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Monday
August 19, 2013 Power Summit’s Got GameFiled under: Community, News About ASI It’s a no-brainer that Korean superstar Psy and his “Gangnam Style” video is now the most-watched YouTube video, with 1.7 billion views. What’s more interesting to me are sensations like speed demon videographer Devin Graham, whose videos now boast a combined 200 billion views. In a unique marketing twist, Devin recently partnered with Ford to show off its latest high-performance hot hatch. First, check out the stunts he pulled off with the Ford Focus ST, a mountain and a group of pro long boarders. Then, consider what a video master like Devin can show your company about capitalizing on the viral video craze. It’s all about taking your brand for a new ride. Not only does Ford get to look cool to Generation Next, thanks to Devin they get to show off their hottest product to nearly a half-million eyeballs. Such ingenuity is exactly why we picked Devin (@devinsupertramp) as one of our featured speakers for the 2013 ASI Power Summit, coming up fast September 15-17. Where else can you careen down challenging mountain bike trails sporting a GoPro camera like Devin and get a briefcase full of great tips on motivating employees to the max from New York Times bestselling author Adrian Gostick? Just don’t try both at the same time! ASI’s annual Power Summit, where the best minds in our industry meet for three days of brainstorming, networking and superior learning, is happening at the Montage Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah. But act fast to qualify for a special discount of $300 off registration. Visit the 2013 Power Summit website, where you can register and browse the agenda, the speakers and their hard-hitting topics as well as the numerous recreational opportunities in Park City and beyond. Other benefits of attending include a first look at the expanded, 2013 Global Advertising Specialties Impressions Study, the 3rd annual Marketing Smackdown (a real-time showdown with top distributors picked by the audience), a slate of panels and top-drawer speakers like Bruce Money, a Harvard MBA and consultant for Nissan and CSX, with a topic that should be on everyone’s front burner: our changing demographics. If you have any questions, email powersummit@email.asicentral.com or email me here. Come for the summit, then take a few days to explore Utah’s vacation paradise, which boasts dramatic mountain vistas, wondrous rock formations, a unique Western culture and even Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute. If you want to shake it up, you can bike, hike, fly in a hot air balloon, ride a roller coaster and go white water rafting. Or, you can just kick back and relax in a hot tub. Make sure you check out Devin’s view on Utah, in a video featuring pro trail bike rider Jeremy VanSchoonhoven, a finalist on “America’s Got Talent,” riding killer rocks in Maob, named one of America’s best adventure towns by National Geographic. So what do you say? Power riding at the Power Summit? Move over, Psy. Here we come!
Wednesday
August 7, 2013 The Summer of ’83Filed under: Community, News About ASI Thirty years ago this summer, I worked as a Dow Jones News Fund intern in New York City. I was 21 and it was the first time I’d ever left Indiana for more than a few days. As you can imagine, those few months in the big city changed my life forever. I flashed back to that summer the moment I met two Dow Jones interns from the very same program: Grace Thompson and Samantha Phillips, who are spending their summer working in our editorial department at ASI headquarters outside Philadelphia. Grace is on the Dean’s List at Rowan University, majoring in Writing Arts and minoring in Journalism. She plans to pursue a Master of Fine Arts after graduating next year and hopes to write the next Great American Novel. Samantha recently graduated from Elizabethtown College with a B.A. in Professional Writing. Her dream is to become a magazine editor, event planner or film critic. In the photo, Grace is to the left of me and Sam (as she’s known around the office) is to my right. Every day, Sam, who’s 24, and Grace, 20, tackle everything from researching and writing stories for our award-winning magazines to proofreading and assisting during photo shoots, radio shows and ASI events. Everything they do is hands-on, which adds up to critical experience they can tout on their resumes. They’re definitely on their way to something great. Click here to read a blog Grace wrote about her intern experience (under the pen name Grace Bennett) and click here to read a post Sam wrote. ASI interns are paid. And yet, of the one million undergraduate interns helping companies throughout the U.S., roughly half earn no salary, working instead for the experience or the college credit. Here at ASI, we believe that, like everyone else, interns need money for housing, food, gas – and the occasional new cool apps. In return, they perform much-needed jobs while offering all of us fresh perspectives. Interns can be a great resource to any company, but especially to those courting the next generation. Interns know what’s hot before anyone else, and can provide invaluable insight into products and especially social media marketing. So don’t just delegate them to fetching coffee. Think of them as junior staff members and tap their brains as often as possible. Someday, you might be working for them! To prepare for entering the full-time working world, both Sam and Grace spent a week in New York City in Dow Jones’ business journalism residency, along with 18 other interns from all over the world. Grace, a Florida native now living in New Jersey, says her favorite