It’s THAT time of the year again. If your feet are still sore from working the ASI Show floor in Orlando last week, or you’re attending some of the education sessions at PPAI in Las Vegas today bracing for another week of it, I salute you. Trade Show season in the promotional products industry is not for the timid.
The season is about what’s new—not only in products, but hopefully, in ideas too. I hope you’re getting energized about some new conversations you can have with your clients, perhaps like encouraging them to think “circular” in their sourcing of soft goods. The January issue of Vogue might have some ideas for you as our industry continues to mirror the fashion industry. The theme of the issue is “value,” and it has concepts you can touch on with your clients. Defining value can be a bit esoteric—it’s open to interpretation whether it’s cost, ethics, or emotional attachment to products—or maybe even a bit of all three. It’s interesting that the Vogue article suggests that the inverse of value is disposability. For instance, if your client has paid less for a T-shirt than for their soft drink at lunch, how can they possibly attach value to it? Lots of industry sales pundits have talked about selling stories, not products. It rings true in this case—value can be defined based on uniqueness of the product, connection with the brand, or simply the way it resonates with the end-user.
While I have heard some good discussions suggesting that clients are becoming more interested in quality in the always-popular T-shirt arena, the fact is there are a few low-cost bottom feeders still pumping out “high-frequency basics” — tees, athleisure wear, and shoes with an intended single-use short life. We’ve talked before of the 50 million tons of clothing that end up in landfills every year, even though they will not biodegrade. How many times have your clients asked for soft goods meant to be worn only a couple of times, with fabric that launders so poorly that it can’t be resold or donated?
The alternative is not in some far-fetched future alternative promotional products universe. A key point in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s report, A New Textiles Economy: Redesigning fashion’s future, is that fashion must phase out nonrenewable resources and move toward renewable, regenerative products. Proof of concept products have already been announced from adidas by Stella McCartney, including an “infinite Hoodie” and tennis dress made from reusable organic cotton diverted from landfills, cellulose blended yarn, and Microsilk, a protein-based material that is made with renewable ingredients, like water, sugar, and yeast and has the ability to fully biodegrade at the end of its life. It won’t be that long until your clients interested in sourcing responsibly will define value differently in corporate purchasing, and you should be ready. It won’t be just about the products they order today, but what products of value tomorrow can be created once the current lifecycle ends.
Thought I might share some results from a project I’m working on with social media “influencers” since I’ve had some industry conversations about best practices for connecting with customers and prospects online. For today’s discussion, I’ll offer a suggestion of what NOT to do. I’ve discussed more than a few instances where industry “credibility” is measured almost solely by the number of “followers” or “likes” on social accounts, rather than engagement. I don’t make a living as a social media consultant, but I absolutely suggest you avoid gaming the system to artificially inflate the numbers on your accounts.
If you think all you need to do is grow your following, with no interest in the quality of the followers, just buy your way into the numbers game. You can buy 1,000 Instagram followers for $12.99 with just a simple Google search, or 1,000 Twitter followers start from as little as $12. Or, you can even get more Instagram followers for free, just by following certain accounts. “Getting Followers For Free” was the idea I decided to test with my Instagram account. I created an account on socialfollow.co and followed ten accounts for each of four days. As promised, 50 new followers appeared each day on my account in return. The socialfollow site invited me to come back and do the same thing each day and kept track to make sure I waited 24 hours to follow more accounts. Hypothetically, I could just keep repeating the process until I achieved the follower count I wanted. The accounts I was asked to follow, for the most part, appeared to be real accounts with profile pictures and descriptions, a few hundred to a few thousand followers, and with posts from small businesses or individuals. The accounts that started following me, on the other hand, were not real at all. Nearly all had no posts, no followers, and bios stating they were in their 20s and from Russia. Google translations of the bios were things like “I will succeed (rocket emoji) Krasnoyarsk 28yo,” “student of the southern federal university (balloon emoji) 18 y.o. Vitebsk. Belarus. Words are ashes. Acts are indicator,” and “Greetings from Russia, Kazan (Volga) Federal University.” As an added bonus, in many instances, the gender of the account and gender of the profile pictures didn’t need to match.
So, what’s the downside of this? Your credibility is at risk with everything you post online where a client or prospect can see it. You don’t need to be very tech savvy to inspect followers on an Instagram account. In fact, try it on mine by going to the profile and clicking on “Followers”, there for anyone to see are all my new “friends” that have grown my account base over the last few days. How would your client feel if they took a quick look behind the curtain of your account? Mom was right, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Grow your accounts, and your influence, the old-fashioned way, by providing good quality useful content and engaging with your audience.
Jeff Jacobs has been an expert in building brands and brand stewardship for 40 years, working in commercial television, Hollywood film and home video, publishing, and promotional brand merchandise. He’s a staunch advocate of consumer product safety and has a deep passion and belief regarding the issues surrounding compliance and corporate social responsibility. He retired as executive director of Quality Certification Alliance, the only non-profit dedicated to helping suppliers provide safe and compliant promotional products. Before that, he was director of brand merchandise for Michelin. You can find him volunteering as a Guardian ad Litem, traveling the world with his lovely wife, or enjoying a cigar at his favorite local cigar shop. Connect with Jeff on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram, or reach out to him at jacobs.jeffreyp@gmail.com.