In the early 1990s while serving Moore Corporation Ltd., Pete Estrada couldn't imagine selling promotional products. "I was a trained certified forms consultant," says Estrada, president of Specialized Printing & Promotions, a 7-year-old distributorship in Fresno, Calif. "I went through a lot of training to be able to understand how to build a form from scratch....I didn't want to be a 'Fuller Brush Man.' I didn't want to sell pencils, pens and golf balls. There was a stigma."
Estrada's opened his eyes to the potential profitability of promotional products and other marketing efforts when he began working for a Fresno distributorship in 1993. "I started asking companies how much money they set aside for marketing," Estrada says.
Sales of safety education/incentives topped $609 million in 2002, up approximately 8.3 percent from 2001, according to Promotional Products Association International. Popular items include electronics, water bottles, umbrellas, Polo shirts, tote bags, jackets, watches, flashlights and more.
Courtesy of Bullet Line Inc., Miami
He soon discovered most businesses spent an average of 30 percent of their funds on marketing.
A year later, Estrada, who previously had served as a consumer lending officer in the automotive division of Los Angeles-based First Interstate Bank of California (which later merged with Wells Fargo) and a manager at Goodyear Tire, rejoined Moore as automotive segment manager. "I was sold 100 percent on selling ad specialties, but trying to convince the reps in my division to sell ad specialties was a different story," he says.
In 1997, when Moore moved its Fresno office to Colorado Springs, Colo., Estrada seized the opportunity to start his own business--Specialized Printing & Promotions. Promotional products accounted for 15 percent of the distributorship's sales during its first year in business, while business forms accounted for 85 percent. "Now, I would venture to say if I do 30 percent business forms, I'd be lucky," Estrada says.
Within months of opening, Specialized Printing & Promotions began providing business forms to Irving, Texas-based Mission Foods Corp., a manufacturer of tortillas, wraps, taco shells, tostadas and other Mexican food products. While checking inventory levels at one of the client's facilities, Estrada began studying the company's on-the-job safety efforts and recognized an opportunity.
Specialized Printing & Promotions began providing Mission Foods' five facilities with 25-30 banners monthly, sporting phrases such as "Safety First" and "Think Safety" in English and Spanish. The distributorship also provided a variety of promotional products that were awarded monthly, quarterly and annually to employees who had been accident-free for those periods of time. During the program's first year, for example, Specialized Printing & Promotions provided Mission Foods with 2,305 fleece-lined, black nylon jackets embroidered with the client's logo and its parent company's logo. The client paid $90,000 for the jackets, which were awarded to employees who had no workplace accidents that year.
During the safety program's first year, Mission Foods' productivity increased 10 percent, while workers' compensation claims decreased 5 percent. Because of Specialized Printing & Promotions' success with Mission Foods, it also began providing safety incentives to other companies, including a restaurant/bakery chain, a dry cleaner chain, a vending machine company, a construction firm and a snack foods company.
--Kara S. Carpenter
Fast-food restaurant chain Chick-fil-A's 2004 marketing efforts include a calendar and other promotional products featuring its "Eat Mor Chikin®" cows as superheroes. The calendar includes photos of bovines--each with its own superpower--sporting capes, masks and other superhero disguises to persuade consumers that chicken is more appetizing than burgers. Stars include "Decibell," a cow whose oversized larynx enables her to scream at high volumes until burger eaters opt for chicken instead, and "Gristle Missle," who zooms through burger eateries at 500 mph, tipping trays and tossing burger patties aside. The calendar, now in its seventh edition, includes monthly food and beverage coupons. Chick-fil-A produced 2 million copies of the 2004 Cow Superheroes calendar because it quickly sells out each year, according to the company. (In comparison, Sports Illustrated sold 700,000 2003 Swimsuit Calendars.) Chick-fil-A also offers Cow Superheroes T-shirts and a plush toy depicting Decibell. The items are sold at Chick-fil-A locations nationwide and via the company's web site at www.chick-fil-a.com. Since introducing its "Eat Mor Chikin" marketing program in July 1996, Chick-fil-A has sold nearly $25 million in promotional products, including wearables, calendars and plush toys. Thanks to these and other marketing efforts, the company's unaided
