PPB March 2016

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spellbound for nearly an hour as
he detailed the giant shift that’s
happening in marketing and how
today’s marketers should be
responding to it.
Throughout the show, there
were numerous opportunities for
attendees to network and learn,
including more than 100 educa-
tion programs, the promo equip-
ment show DECORATE with
live demonstrations, the brand.
experience with interactive pre-
sentations and its adjacent beer
garden, and the SAGE confer-
ence, skucon, the Recognition
Professionals International
Summit and other meetings co-
located with Expo this year.
“Our members make a sig-
nificant investment in time,
money and staff resources to
attend the show and our goal is
to ensure The PPAI Expo con-
sistently exceeds their expecta-
tions,” says PPAI President and
CEO Paul Bellantone, CAE. “To
that end, we work hard to build
on the show’s success year over
year.” He cites two of the key
drivers of those improvements
this year as the relocation of the
show floor to a single level—
which added visibility for
exhibitors and efficiency for dis-
tributors—and supporting safe
products by requiring every
exhibiting company to acquire its
Product Safety Aware status in
advance of the show. “The third
piece of the show’s success I
noted this year is the ‘big tent’
environment it provides for relat-
ed meetings and conferences to
run concurrently within our
show. It’s another way the Expo
serves to draw our industry
together for shared success.”
Darel Cook, director of expo-
sitions, says some of the key
themes he heard from attendees
and exhibitors was that the new
floor plan made the show easier
to work and education offerings
were creative and refreshing. “It
was like going to the Expo for the
very first time—everything was
new!” he says. For someone who
was unable to attend, he says he’d
describe it this way: “Imagine
being at the Super Bowl of the
promotional products industry,
hanging out with 20,000 of your
closest friends, seeing over one
million products and all the while
enjoying the best educational and
networking opportunities.”That’s
The PPAI Expo.
MARCH 2016 • PPB • 29
“Imagine being at the Super Bowl
of the promotional products
industry, hanging out with 20,000
of your closest friends.”
ABOVE TOP It was a night for winners as PPAI honored dozens of
individuals and companies with its annual awards in five categories
at Tuesday evening’s Awards Presentation & Reception. ABOVE
MIDDLE AND BOTTOM There were plenty of new products to see
and new twists on popular and classic items too in nearly 3,000 exhibit
booths across the show floor.
See More Online
In a show as winning as Expo, there were many individual and
company winners too—and two events were needed to recognize
them all. See who took home the honors for individual and compa-
ny awards, read more about the speakers and events and view
dozens of photos in the official show publication Expo Daily at