No one at Quinn (PPAI 360359, S5) anticipated that the beginning of March would see them hurrying to meet demand for orders on Ukrainian flags, a product that the supplier had not even offered as recently as mid-February. But the current crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine resulted in a demand for flags that show support or solidarity for Ukraine.
The requests started to come in a little over a week ago, according to Quinn’s executive VP of Sales, Bruce Kolbrener. “We don’t typically manufacture Ukraine flags since there are companies that usually stock country flags and we’re a custom promo manufacturer,” Kolbrener says. “After getting several more requests from customers and almost no availability in the market, we decided to start manufacturing Ukrainian flags to help meet the need and we haven’t stopped making them.”
The Pennsylvania-based supplier says that it is donating a percentage of the proceeds to relief efforts. The most common requests have been 2×3’, 3×5’, and 12×18’ garden banners.
Quinn believes the orders are coming to distributors mostly from Ukrainian communities but also municipalities and homeowner associations.
Flags are a cornerstone product for Quinn, which has been operating since 1994, and has adapted to world events in the past. The demand for Ukrainian flags doesn’t quite compare to the need to manufacture American flags in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Kolbrener says that a comparable spike would be the requests for French flags in 2015 after a terrorist attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
“We hope that the war ends soon, but we’ll continue to do our part providing Ukrainian flags quickly when needed,” Kolbrener says.
