industry know-how. He prefers to work collaboratively with clients to hopefully determine products he might never have pitched on his own. Lunar Branding won’t turn down an opportunity to sell pens, t-shirts, or tumblers, but it has also put logos on yoga mats and etched company names on the corner of the reflective part of makeup mirrors. In an ideal world, a client approaches himwith some details. Here’s our brand. Here’s what we stand for. Here’s our targeted audience. Here’s the event we have coming up. What can we make that’s unique? That’s the fun part of the experience for Gregorian. He wants clients to think they’re Lunar Branding’s only client. It all circles back to that earlier moment in Las Vegas in 2016, the one we haven’t discussed. His first product, the retractable key badge, came about when he was in Mexico with a travel club. The club encouraged posing for pictures for social media with signs with the club’s name. The problem was that many of their activities— swimming, horseback riding, parasailing— required at least one free hand. So Gregorian devised a retractable device that clipped to clothing and could be pulled open with just one hand. He told people who worked within the organization, which had thousands of members, about his idea and made a twominute video explaining how it worked. They all laughed at him. Then he saw the organization’s president in the Las Vegas airport waiting at the baggage claim. He put his phone in front of the man and convinced him to watch the 10 most important seconds of the video. Initially uninterested in talking to Gregorian, the president was impressed. He would later introduce him to the CEO, who put him in touch with the head of marketing. The organization technically could have stolen the idea from him, but that would have taken them out of the running for any of his future ideas. They wanted to buy it from him. So the head of marketing gave Gregorian the instructions that would eventually lead him back to Las Vegas for The PPAI Expo. “Go start a promotional products company.” It was the right advice for someone like Gregorian. He had everything the industry requires. He just needed a little guidance along the way. Everybody does. Auping is a news editor at PPAI. Gr eg Gr ego r i an | MAY 2022 | 35 GROW
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