Our industry has enjoyed numerous strategic advantages when compared with other mediums for business marketing and promotion. We pitch “the medium that remains to be seen and therefore a low cost per impression. We promote the utilitarian advantages of our products. We explain the tactical experience, the value, and how branded products integrate into the daily life of the recipient. In a digital world, dimensional products are gaining in the eyes of the marketing community because of their earth grounded advantages.
It has been a while since I last appeared at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Business as a visiting professor but, I suspect that textbooks and course studies still overlook our medium. Despite the bounty of studies spinning the value of our goods and services, we have little respect. I applaud the efforts of ASI and PPAI to change that paradigm. Assuming there will still be textbooks, maybe one day we will get a full page instead of a paragraph.
One of the strengths of our medium was hand to hand distribution. Were it a calendar promoting a funeral parlor, distribution was most often done by hand to hand through nearby churches. When local service businesses needed to advertise, they clustered on a placemat put on the table by hand and the coupon could be torn off by hand. When a medical facility promotes a theme such a getting a mammogram, the vehicle they brand is handed to targets at a health fair or street fair. Imagine the cost of distribution for a simple branded grocery bag if it was not given by hand and had to go UPS or USPS.
Covid19 marketing brings a disadvantage to what was our advantage. That does not mean hand to hand distribution is gone, it simply means it is more challenging.
Now let us turn to what can be delivered by hand that helps remediate the problems a local business or chamber of commerce may have. My personal belief is that one of the greatest opportunities retailers and service businesses have in a given community under the restrictions of Covid19 is in the synergy a Chamber of Commerce can deliver.
Let’s start with a blank book (what they were called in the 1980’s) or a journal, what it is called today. Let’s print a cover called My Covid19 Diary. Let’s tip in coupons and curbside pick up information for any and every business in the Chamber or that a creatively aggressive promotional consultant can bring together. This is not only a functional dimensional product; it is a cross-medium product the combines print advertising with dimensional advertising. Where possible, distribution can still be hand to hand through retailers and service organizations that stay open “no matter what”. Being a book, distribution by mail is relatively cheap. It can be sent bulk and enjoy the cheapest USPS rate or ship book rate. Depending on the number of participants, the cost is amortized and is a low number for a special vehicle to promote business now. I continue to be the evangelist for coop advertising and suggest the participants can get their share paid for by using coop funds accrued in 2019.
Jeff Tobe told us to color outside the lines. This is great advice during Covid19. Let us take the power of our medium, adapt our distribution schemes, find alternate distribution and blend it all together with newer “services” to support the use of our products.
The free grocery bag holding a Grub Hub food delivery can not only be cobranded for local, non-competitive businesses, it can contain “goodies” from other businesses. It can contain the equivalent of a Valpack program with coupons in a coupon holder. A magnet with curbside and outside dining information.
As I read back over what I have just written I need to paraphrase the great philosopher Donna Summer by saying… we’ve got to work harder for our money and we have to adapt to the permanent or temporary new normal.
Joel D. Schaffer, MAS is CEO and Founder of Soundline, LLC, the pioneering supplier to the promotional products industry of audio products. Joel has 48 years of promotional product industry experience and proudly heralds “I was a distributor.” He has been on the advisory panel of the business and marketing department of St. John’s University in New York and is a frequent speaker at Rutgers Graduate School of Business. He is an industry Advocate and has appeared before the American Bankers Association, American Marketing Association, National Premium Sales Executives, American Booksellers Association and several other major groups. He has been a management consultant to organizations such as The College Board and helped many suppliers enter this industry. He is a frequent contributor to PPB and Counselor magazines. He has facilitated over 200 classes sharing his industry knowledge nationwide. He is known for his cutting humor and enthusiasm in presenting provocative and motivating programs. He is the only person to have received both the Marvin Spike Industry Lifetime Achievement Award (2002) and PPAI’s Distinguished Service Award (2011). He is a past director of PPAI and has chaired several PPAI committees and task forces. He is a past Chair of the SAAGNY Foundation, Past President of SAAGNY and a SAAGNY Hall of Fame member. He was cited by ASI as one of the 50 most influential people in the industry.