PPB January 2015

INNOVATE

32 •

PPB

• JANUARY 2015

PPAI H

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Giving Back Comes Full Circle

WHEN PAUL KIEWIET, MAS+, CIP, CPC, began his career

in advertising more than 30 years ago, little did he know he

would become a legend in the promotional products industry.

He had always been very creative, so he left college to start a

radio production company.

“I discovered I was good at writing copy for commercials

and I enjoyed developing campaign ideas for my clients,”

Kiewiet remembers. “While I was very creative, I didn’t know

anything about running a company so I pretty much ran the

business into the ground.”

From there, he joined an outdoor advertising company as a

sales representative and then moved to a company that sold

point-of-purchase displays.

“Selling POP displays was a tremendous experience for me

because the only companies that needed them were larger

companies,” Kiewiet says. “I needed to figure out ways to get

in the door at companies like Kellogg’s, RCA, Kroger and

Procter & Gamble. I got comfortable calling on big accounts

and I also learned how to persuade clients that they had a

need for what I was selling.”

Industry Entry

By 1982, Kiewiet had discovered the premium incentive

industry and founded Kalamazoo-based distributor firm

Promotion Concepts (UPIC: pciaws).

“As I began selling more premiums, I joined the premium

industry’s national association,” he says. “That was where I met

Glen Holt, who was involved in both premiums and promotional

products. Glen introduced me to PPAI, which was SAAI

[Specialty Advertising Association International] at the time. I

absolutely fell in love with the industry.”

Meanwhile, on the homefront, Kiewiet discovered that his

wife, Claudé, was pregnant with the couple’s first child. Kiewiet

quickly realized he needed to increase the liquidity of his cash

flow.

“With the large accounts, I was often working a year or

more in advance, so it was a very long stretch between consult

to payday,” he says. “Promotional products offered a much

faster turn on programs and also enabled me to hire other

people to sell for me. Thanks to promotional products, I was

able to increase my cash flow and spend more time with my

family.”

By focusing on his largest accounts and allowing his

employees to manage the smaller ones, Kiewiet grew his busi-

ness by adding big-name brands to his client list.

“It took 19 years to acquire the Kellogg’s account,” he

remembers. “Sometimes I only made four touches a year. But

they told me I was on the waiting list, and I kept moving up.

Then it finally happened. I was given the opportunity to make a

capabilities presentation, and I landed the account.”

Thanks to his agency background, Kiewiet naturally

assumed the role of a true promotional consultant, helping

clients solve problems instead of simply taking orders.

Former PPAI Board Chair Carol Aastad, MAS, who is now

retired from Geiger, says she always admired Kiewiet for taking

a “full-scale ad agency” approach to selling promotional prod-

ucts. “He invested a great deal of time and money with his

major clients, which clearly paid off,” she says. “He always

2015 PPAI H

ALL OF

AME

NDUCTEE

Paul Kiewiet