American Solutions for Business

Professional Inspiration for Promotional Products Buyers

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November 2018

$500 BILLION in Tariffs

It’s Starting to Effect Purchasing Budgets--Buy NOW--& Inventory

Creating Retail Quality Promotions The Benefits are Huge

Blood Drives Win Over Your Community & Customer’s Hearts

Nike “Just Did It”

Should Brands Take a Stand on Social Issues?

Wellness & Health Promos Why They’re Critical to Your Company & Community

Cultivate Customer Excitement Using Promo Products & Loyalty Programs

Matt Penton (714) 336-1011 www.americanbus.com mpenton@americanbus.com

Retail Quality Promotions

Four Color Process Beach Towels

Four Color Process Wearables

Sophisticated Designs Product Development & Manufacturing

by Mario Arrue

Style & Substance STYLE & SUBSTANCE

Available in: Leather, Faux Leather, Easel, Acryli

ic, Vinyl, Supported Vinyl, Four Color Process Etc.

High Perform with a High Per

mance Watches rfomance Style Gift Box Included

Premium Lifestyle Products

s from THE Premium Line

Inexpensive But Designed to Look, Write & Fee

el Amazing

The

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Comes in Four Colors

And Has Amazing Sound

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18 BRANDING 30 HEALTH PROMOS 50 LOYALTY PROGRAMS 54 BLOOD DRIVES 58 $500B IN TARIFFS

18-Should Your Brand Take a Stand on Social issues?

30-Wellness & Health Promotions Make a BIG Difference 50-Ways tto Cultivate Customer Excitement 54-Blood Drives Connect Your Company with Your Community 58-What $500 BILLION in New Tariffs Will do to Your Promos

Contents November 2018

Saddle Keytags DURABLE ACRYLIC FULL COLOR

Safety and Compliance: Certification and Compliances CPSIA, “PROP 65” No safety warnings for this product.

Our brand NEW acrylic keytags offer a great way to show your logo for years. Printing on one or two sides.

The tags are backed with a sublayer of white so your four color process logo/images really pop!

CUSTOM ENGRAVED Special Offer

CAR CAR

™

™

Febreze CAR has

R Air Freshener arrived!

exclusively from

Knobby Krafters

Fall/Holiday

Parties and Events

Great Gift Bag Item

Inexpensive Admission Keepsake

Click Here for Our Video

TM

High Quality Construction

Your Logo Here

Magnetic Personality

The

Hottest PhoneGrip on the

Market

Snug Hug Tech

Your Imprint Here

4 Way Locking Stand

Nuckees Video Exclusively through:

7

orders@ultrapens.com I cs@ultrapens.com I 866.924.9400

7

Case

Study

Coke Blows Out Olympic Winter Games with Compressed T-Shirts Promo We all know that Coke is a trend setter.

And most of the promotions that they run always result in big wins (they are a good company to follow for promo program development).

Benefits?

Coca Cola was delighted with the outcome of their promotion that featured branded T-shirts and towels in the shapes of their products.

Huge distribution, competitively priced, exclusive custom shapes, easy to give out...all things that added significant value to the brand. With dozens of orders placed, this can mean only one thing: SUCCESSFUL PROMOTIONS. Coke achieved what they set out to do: The whole point is to make a lasting impression on customers and then get their customers to display their brand by wearing it. Compressed t-shirts will certainly do that.

Its w depa excit duct, ment millio

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what every promo artment desires‌ tement over the prot, customer engaget and branding ons of times.

it's a lot less expenthan you think!

Should Your

Brand

Take a

Stand

On Social Issues or Remain Neutral?

People Want Their Brands to Take a Stand on Social & Political Issues Individuals are overwhelmingly open to Brands participating in social and political conversations. Not only do they want to hear from Brands, but they expect Brands to converse in intelligent and impactful ways, even if they are “taking sides” on a social/political issue.

Up until 2018 most Brands have used the following predominant mindset amidst major sociopolitical change, division or scandal: Stay Out of Controversial Political/Social Climates Take the Path of Least Resistance Don’t Buck What is Perceived as Normal Avoid Any Hot Button Issues But in today’s political/social climate as normal things spiral out of control & with trust at an all-time low, consumers are looking at Brands--the Company’s they do business with--to step up and take the lead to effect change. It’s not IF Brands should take a stand, it’s when and how frequently.

Why you might ask? Why not stay below the radar?

Why ruffle any feathers and even cause a ripple with your customer base?

According to research, two-thirds (66%) of respondents feel it’s important for Brands to take a public stance on leading social and political issues like immigration, human rights and race relations.

BUT, Brands must realize that haphazardly wading into social situations is not an option…Brands must be prepared and have a plan for addressing controversial political and social issues.

