Introducing PPAI’s Promotional Products Pioneers
By Tina Berres Filipski
PPAI honors the rich history of the industry and five of the individuals behind it with a new program: Promotional Products Pioneers. The program shares the stories and honors the contributions of those whose business acumen and technological skills have played a key role in the advancement of the promotional products industry thanks to their vision, drive, innovation, character, leadership, and, in some cases, new business models and technologies.
PPAI owes a debt of gratitude to the inaugural class of Promotional Products Pioneers including Norman Cohn, Forest P. Gill, Frank P. Krasovec, Norm Stern and Ralph B. Thomas. Be there when the group is recognized during the Chairman’s Leadership Dinner on Monday, January 11, 2016 at 7 pm at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center’s Ballroom J during The PPAI Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada. Tickets can be added to show registration at www.ppai.org/expo or purchased on site from Registration while they last.
Norman Cohn
The Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI) is the largest information service provider in the promotional products industry serving a network of more than 25,000 distributors and suppliers throughout North America. At its helm stands the legendary Norman Cohn, who first got involved in the industry selling food gifts while in junior high school as an extension of his family’s grocery business. Then, through a number of acquisitions, the family business expanded to become the largest supplier in the industry at that time.
In 1962, the businesses were sold in order to acquire ASI from Joseph Segel, and the organization began to grow rapidly by introducing innovations to the industry such as the first full-color catalog, sending orders by fax (“Customers were in disbelief that it would work, and it took a lot of effort to convince them it wasn’t just magic,” he says) and the first industry-specific, computerized business software system to manage supplier and distributor businesses. From its start, the organization was committed to offering the most complete information, sourcing tools and tech solutions available. Today, ASI offers the ESP platform with nearly 950,000 products and multiplatform web services, plus video, online social marketing and virtual trade shows, and a number of other products and services for subscribers including online research, marketing opportunities, trade shows, education, certification, publications, custom websites and catalogs, and more.
“If I’m to be remembered for anything, I’d like it to be for helping the over 20,000 distributor members grow their businesses and improve their profitability,” says Cohn. “I love the idea that they will be able to pass on their business to future generations like our family has done.”
Forest P. Gill
The late Forest P. Gill, former chairman of Gill Studios, Inc., is credited with developing the first bumper sticker in the 1940s. He pioneered the use of a revolutionary adhesive that allowed the stickers to adhere securely and temporarily to vehicles, and paved the way for the modern bumper sticker.
Looking for a way to grow the business following WWII, Gill followed a printer friend’s suggestion to advertise in a magazine directed toward independent salespeople, and, as luck would have it, a distributor company in Arlington, Texas, discovered Gill’s bumper sticker and began to sell it. Gill Studios, a silk-screen printing company he founded in 1934, began to grow steadily as more and more distributors sold the new product.
By the time of his passing in 2005, the Gill catalog, first introduced as an eight-page book in the 1950s, had grown to 128 pages, the number of employees at Gill Studios had grown from 16 in 1945 to more than 300 and bumper stickers had soared to popularity.
Those who worked with Gill say he was always grateful to the promotional products industry and the many distributors who took his products to the advertising market. And he was pleased that the simple bumper sticker had led to so many jobs for the men and women who made Gill Studios one of the industry’s leading suppliers.
Frank P. Krasovec
Frank Krasovec, founder and former CEO of Austin, Texas-based supplier Norwood Promotional Products, Inc., (NPPI) has built a number of successful companies over the past 30 years. In the promotional products industry, he is credited with being the first to bring private equity money into the industry and he was a leader in aggregation.
“Breaking the barriers to get big was most satisfying in what was and still is an industry made up of many small suppliers,” Krasovec says. “We were a small order-processing company and eventually processed over 1.2 million seasonal and time-sensitive small ($400) orders annually. This required a major investment in systems and training.”
Since its founding in 1983, NPPI grew from $4 million to more than $470 million in annual revenues over the next two decades and became recognized as the leading supplier of promotional products. At its peak, the company represented more than 3,000 products sold by more than 16,000 distributors nationwide.