part was being in the heart of Manhattan and experiencing all the different cultures, both within the group and out in the city. After talking to Sam and Grace and comparing notes on our shared experiences in the Dow Jones program, I was moved to contact the managing editor who meant a great deal to me during my own internship: Jim Furlong. I was an editing intern, assigned to international business and economic news for what was then a joint venture between the Associated Press and Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal. My job was rewriting WSJ stories so shorter versions could be sent over the wires, to be read across the world. Since I was an economics and journalism major at Ball State University, it was a perfect fit. The photo at right shows me from around that time, in a college dorm with my friends Cheryl, far left, Melissa and Richard on either side, and Mark, above. Jim, my boss that summer, was 47 – younger than I am now. We initially reconnected on Facebook, which I was delighted to find he also uses to keep up with friends and family. In an email, I told him how much his honesty and generosity meant to a farm kid like me, living in an apartment in Hoboken I’d found on a bulletin board, working the 7 p.m.-2 a.m. shift. “I want to thank you so much for everything you did,” I wrote, “and everything that came about as a result. I’ve had a wonderful career, which continues, and a life better than it would have been if I had not met you.” I ended up working at Dow Jones on the newswire side for seven years before switching, briefly, to public relations at an Ogilvy agency. After six months of hating every minute, I returned, but this time on the business side. All told, I spent 16 years at Dow Jones in a variety of senior management, editorial, marketing, technology and product development roles. Imagine my surprise when, a few days after I messaged Jim on Facebook, I got an actual letter (remember those?) in return. I couldn’t believe how much he remembered about me, right down to the P.R. job, which he described as donning the “flak jacket.” I also had to laugh at his description of my younger self as a “live one.” His letter, at right, was exactly as I remembered him: smart, warm and funny. “Thank you for remembering one of your old editors,” he wrote. “Your comments mean a lot.” The lesson for all of us is that it’s never too late to thank those who help you when you’re on your way up. If you’re lucky, they’ll remember you. If you’re really lucky, they’ll call you “friend.”
Monday
August 5, 2013 SOI: Cautiously OptimisticFiled under: Member Benefits, News About ASI, Research, Using Ad Specialties Remember the dark days of the Great Recession? We were mired in a subprime mortgage crisis, losing millions of jobs and experiencing 10% unemployment. Nearly every industry took a hit, including ours. Distributor sales dropped to $16 billion in 2009, down from a record high of $19.8 billion the year before. Today, our industry has almost fully rebounded, with total 2013 distributor sales expected to reach new heights, according to the latest “State of the Industry” report from Counselor magazine. Counting Q2, in which sales rose to $4.9 billion, we’ve now enjoyed 14 straight quarters of growth. Of course, anything can happen between now and the end of the year. Regime changes, shifts in consumer confidence and even natural disasters could impact profits and sales. And I know we’re all holding our breath to see how the ongoing implementation of the new federal health care law affects our bottom line. But for now, I’m happy to spread a little good news for a change. It’s time to capitalize on the gains, increase sales, spend a little more on marketing – and get the word out about the ROI and high rate of advertiser recall of promotional products. With the U.S. economy still struggling to gain a firm foothold, a lot of companies, schools and non-profits continue to count every penny, which makes our message all the more compelling. ASI makes it easy for you to go on your next sales call armed for bear, with tons of useful stats about the health of our industry and viability of our products. If you haven’t already, read Counselor’s SOI issue cover to cover and cherry pick the stats and info most useful to your business. And be sure to read the growth strategies that are working wonders for industry leaders – and put them to work for you. Along with tons of sales-generating ideas, this year’s report analyzes 2012 sales to determine the biggest markets and most popular products. This year, health and education kept their grip on the number one and two markets, while manufacturing and construction both rose, providing new opportunities. Other highlights from the 2013 Counselor “State of the Industry” issue include:
The SOI report, which comes out in print and online, is considered the most important and influential in the industry, for good reason. It’s a definitive analysis of this industry’s most recent past as well as a roadmap to the future. So do yourself and your business a favor and check it out. And keep an eye out this fall for ASI’s next Global Advertising Specialties Impressions Study. We’ve got researchers in the field now – surveying end-buyers from Atlanta to Australia – to give you even more powerful data proving ad specialties are a high-impact, cost-effective ad medium. In the meantime, you can visit ASI’s customizable End-Buyer Website for even more surefire methods of selling the ROI of promo products to prospects and buyers. If you’ve used any of ASI’s resources to boost sales at your company, please let me know by posting a comment or e-mailing me here. I’m also on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. |
