WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2016
PAGE 3
Two
distributors
honored
with PPAI
Distinguished
Service Award.
PAGE 3
Monica
Mehta’s 2016
economic
outlook hits
home with
audience.
Education
Location Change
Wednesday, January 13
2-3:30 pm • Lagoon J, Level 2
Best Of 2015: Differentiate
Or Go Home
Speaker: Cliff Quicksell, MAS +
PAGE 5-11
Winning
companies
announced
Tuesday night
in five big
categories.
EMBRACING SERVANT
LEADERSHIP
PPAI Humanitarian Award
Recipient Mark Gilman, CA
By Jen Alexander
Monday night’s program, the
PPAI Chairman’s Leadership Dinner,
celebrated the philanthropic work of
Mark Gilman, CAS, the 2016 recipient
of the PPAI H. Ted Olson Humanitarian
Award. Gilman took to the stage to
share the story of his lifelong love affair
with his hometown of Shawnee Mission,
Kansas.
“When Paul Lage and Carl Gerlach
asked if they could submit my name
for consideration for this award, I
hesitated,” says Gilman. “I wasn’t
sure I wanted to call attention to
any humanitarian acts I might have
inadvertently committed. But then I
thought how proud I would be to have
my name associated with Ted Olson,
and so I agreed to let Paul and Carl
proceed.”
As a longtime resident of Johnson
County, Kansas, Gilman has immersed
himself in the growth of his community
through public service and servant
leadership. He has contributed his time
and support to numerous organizations
and causes, including Shawnee Mission
Medical Center, the Johnson County
Library and several fine arts community
groups.
“Because of my lifelong interest in
the performing arts, I quickly joined the
[Johnson County Community College]
arts advisory committee,” Gilman
says. “I’m still connected closely to the
college’s performing arts endeavors.”
Gilman has also supported high school
performing arts through patronage and
publicity, supplying the promotional
posters designed by students for
productions.
“The kids have saved copies of each
of the posters as examples of the
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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.orgSETH GODIN: FROM INVISIBLE TO REMARKABLE
By Tina Berres Filipski
While most of us were taught in
school from an early age to be quiet and
fit in, Seth Godin begs his listeners to do
the complete opposite.
Using examples, personal stories and
unforgettable, often hilarious, oversized
background images, Godin took on
what’s been wrong with marketing
since the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution.
Godin should know—in 1992 he
published a book about the internet and
it sold a dismal 1,842 copies. He called it
a total, epic failure. At the same time, two
guys created a site about the internet
and named it Yahoo. Godin credits their
success with the fact that the pair had
a blank slate—and figured that if people
want to learn about the internet, they
would learn online. He, on the other
hand, created what he already know how
to make—a book. “That’s the giant shift.”
For almost an hour, Godin held the
sold-out ballroom of listeners in the palm
of his hand as he explained the giant
shift that’s been happening in marketing
over the past 50 years.
Mass merchants demand mass
markets to sell more stuff, he explained.
“The mentality was that if we advertise
it enough, people will buy from us,” he
says. “This is all fueled by bosses who
keep saying the four-letter word to us
over and over again. M-O-R-E. More
market share, more yield, more profit per
share. This leads to average products for
average people.”
To restate: All products are average
on purpose, because if you want to reach
everybody, you better make something
everybody wants to buy.
The challenge is that most people
you sell to don’t think they have a
problem that only you can solve. And
more bad news: the idea that you can
sell the same thing the guy down the
street is selling for more money after
spending decades saying it’s the same
as everybody else’s, is where the thinking
is broken.
The rules have changed. There is an
entire industry that is falling apart—the
one that drove the mass marketing
concept of interrupting everybody is
going away. The good news, he said, is
the skills that listeners have are perfect
for this new moment. “The privilege of
delivering personal, anticipated and
relevant messages to people who want
to get them drives so much of what you
are capable of changing in industries that
need your help,” he says. “Also, for the
first time ever, it is easy and imperative to
treat different people differently.
“We are leaving an industrial
economy and entering the connection
revolution,” he says. “The only asset that
matters is who you know, who knows
you, who’s paying attention to you—
connection.”
The connection economy is based
on coordination—the nexus where
connections meet; trust—the people
you work with are an intangible benefit;
permission marketing—delivering
personal, not mass, messages—and the
exchange of ideas—all of us are smarter
than any of one us.
Creative people dance with the fear
of this change because connections
have value. What we have done in 75
years is to completely redefine what you
are about to do, who you are allowed to
serve, he says. “Do you have the passion
to do something about that? Do you care
enough about the people you are about
to serve?”
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