Bringing viability as a supplier to Wall Street was fun but frustrating, he remembers. “With Wall Street, it was difficult explaining small-order processing to people who weren’t interested in basic fundamentals at the time. They wanted big orders and continued to ask why we did not sell in Wal-Mart or direct. Most thought distributor websites represented direct sales and asked us why we did not do the same. Over 8,000 distributors used our website to back up theirs. Eventually Wall Street got it.”
Norm Stern
By the 1950s, the promotional products industry had been around for about half a century but the potential for marketing through promotional products was largely untapped. Enter Norm Stern, CEO of distributor Norscot Group Inc. and one of the industry’s original pioneers, who introduced a number of ground-breaking ideas that have since become industry standards such as custom co-op catalogs and proprietary products such as corporate jewelry, custom-designed calendars and scale model replicas. He was also the first to develop one-stop shopping for turnkey outsourced promotional products and he revolutionized the industry by creating direct-mail promotional products catalogs targeted at business-to-business customers.
“Early on, I discovered that I could reach more people and increase my sales volume tremendously with a catalog of merchandise,” he says. “This was a new concept in our industry, and in the mid-1950s I started to promote what is now known as the custom co-op catalog.” The concept opened the door to large corporate accounts with dealer and distributor networks. Custom co-op catalogs served as a precursor to royalty-based corporate programs as well as to direct mail and a variety of other direct-sales outlets, including the development of airline catalogs.
During his more than 65 years in the promotional products industry, Stern served on a variety of PPAI committees and as chair of the board in 1989. It was during his tenure that the current PPAI headquarters building was completed in Irving, Texas.
“Now more than ever, the level of professionalism, the variety and quality of the products available, and the almost unlimited outlets for logo-identified merchandise underscore the impact and importance of this industry in the world of marketing and brand identity programming,” Stern says. “It is an honor to be chosen as a member of this first group of Promotional Products Pioneers.”
Ralph B. Thomas
As the new executive director at Advertising Specialty National Association (ASNA, now PPAI) in 1956, Ralph B. Thomas effectively led the Washington, D.C.-based association through a number of major events including the Federal Trade Commission’s case against the Association and the industry’s continuing quest for identity as an effective advertising medium. On the latter, Thomas’ background was especially helpful; he had started his career with Lord & Thomas, an ad agency that later became Foote, Cone & Belding, now one of the largest global advertising agency networks.
The Association had also recently begun making presentations to local ad clubs affiliated with the Advertising Federation of America through a new program called Advertising Specialty Day. Together with Education Committee Chair James Albert, Thomas toured several university campuses in search of the best location for the Executive Development Seminar, which launched in 1961. The pair settled on Case Western Reserve University and it would be the first program where participants received CAS designations.
The communication traffic channeled through his office intensified as ASNA and the Advertising Specialty Guild rekindled their desire to explore merger possibilities. When that merger took place in 1964, the boards of the two organizations agreed that Thomas should be the president of the newly named Specialty Advertising Association. He then managed the Association’s move to new headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, and hired a staff to carry out the Association’s programs.
Although illness forced him to retire within the year and he later passed away, Thomas will long be remembered for providing crucial and strategic leadership during a key turning point in the Association’s history. It was his wise decisions and competent management that kept the industry’s Association progressing forward.
Twelve More Members Celebrate 50 Years Of Membership
The PPAI Milestone Program recognizes those companies who have achieved a significant membership milestone in PPAI. The honors will be conferred by PPAI President and CEO Paul Bellantone, CAE, and Rick Brenner, MAS+, PPAI chair of the board, at the Chairman’s Leadership Dinner on Monday, January 11 during The PPAI Expo in Las Vegas. Tickets are available during show registration at www.ppai.org/expo. During the black-tie optional event, each honoree will be presented with a commemorative trophy provided by Crystal D.
PPAI 50-Year Members
A. Dean Watkins Company East
ADG Promotional Products
Advertising Accents Inc.
Ball Chain Manufacturing
CROSS
Gemaco Inc.
Lipic’s, Inc.
Paulich Specialty Co., Inc.
SAMCO Line
Sanatex Corporation
SELCO
Tee Pee Advertising Co.
