{"id":1328,"date":"2011-11-09T17:13:30","date_gmt":"2011-11-09T21:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/?p=1328"},"modified":"2011-11-09T17:13:30","modified_gmt":"2011-11-09T21:13:30","slug":"obama-attacks-fed-promo-product-spend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/2011\/11\/09\/obama-attacks-fed-promo-product-spend\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama Attacks Fed Promo Product Spend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As you may have already seen, President Obama has announced a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2011\/11\/09\/we-cant-wait-president-obama-sign-executive-order-cut-waste-and-promote-\" target=\"_blank\">mandate<\/a> to cut 20% from federal agency spending on \u201cplaques, clothing, and other unnecessary promotional items.\u201d The cuts are designed to trim the government\u2019s \u201cwasteful spending.\u201d<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/asi.jpg\" class=\"right\"\/><\/p>\n<p>We are undertaking an aggressive PR campaign to immediately educate the media and others to help the general public, as well as political leaders, understand the importance of our industry: job creation, promotional products\u2019 incredible ROI and why our industry\u2019s output and value shouldn\u2019t be called \u201cwasteful spending.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re calling on everyone to reach out to their senators and congressmen \u2013 they need to hear from each of us, collectively and individually. I am sending a letter directly to President Obama. Below are talking points you might consider in a letter to the editor of your local paper and to your senator or your representative.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The promo products industry helps create jobs.<\/strong> The industry employs nearly 500,000 people throughout North America and includes thousands of small and women- and minority-owned businesses.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0<strong>Promotional products, which cost just half a penny per impression, beat out prime-time TV, radio and print advertising as the most cost-effective advertising medium available<\/strong>, meaning even smaller companies can pack the advertising punch of multimillion-dollar companies. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.asicentral.com\/asp\/open\/Research\/impressionsstudy\/2010.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">ASI studies<\/a> show 83% of ad specialty recipients in the U.S. say they can identify the advertiser on a promotional item they own.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0<strong>As more companies shift to lower-cost advertising like promo products, it\u2019s helping the industry bounce back. <\/strong>A recent ASI <a href=\"http:\/\/www.asicentral.com\/asp\/open\/Research\/IndustrySales\/index.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">Q3 industry survey<\/a> found sales rose for the 7th straight quarter.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0<strong>Promo products save taxpayers money.<\/strong> The U.S. government used promotional items as reminders to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.asicentral.com\/asp\/open\/AboutASI\/pressRoom\/index.aspx?id=4862\" target=\"_blank\">mail back the U.S. census<\/a> \u2013 instead of sending government representatives door-to-door \u2013 a move that may have saved taxpayers up to $85 million. The ensuing response rate surpassed that of the 2000 census.<\/li>\n<li>\u00a0<strong>Obama himself knows promo products work<\/strong> \u2013 he relied heavily on them to get elected in 2008, and his reelection <a href=\"http:\/\/store.barackobama.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">website<\/a> today offers everything from logoed T-shirts to leather bracelets, bumper stickers, buttons and beyond.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can find your senators <a href=\"http:\/\/www.senate.gov\/general\/contact_information\/senators_cfm.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. Click <a href=\"https:\/\/writerep.house.gov\/writerep\/welcome.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> to find and write your U.S. representative.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll provide additional information and guidance in coming days as we continue to learn more and evaluate ways to effectively respond.<\/p>\n<p>Let me know what action you&#8217;re taking and if you have any other suggestions by posting a comment or e-mailing me <a href=\"mailto:tim.andrews@asicentral.com\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As you may have already seen, President Obama has announced a mandate to cut 20% from federal agency spending on \u201cplaques, clothing, and other unnecessary promotional items.\u201d The cuts are designed to trim the government\u2019s \u201cwasteful spending.\u201d We are undertaking an aggressive PR campaign to immediately educate the media and others to help the general [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-news-about-asi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1328"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1331,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions\/1331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}