Hall of Fame | Must Read She was over 40 before she began working in the promo world in 1980, and nearly 45 before starting her own company. That company would grow from a small fish in a small pond to a successful business that navigated mergers before becoming part of one of the biggest distributorships in the industry, with Aastad driving the ship for the entire journey. That same journey led her to chair numerous boards and committees and receive plenty of recognition, including her 2023 induction into the PPAI Hall of Fame. Some people in this industry – in any industry – can look at their careers at 35 and wonder if they should be further along, having spent a decade or more in the business. At that age, Aastad was still more than five years away from getting started. But she would eventually change the industry. A Familiar Tool Aastad wouldn’t need an explainer on the role and value of promotional products when she ventured into business. Her father worked in marketing for an oil company in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when Aastad was young, and one of his secret weapons was promotional products, at that time still referred to as advertising specialties. Aastad remembers umbrellas, scarves and coffee urns with her father’s oil company logo prominently featured. “He used a little Swiss Army knife, and it was the hit,” Aastad says. “We called it his little DX [the name of his company] knives. They were so popular.” The strategy was so successful that when he retired, he and his wife opened their own small distributorship, with many of his former contacts in the oil industry serving as his clients. It was a mom-and-pop shop run by Aastad’s literal mom and pop out of their home. A few years later, when Aastad’s son, Scott, was about to graduate, her father recruited her to the business. One of his selling points was that 7% of distributors were women, a paltry number by today’s standards, but a sign of progress, he argued, that the door was opening for her. So, in 1980, Aastad joined her parents’ company, Ben Davis Advertising, which was based out of Oklahoma. She remained where she lived in the northeast and built a client base in that region. A Growing Fish In A Growing Pond In 1984, Aastad founded her own distributorship, Harlan-Davis, Inc. which she presided over. She was a natural. Wilmington, Delaware, near the company’s base, had plenty of large corporations with big budgets that headquartered in or near the city. Aastad capitalized on that by convincing each one to use their marketing dollars on promotional products. It was a pre-digital era, and all Aastad needed was an opportunity to sit down in an office with a potential client and a sample product, and the story usually played out the same way. “The thing that I loved the most [about the industry] was meeting my clients and sitting with them in their office,” Aastad says. “The joy I got out of coming up with a creative idea that would meet the customer’s needs, and then see their eyes sparkle when they would see the coffee mug or the shirt or the product with their logo on it.” After a decade of growth and steady business, Harlan-Davis, Inc. merged with the larger Forrester-Smith, and Aastad became the VP and general manager in 1995. Another decade of success with Forrester-Smith led to the final step: merging with Geiger, one of the industry’s largest distributors. “The thing that I loved the most [about the industry] was meeting my clients and sitting with them in their office. The joy I got out of coming up with a creative idea that would meet the customer’s needs, and then see their eyes sparkle when they would see the coffee mug or the shirt or the product with their logo on it.” PPAI • JANUARY 2023 • 63
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