and a significant portion of the clients came from the tourism industry. So Holmgreen committed to help drive the success of a new division, Belmont Swag. Tagline: Think outside the tchotchke.
“Branded merch is a natural fit for selling the experience of a destination, although most of our clients at that time saw it just as an afterthought,” Hudson says. “So, we decided to fold merchandise into the conceptual development of all our marketing campaigns, with amazing results. Instead of just putting a logo on a trinket, we now use branded merch to expand our storytelling, create a stronger connection and extend our reach.”
Because he liked his experience with tourism clients, Holmgreen hoped to eventually lead a large market convention bureau. The opportunity to work at MPI would give him exposure to another side of that space, better preparing him for what he expected to be his career path. But working in the association environment grew on him as he came to appreciate the passion of members and the positive, constructive communities created as a result.
His instinct had always been to move fast on projects, channeling his own imagination to create unexpected, exciting results. But member organizations require a more deliberate, relationship- and collaboration-based approach. Paul VanDeventer, MPI’s CEO, calls Holmgreen a lifelong learner who never backs down from a challenge.
Paul VanDeventer
CEO, Meeting Professionals International
“Drew is a very charismatic and engaging person who truly cares about people, which lends itself naturally to a role in association leadership,” VanDeventer says. “At MPI, he quickly and adroitly engaged with our community, demonstrating a passion and natural ability for harnessing the passion and power of our community.”
Co-workers applauded his willingness to pitch in however needed. Over the latter half of his MPI tenure, he helped the firm win back most of the operating revenue it lost during the pandemic.
Rachel Benedick, MPI’s chief revenue officer, refers to him as a workhorse.
“When you’re in leadership at an organization that size, you really need to be a player-coach. And Drew did that really well,” Benedick says. MPI’s staff size is about 55, roughly the same as PPAI’s. “We worked very well together. A lot of times, people get confused and think not-for-profit means you don’t try to make money. You need someone who is really business minded. But there is a side of association work that is kinder and gentler, because you are serving your members. And that’s very different. I think that fit him and is way more the core of who Drew is – it’s his style.”
Now at PPAI, the Board of Directors is already encouraging Holmgreen to focus on his workhorse pace, protecting against burnout by pulling back on the night and weekend work that can come from a new leader’s eagerness to make a positive and immediate impact.
They want him around for the long haul, because they believe in his vision for the Association and the industry.
The Future
PPAI’s vision statement is that promotional products are universally valued and essential to every brand. Holmgreen can put a finer point on it.
“When Amazon is thinking about their global brand and marketing strategy, I want them to think about merch just as much as they’re thinking about TV commercials,” he says.
Research produced by PPAI and others has shown repeatedly that promotional products do, in fact, register more solidly with consumers than other forms of advertising, both in recall and affinity. Agencies, Holmgreen says, are getting it. In too many cases, the brands themselves are not.
“On the brand side, a majority of them are looking at the TV commercial, the digital ad, the print ad, the radio spot, and saying, ‘Boy, that’s really cool,” Holmgreen says. “And they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of the value add, is doing the merch.’ No. Merch is not the value add. Merch is involved with all of these. That is a collective brand strategy.
“The smart CMOs, the smart brand managers, they’re seeing it all the way across the board. But there’s just a conversation that needs to take place there to elevate it.”
What this amounts to, tactically, is an overhaul of the industry-wide approach to end buyer and consumer outreach and messaging. It’s about cooperation and education within advertising and marketing trade groups, interacting with the brands themselves to celebrate cool campaigns and deeper research to make it more indisputable than ever: Merch matters.
Not only that, merch is an opportunity to create a feeling every brand wants to instill in its audience – joy.
Holmgreen says the trick will be to understand buyers better, just as he did as a young ad man pitching concepts to clients. For PPAI and the entire industry, it will be what Holmgreen has been prioritizing since starting the new job – listening and learning.
“We need to look at the personas we’re trying to talk to, the strategic point that we’re trying to make and the end goal of what we want to accomplish,” he says.
Pulling together the perspective of corporate brand leaders who emphasize their merch – and those who do not – will help PPAI get to the right strategy and execution. “This is not a short-play kind of thing,” adds Holmgreen. “This is not a rush. This is going to take time to develop. It’s got to be intentional in how it’s pulled together.”
Buyer and consumer outreach is not a new goal for PPAI or the industry. Today’s Promotional Products Work! campaign had its predecessor, Get In Touch! Both programs, and all that came before, had their successes. But the vision statement is still a vision, meaning there’s room to improve.
Elevating promo is the essence of the work PPAI has been doing since 1903. No one person and no one organization can do it alone.
The Association’s members, Holmgreen says, have a vital role to play.
“They need to be the advocates and the ambassadors,” he says. “[PPAI’s] reach is only so much. But our community’s reach is vastly wider and broader. So, we need our community to amplify that message, because that creates a circular marketing strategy, surrounding your audience with the message.”
Like a hug.
Ellis is the publisher and editor-in-chief at PPAI.
