TUESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2016
PAGE 5
Maximize
your time
on the show
floor with
this plan.
PAGE 13-14
See and
be seen
at The
PPAI
Expo
2016.
PAGE 7
Four top
apparel
trends to
watch.
PAGE 10
See what
favorite
products the
editors picked
this year.
NEW PRODUCT
SAFETY REQUIREMENT
ENSURES
DISTRIBUTORS’
CONFIDENCE
By Tina Berres Filipski
Showgoers at this year’s PPAI Expo
will notice a few changes they can’t
miss—like the fact that they can remain
on a single level and see the entire
show.
But there’s also a major change
that’s subtle but critical to distributors’
businesses. All of the exhibitors,
sponsors and advertisers at this show
have attained Product Safety Aware
status. This means that each company
(regardless of membership category) has
designated a roster employee who has
completed a minimum of four hours of
product safety education in advance of
the show and serves as the company’s
Product Safety Ambassador.
PPAI’s Product Safety Awareness
(PSA) program was originally announced
during The PPAI Expo 2014 and went
into effect at Expo East in March 2015.
The program is designed to foster an
industry-wide commitment and culture
where companies are not only educated
about product safety but engaged in the
discussion.
“The 2016 PPAI Expo marks the first
time that distributors can be confident
that every single exhibitor on the show
floor possesses at minimum a basic
understanding of his or her compliance
obligations,” says Paul Bellantone, CAE,
PPAI president and CEO. “I am not
aware of any other trade show in any
industry that can make such a claim.”
The achievement was a massive
undertaking in terms of education
and communication for PPAI and
the program did experience some
opposition early on from companies who
thought the program either didn’t
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P R O M O T I O N A L P R O D U C T S A S S O C I A T I O N I N T E R N A T I O N A L
Read more online at
expodaily.ppai.orgTODAY’S MESSAGE: DREAM BIG, REACH OUT, DIVE DEEP
Keynotes talk reaching goals, solving life’s big problems and understanding Millennials
By Jen Alexander
Monday’s General Session welcomed
a healthy crowd of Expo attendees
eager to hear fresh perspectives on life,
business and community from three
dynamic speakers: Melinda Doolittle,
Casey Gerald and Josh Tickell.
In a new format, the three guests
shared snippets of the topics they would
cover in three individual power keynote
sessions.
Doolittle’s sharp wit and sassy vocal
styling were the icing on a sweet session
about dreaming big and doing things
even when you’re afraid. She shared her
story of searching for a passion by trying
things, some of which she failed at.
Even those talents she now holds—
Doolittle is an accomplished singer
and “American Idol” finalist—began as
dreams she held onto and prayed for, but
also worked to make come true. “Don’t
be afraid to dream, even when people tell
you it’s not possible. You can’t let other
people shape what you do,” she says.
There are three kinds of
entrepreneurs, Gerald told his keynote
audience, and they emerge for different
reasons. The first are entrepreneurs who
have “an awesome idea” and want to see
it come to fruition. The second are what
Gerald calls necessity entrepreneurs;
often victims of economic calamity
who find they need to survive. The last
kind are people who see a need in the
community and are determined to fill it.
With an MBA from Harvard and a
growing team of fellow MBA graduates
and students, Gerald is seeking out
entrepreneurs like these to help them
take their businesses to the next level,
so that those people can continue to
serve their communities with optimum
efficiency and provide the greatest
benefit.
“We have been fortunate to be in
service to extraordinary people,” says
Gerald. “We find one in a place in the
life of their idea, and we ask, ‘What’s
keeping you up at night?’” Then,
the teams work on everything from
establishing business technology to
implementing social media to crafting
on-the-spot customer data capture.
Gerald says helping entrepreneurs
solve even the smallest of issues can
make a big difference in the ongoing
success of their business ventures. “We
often find that they spend so much time
in the business, they have no time to
work in the business,” he says. “So we
find some way to take them to the next
level.”
Josh Tickell’s tools for connecting
with and creating customers within
Generation Y drew a standing-room only
crowd, who learned that 50 percent of
the Millennial generation hasn’t even
made it to the marketplace. Regardless,
he says, “their spending power is
enormous.”
As a result, in 10 years’ time, Tickell
says, older generations will become
largely irrelevant in the marketplace.
Of course, selling to this generation
isn’t as simple as finding pain points
or appealing to trends. Tickell says
Millennials’ digital proclivities forces
businesses like those in promotional
products to consider how Millennials
interact with brands.
Tickell shared characteristics of app
interaction that businesses should look
to when building strategies for selling
to Millennials, including personalization,
simplicity, accessibility and immediacy.
“This is an app-driven generation,” he
says. “They expect interaction with a
company or brand to be like an app.”
n
From left to right: Josh Tickell, Melinda Doolittle and Casey Gerald