PPB October 2018

ground for populist movements. This lack of trust has created opportunities for brands to establish their credibility and rebuild trust in the marketplace by looking within. According to Edelman’s findings, consumers consistently identify employees, not company leaders, as a company’s most trusted spokespeople. This has prompted a surge of interest in establishing and strengthening employee engagement and advocacy programs, an internal marketing strategy that has historically included promotional products. As a result, promotional products have taken on a renewed importance for many companies reprioritizing their brand strategies. In PPAI’s 2017 Sales Volume Study, distributor companies indicated ‘Employee Relations & Events’ as their clients’ most common use for promotional products (18.5 percent), topping the charts for the first time since 2007, when sales in this category were estimated at $2.4 billion. Ten years later, brands are spending nearly $4.3 billion, an 84 percent increase since 2016. What Starts Within, Spreads Throughout A brand is no more than a badge of identity and a promise of performance—a promise that can only be kept by those who fully identify with the brand. Given the bewildering number of brand touchpoints that exist in today’s hyper-connected world, it is increasingly important for companies to be more conscious of streamlining external and internal branding with a consistent message. Promotional products have proven to be an effective external marketing strategy that when used in isolation, can effectively elevate a brand with the company’s internal stakeholders. In fact, 85 percent of employees at companies that use promotional products solely for external marketing strategies say they know what their employer stands for and what makes their brand different from the competition. Yet, when branding is supported by a symbiotic relationship between its internal and external stakeholders, the results are far more overarching and beneficial—as evidenced in PPAI’s 2018 Consumer Study. Results include insights from a nationally representative sample of more than 1,000 employees drawn from third-party panel provider, Worldwide MR. Though there Figure 1: Employee Con dence, By Marketing Strategy External Marketing Strategies ONLY Companies That Use Promotional Products For: 85% 90% 98% Internal Marketing Strategies ONLY External AND Internal Marketing Strategies “I know what my employer stands for and what makes the brand different from competitors.” Source: PPAI 2018 Consumer Study FEATURE | PPAI Exclusive Research 90 | OCTOBER 2018 |