Compared to communication channels like TV, radio, phone, email campaigning, the largest number of consumers are receptive to Brands communicating their positions/values on social media. Social media is bigger than websites/blogs, print, newspaper, billboard, texting and digital advertising.

It’s not a crapshoot…Brands must know when to insert themselves into the right situations to prevent negativity or backlash. The “right” moment doesn’t have a single definition; rather, Brands must strategically pinpoint on social media the opportunity to engage relevant audiences on issues they care about, invest in, or are specifically affecting their brand at the moment.

People see brands as an important way of expressing themselves and consumers want companies to align with their core beliefs. In the U.S. alone, 57% are belief-driven buyers, up 10 points from 2017.

If you’re not considering or making plans to Brand your company in this manner, you’d better start now.

Determine the values that best reflect your brand. Are they socially, environmentally or politically oriented? What are the values your brand aligns with, what is your stand? How will you communicate your stand and, most importantly, how will you engage your customer and partner communities with these values?

When & How Should You Take a Stand?

A question you can ask yourself: Is my company commenting on this issue because its sincere or just hopping on the bandwagon?

Or…why should your company care in the first place? Ultimately your consumers are looking for a connection between your Brand and the issues they are lending their voices to.

Here’s some examples of Brand’s that took a chance and won big.

Without this link—the connection between your Brand and your consumer’s issues—it becomes hard to believe that your goals are anything but altruistic.

The result, quite the opposite that people believed. Nike’s store foot traffic INCREASED 17% in the week after the Kaepernick ads ran. Was it a big gamble…we don’t think so.

In-spite of the fact that Nike shoes were burned, merchandise was defaced and Nike did take a dip in favorability, the result was Nike’s on-line and in-store sales trended upwards, in a big way.

Nike Just Did It When Nike “took a stand” and started using Colin Kaepernick in their ads, they took a beating from a lot of people.

Other benefits that Nike got out of endorsing Kaepernick: Nike got $43 MILLION worth of free media exposure and ultimately reported a 31% increase in on-line sales. Nike knew exactly who they wanted to target, but at the same time they knew who they would lose as customers.

During the 2017 Super Bowl many companies such as Airbnb and Coca-Cola decided to use their super expensive 30 second time slots to take a stand. While they too got slammed initially, their “bet” paid off.

Sales for both of those companies rose.

Lyft, another company to join this type of social/political activism, advertised that they would provide free or discounted rides on election day.

Here are some thoughts to get you thinking about what you can do to make a difference. How are you supporting homeless programs in your community? How are you empowering underprivileged women to rise above?

You get it. Now go get on it!

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Wellness& It’s Time To Start Capitali On Making Your Client’s Feel HealthPromotion With the holidays approaching—and the bathroom scales about to tip in the wrong direction—it’s time to reevaluate your Personal and Corporate Wellness Programs. You can start by learning the nutritional basics, but simple exercise at home and while working at your desktop/job can be fulfilling. And, as importantly, when you care corporately, your clients will be highly appreciative.

Each Wellness and Health Promotional product you distribute gets your logo in front of hundreds of people during the year because the exercise products you buy tend to stay around for longer periods of time. From exercise mats to arm straps that hold your phone; squeeze balls; even headphones...

Corporate Wellness Programs will improve your client’s everyday life while reducing the risk for many diseases.

Make a difference…

Our suggestion: Start designing a Wellness program that will run for many months. People are not going to get healthy in a week. Plan to get maximum exposure and choose inexpensive items so you can buy more for a wider distribution. Fitness does not just improve your everyday life, but it

reduces your risk for many diseases. According to the Mayo Clinic The Department of Health and Human Services recommends all healthy adults include aerobic exercise and strength training in their fitness programs. When designing your fitness program, think of physical activities your client’s will enjoy.

By the way, when you implement your Wellness Program there are a host of companies tha you’ll be joining. Many incorporated it into the day-to-day marketing p Well‐known wellness p providers, like Virgin He CIGNA and CVS Carema Wellness because of th benefit it presents, so y good company by reco Wellness Programs to y Their model actively pr

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insight into how marketers are looking to utilize the “carrot” (positive incentives) to inspire consumers to stay healthy rather than the “stick” (punishment).

The first place you can look in developing a Wellness Program is to see what your fellow employees are doing. Ask them what they do for Wellness…they will have a lot of ideas and will be willing to contribute.

Then put the plan into place.

Your local promotional products Distributor will have many more ideas...just ask us!

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BLOOD DRIVES Every two seconds there’s a person in the USA that needs blood.

To give you an idea of how much blood that is, well, try in excess of 13 million units. Good enough reason to run a Blood Drive for your community?

