As you read this, I'm just back from the PPAI Product Responsibility Summit in Bethesda, MD. Some great information was presented, and I hope I had the opportunity to meet you in person during the three-day event. There were around 160 suppliers, distributors, and vendors in attendance, which is a great turnout, and I’m glad to see so many people committed to safety and compliance in our industry. However, if you consider that we now have grown to a $20 billion industry, and there are reportedly 27,000 distributors, we really could use a few more folks committed to doing the right thing for their end-user clients, and attending events like this one.
Attendees had the opportunity to hear from Elliot F. Kaye, the chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Also on the speaker docket was Anne Marie Buerkle, the CPSC commissioner, preceding a panel discussion featuring Mark Schoem, the CPSC deputy director of compliance and field operations, that focused entirely on recalls. Schoem leaves the CPSC in October to become the new head of the International Consumer Product Health and Safety Organization (ICPHSO).
Arguably, the whole movement toward improving safety and compliance of promotional products started in 2008 with the passage of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). This sweeping law was meant to both establish safety standards for consumer products, especially those appealing to children, as well as to "reauthorize" and "modernize" the CPSC. It is really no coincidence that the Quality Certification Alliance also had its beginnings in 2008. But, according to former acting CPSC commissioner Nancy Nord, not everyone is buying what the CPSC is selling these days.
In an article published last week by OFW Law, the firm Ms. Nord joined after leaving the CPSC, she says some of the recall strategies employed by the CPSC actually are over-using, or at least misusing, the recall system. Nord, a frequent critic of her former employer, points to a 2014 recall of bed handles meant to be used by senior citizens. She suggests that the initial recall had a poor response rate, and the commission simply made it worse by reissuing the recall, along with burdening it with additional equipment and instructions that were unlikely to be used by the intended product usage group to fix the additional problem.
While our industry is not likely using senior bed handles for brand messages, Nord makes a point worth noting. Products find a way outside their original distribution channels: in this case, from traditional hospital use, to medical supply stores for home use. Changes in distribution channels mean changes in jurisdiction – here it went from the CPSC to the FDA. The same thing can happen as products originally created as consumer products begin to be marketed into the promotional products industry, and especially if decorating them changes the intended usage group to children.
Switching gears, I would like to take the opportunity to welcome the 14th distributor to the QCA Distributor Advocacy Council, Quality Logo Products (QLP). Bret Bonnet, co-founder of QLP, definitely has embraced the concept that safety and compliance is best done collaboratively between suppliers and distributors. "Quality Logo Products is committed to providing our customers with the best items and the best experience. So joining QCA and promoting safety just seemed like a natural extension of that mission. Even before we became members of QCA DAC, product quality and safety has been VERY important to QLP. I mean, heck, that's why it's in our name “QUALITY… logo… products!"
We're glad to have QLP on board, for more information, see the
complete release on our site.
Jeff Jacobs has been an expert in building brands and brand stewardship for more than 30 years. 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 is the executive director of Quality Certification Alliance, the industry's only non-profit dedicated to helping suppliers provide safe and compliant products. When he's not working, you can find him traveling the world with his lovely wife, working as a volunteer Guardian ad Litem, or sometimes even enjoying a cigar at his favorite local cigar shop. Follow Jeff on Twitter, or reach out to him at jeff@qcalliance.org.