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When it comes to compliance,
however, our industry has not been a
trailblazer, and I think it’s safe to say
that it took us some time to get on the
bandwagon. A mere five years ago, few
industry companies were active in the
product responsibility space. But since
then, PPAI and others have gotten us
up to speed quickly with initiatives
such as the PPAI Safety Aware
Program, and we’ve been commended
by the Consumer Product Safety
Commission for being a model industry
in terms of how we have responded to
the call for compliance.
But I can tell you firsthand that
there is still a lot of work to do. As an
industry, we are responsible for the safety
of the products we put into the market-
place. However, I’d estimate that at least
50 percent of the people reading this
PRODUCT RESPONSIBILITY
SMALL CHANGES, BIG IMPACT
WHY COMPLIANCE IS A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
BY JOSH KASTELER
OCTOBER 2015 •
PPB
• 79
THINK
HE PROMOTIONS INDUSTRY IS
a strange and
complex place. Even though we serve the largest com-
panies in the world, our industry’s foundation is built
on small-business entrepreneurship. There is a lot of which to be
proud. Our industry was one of the first to forge trading lines
with Asia back in the 1980s, and we continually bring new inno-
vations to advertising. Plus, the range of products we offer is vast
with useful and memorable items from dish towels to electronics.
T