We think so, so should you.

The American Red Cross is one of the biggest partners corporations you can get to help run a blood drive. They sponsor more than 40 percent of the nation’s blood and run blood drive campaigns with more than 58,000 co-sponsors every year. You don’t have to worry about developing a plan, it’s all been done thousands of times before; all you have to do is input your requirements and the event will go off flawlessly.

We’d like to highlight a story that was featured on Red Cross’s website that described American Airlines Transport Workers Union’s Crew efforts…it was totally admirable what they accomplished.

American Airlines (AA) has managed to involve 5,000 of its employees in their blood drives.

They collected blood as late as 2am…so that shows you how dedicated the Red Cross is. They collected 40,000 pints...

Click Here to See American Red Cross December 2018 Events You Can Join

How does American Air promote their blood drives? Well first of all since their employees are giving blood during their work hours they provided shuttles and arranged so that work schedules were not interrupted. AA also provided t-shirts as gifts…and everybody was proud to wear them.

Their Union has a huge grill on the campus and they offered cheeseburgers, bratwursts and other food including steak to donors. By the way, the t-shirts have pockets—a major convenience to those who carry earplugs! What do they say, it’s the little things that make the biggest difference.

Check with your local Red Cross and make a miracle happen. They will do almost everything for you.

All you’ll have to do is provide a little manpower and money for the promotional products gifts you’ll give the donors.

What you’ll get in return is many people who will view your company very favorably and want to do business with you.

The

Payoff is Great for

Everyone Gift Cards, Movie Tickets, Squeeze Balls, T-shirts, Hand Sanitizers, Hats, Anything Heart-Shaped...

Beautiful Products We Make

Designed for You

Makers of the Best Selling Tech Promo

$500 Billion in Tar NEW

Politically we’re sure everyone has a view of Trump’s tariffs but we’re not here to report on that.

Suppliers and Manufacturers in Promotional Products Begin to

We’re here to help and guide you!

Here the scoop on how the latest tariffs are going to effect your promotional products buys. You already know from listening to the news that any product that uses steel or aluminum, has been hit with a a price surge and costs are still on the rise.

So buying products affected by steel and aluminum NOW will look great on your balance sheet.

As of the first week of November 2018 many manufacturers of promotional products stated that they are NOT going to provide long term catalog pricing on items like USB drives (which were always subject to flucuations because of the memory chips anyway) because expectations are prices are going up and up. Virtually anything related to electronics will go up too...from basic calculators to PC’s.

There are a host of other products that will be affected too. In “Phase three” of four of the tariffs, many items receiving higher tariffs are related to food (which is why the farmers are getting hit hard with lower sales).

Everything from wearables to the dye used to color shirts and printing inks are listed in the upcoming tariffs. Other products include mugs and other ceramics along with the decorating inks. Leather in general, gloves, mittens, luggage, tote bags, woven bags, all are in the tariff.

But just so you’ll know keeping an eye out on Phase three is where you’ll be hit the hardest.

Click here to see the complete list: Phase One Tariffs Phase Two Tariffs Phase Three Tariffs (this is where it will effect promo products the most) Phase Four--not published but coming https://www.ecomcrew.com/ wp-content/uploads/2018/09/TariffsJuly-7-2018.pdf

riffs Show Small Cost Increases

THE OUTLOOK

THE FIX

Accordingly, if President Trump persists in putting forward more tariffs, President Xi will not likely budge or compromise - even if that means the Chinese economy will face hard times.

There are some simple steps you can take to minimize the impact of these proposed tariffs on Chinese products.

There are some issues that are non-negotiable for Beijing, and the trade war is not one that will see an easy compromise.

Review your products’ HS codes immediately and determine if they are affected by Phase 1, Phase 2, or Phase 3. If you have any products impacted by Phase 3, try to get these shipped to you ASAP to avoid being hit with additional tariffs. Best strategy, develop an inventory plan for the possibility that the mid-term elections in November may NOT cause a resolution to the trade dispute.

At this moment It’s true--the Chinese have the upper hand--given the massive trade surpluses with the US. We predict that the US trade deficit with China is on track to increase this year, notwithstanding Trump’s tariffs. Its seems that Americans will pay more for goods that were traditionally very inexpensive.

SIde note: The trade war hasn’t reduced the trade deficit with China.

We need to say this. its so true...the US has a lot more to be angry about. Among other indiscretions, Beijing has stolen US technological and secrets for its own advantage. They’ve also antagonized US allies in the South China Sea, killed or imprisoned more than a dozen American informants, and taken millions of US jobs over the past 15 years.

What you should do:

What’s in store for the future? Strap in for a slightly rough ride. Trump is not likely to give in any time soon, or ever.

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