PPB December 2015

INNOVATE

16 •

PPB

• DECEMBER 2015

EYE ON APPAREL

Soak Up These Self-Promo Ideas

McCabe Promotional Advertising, Inc.

(UPIC:

MCCA0001) went retro and bought a 1967 Ford

Falcon van to use at client and community events and

as part of its social media messaging while launching a

new motto this year: “Get Away From The Ordinary.”

As a self-promo holiday gift, the distributor chose to

partner with Canadian supplier Redwood Classics and

give McCabe clients upcycled mittens made from ugly

holiday sweaters destined for the landfill. “These ugly

mittens fit into our story right now,” says Michelle

Merrifield, McCabe’s VP of operations. “The promo-

tion gets us away from the ordinary, and the fact that

each mitten is unique and retro—all of that fits with

our theme.” The mittens include a logoed woven label

and are packaged in eco-friendly craft paper with a

company-created hangtag.

Selco

(UPIC: SELCO) offers an interchangeable cus-

tom-designed watch system, Switch, with modules that

can be “switched” out among five different colored straps.

To introduce the line, Selco created a self-promo cam-

paign that was honored with a 2015 PPAI Pyramid

Award. “The goal of the campaign was to engage distrib-

utors prior to meeting with them at upcoming shows,”

says Selco President Mark Abels, MAS.

“A couple of weeks before each show, we mailed

one of the brightly colored straps to each distributor

with a note requesting they bring the strap to their

meeting with us. About 75 percent of distributors

remembered to bring their strap.” At the meeting,

Selco presented each distributor with a fully cus-

tomized module embellished with the distributor’s

company logo. “Distributors raved about their logoed

watches and most put them on immediately and wore

them throughout the show,” Abels adds.