I’d like a little pride, no, make that a lot of pride, in what l do for a living. I came into this business nearly 50 years ago fully conscious of what I was doing and by choice. I realized then that it was a “stuff” laden business. Time has changed me, but not the public.
Over the years, I have seen great success helping American enterprise achieve a wide range of objectives in many areas. I help recruit, train, motivate, reward, etc., and put what I do in an acronym – ARMER – Awareness, Recognition, Motivation, Education, Reinforcement. It’s not HOW we do it, it is the service and the results.
Last night, I watched an episode of “Modern Family” – a great show with great satire, but not so amusing this time. Enter our industry as part of the script. Phil and Manny went to visit Merv Schecter, a distributor who Phil deemed a marketing genius. The role was played by Martin Short. The office and props, while very real, shed a negative light on us. If you catch it On Demand, you will see the inherent trivialization of our industry and products. Frankly, some of it is warranted. After all, we are the ones who keep bobbleheads alive.
Yesterday afternoon, the very same day as “Modern Family,” a distributor friend sent me a link to an article “The Provider Gift Ban: The day the tchotchkes died,” in an online medical magazine.
Here we go again. Another hit on my business and yours.
It reviews the self imposed and Obama Care codification of the embargo on promotional products by the pharmaceutical industry. Before I continue my rant, there was one positive and very important take-away we should all quote:
“These items were constantly in view and intended to keep specific drug names uppermost in physicians' subconscious. And it worked,” says Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, an associate professor in the departments of pharmacology and physiology and family medicine at the Georgetown University Medical Center. Fugh-Berman is also director of PharmedOut, a Georgetown research and education project that, per its website, “promotes rational prescribing and exposes the effect of pharmaceutical marketing on prescribing practices.”
Did you read that? “It worked,” said Dr. Berman. Hey world! That’s another corroboration of the effectiveness of our medium. It was everything else in the article that we need to fight. I don’t get it. We have a medium that works. What’s the problem? In 2008, the Boston Globe published an op-ed letter I wrote where I contended that a doctor would not sell out to the good of a patient’s health because he or she got a pen, a mug or stethoscope cover. We need to differentiate a bribe from a reminder, undue influence from a dimensional, functional, visible form of advertising.
You want undue influence?
How about convincing me I need a drug with relentless TV ads suggesting I see my doctor and beg for toenail fungus medicine while my toe nails are just fine, thank you.
For those of you old enough, there was a genius observer of the humankind and author and raconteur. His name was Jean Shepherd – you might know him as the author of “A Christmas Story” (the leg lamp and the kid whose lips got stuck on the pole). One of his great observations was in an episode of “Shepherd’s Pie” – his PBS series. Jean supposed that aliens landed on Earth, but in a bar. They saw horses circling a light (Budweiser), they saw flashing neon signs, lava lamps, hanging blow up bottles of booze, giant cut out posters and the like. They saw a room filled with over-the-top branded booze related advertising vehicles. Looked at all together, this made the aliens wonder… What kind of civilization lives on Earth?
Imagine an alien landing in the typical office/showroom of a promotional products distributor. No doubt, they would ask, “What is all this stuff? What does this company do?” Looking at our product portfolio, one can’t help but call it “stuff” and a whole lot worse. As we know, it is not about the product but the application of these products as solutions to a wide range of needs. It is just this point that too many writers and critics don’t get. Be they in government or private industry, they only look at it as “stuff” and we need to change that.
In my seminars, I call my distributors “doctors.” They prescribe solutions, remedies to problems and the needs of their clients. Is it that much different from a physician? They prescribe “stuff,” albeit they are drugs to remedy a medical condition. Does that make them drug dealers, pill pushers?
Just maybe it is time to rebrand ourselves because everyone else seems to brand us in a negative and pejorative way. To polish our image, we need to apply the polish, nobody else will. We need to focus the marketplace and the media on our professionalism, our value added services, and not our products.
Over 25 years ago, PPAI moved from “specialty advertising” to “promotional products.” They were many naysayers then as now. ASI, wisely, decided not to change its name from advertising specialties, after all, why would you change names when your name is the brand name of our industry. But all of that is history. While I was on the SAAGNY Board, the topic came to the table. After many cantankerous sessions resembling the British Parliament or Israeli Knesset, I tried to mediate and rename the association “Bob.” I didn’t get much support but I still think it is an easy name to remember. Since the last rebranding, the world has seen revolutionary change and we have seen relentless negativity.
I recently visited Atlanta and the regional association GAPPP. I commended them for “the extra “P.” That extra “P” at the end stands for professionals. There begins the delineation and mind shift people have of its members vs. non-members or merchants of stuff on the internet. Can’t we go further? I don’t have space in this column to rekindle some brilliant names people have thought of for our industry, but there are many. To me, it’s just the need to shift the focus off “stuff,” “products,” “specialties,” “CPS,” “Bling,” “SWAG,” etc. and onto more esoteric names related to our services – promotional marketing, branding, communication, etc. We’re not just selling “stuff” anymore. We have devoured the premium industry, moved into displays, internet services, genuine sales promotion, art and design, POP and more.
It’s time for a facelift.
I wonder if we all need to fall in line or if we can’t do it individually, assuming our trade associations and service organizations don’t take the lead. In Atlanta I was asked how to delineate yourself on the internet. I didn’t give a complete answer, but I did say that I visited 200 distributor website landing pages and the one thing they, and thousands more, have in common is a landing page loaded with “stuff.”
So, are we stuff forever, or are we willing to change direction to change perception? I really hope you voice your opinion and start a true dialog.
Joel D. Schaffer, MAS (joel@soundline.com) 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 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.