Counterfeits You Can See Through

Some people will do ANYTHING to make a buck. But, being in the promotional products business, you already know that. The mad dash to make a buck at all costs happened again last week during all the hoopla surrounding the solar eclipse, setting up consumers to pay a potentially dire price if they unwittingly purchased glasses that didn’t meet industry safety standards.

If you sourced eclipse glasses, it was easy to do the right thing — or so we thought. If you made sure the paper eclipse glasses or handheld viewers were marked with the “ISO” (International Organization for Standardization) icon and had the ISO reference number 12312-2, you could be confident your clients (and their customers) wouldn’t burn their retinas when using them.

But then everything changed. The ISO issued this warning: “It now appears that some companies are printing the ISO logo and certification label on fake eclipse glasses and handheld solar viewers made with materials that do not block enough of the sun’s ultraviolet, visible, and infrared radiation to make them truly safe.” If you were misled by your supplier, you are not alone. Even the Missouri State Parks department found themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to warn people not to use the glasses they sold them. “Missouri State Parks apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause but we want to take all possible steps to make sure everyone can safely view the solar eclipse,” Missouri State Parks Director Ben Ellis said in a statement. They couldn’t verify the 25,000 glasses they bought with the name “PMS Promo Mart” on the outside of the product were safe to use. When the Parks department asked the promotional products vendor for proof that the shipment of eclipse glasses in question met safety standards, the vendor didn’t provide it. The Parks department had no choice but to stop selling all PMS Promo Mart goods at all locations, issue a warning to customers, and offer full refunds. Not the best way to headline national and local news.

Being first to market, and especially having an intuitive URL, is always a good strategy, and not just for eclipse glasses. It gives you the chance to be, even if only by default, a “de facto expert” in a product category. Your clients may have searched and found eclipse2017.org or eclipseglasses.com, both of which offered information about verifying safe glasses. Not surprisingly, the information provided also verified the glasses they had for sale as safe. What is that: A bonafide public service, or just smart product promotion?

Matt Stocking, principal at design and marketing integrating agency Colorhammer, considered several suppliers when sourcing eclipse glasses for his clients. “While their information online may be true, it is crafted with a bias towards their own products. Descriptions and statements can come off as if they are the experts, and that their competitors should be more closely scrutinized. This is just another case of approaching with a mindset of ‘buyer beware’ — you shouldn’t take everything as gospel. It’s been my experience that this de facto expert concept is widespread in the promotional products industry. But I use that to my advantage — you just have to be positioned as a trusted advisor to your clients.”

Moving on after totality, there’s the latest report from the Chicken Little Department: Walmart has taken the wraps off the soft online open of Promo Shop and is now ready to close your business. Judging from the wailing and gnashing of teeth I’ve heard in the last week, the end is apparently very near. The site is powered by Harland Clarke, which already handles the back end of Walmart’s check printing business, as it does for many major financial institutions. You will likely recognize some of the SKUs as being from familiar suppliers, and most of the complaints I’m hearing are related to cost favoritism. No surprise there. I have also heard some dismissals of the competition based on the sales professionals being hourly Walmart employees. That’s not likely — the site clearly states that you are “no longer on Walmart.com” — so you won’t be up against someone who worked in the garden shop last week. Whether or not Walmart Promo Shop will go the route Vistaprint did, and open a bricks-and-mortar test is still unclear. What I would suggest now, like always, is to focus on YOUR customer. Is your client likely to be driven only by price, and leave you to source totally on their own, placing their $250 order for imported pens with (even a professional) order-taker? If so, then maybe you need to fire that client. You can’t change the direction of the industry as the big keep getting bigger, but you can sharpen your saw on how you react to it and choose your customer targets.

Finally, a much less sinister story on eclipse glasses. When Colorado State University took delivery from their (un-named) distributor of 50,000 pairs of eclipse glasses to give away, there was a minor problem. The proofreader apparently didn’t apply the exception to “I before E, except after C,” which, of course, is the word “Science.” So, some 30,000 children in the local school district, and 20,000 more at the local Music Adventure and on-campus, all received free glasses compliments of the “College of Natural Sceinces.” Credit CSU for being good sports, though, a spokesperson said that when the glasses arrived with the typo, they figured that reprinting or covering the inverted letters wasn’t a good use of resources. “It's most important that they meet safety standards,” he said. Which is more than some unscrupulous sellers did on Eclipse Day 2017. Better to have a typo here and there than burned retinas. Perhaps we can clean up our industry before the 2024 eclipse event. At least we can hope.

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 still advising Global 500 Brands on promo product initiatives, working as a volunteer Guardian ad Litem, traveling the world with his lovely wife, or enjoying a cigar at his favorite local cigar shop. Follow Jeff on Twitter, or reach out to him at jacobs.jeffreyp@gmail.com.