I'll take it from here, thanks...

A year or so ago I decided to establish Special Markets Diablogs as a forum for ideas and discussion about our market and issues relevant to it. As you can see from the prior postings, there hasn't been a lot of enthusiasm about it.

Part of the reason is that people don't want to "leave tracks"--they don't want to be "on the record" about potentially controversial subjects. I understand that and appreciate the concern. But as the Resident Bomb-Thrower of Special Markets Dialogues, I consider it a moral imperative to continue throwing Bombs.

So, I've decided to continue the site, but only as a forum for my own rantings. And since no less a market Icon than Gene Geiger considers me a "whack job" I owe it to him to validate his assessment. Sorry, Gene--if you ever see this you know I took it as a term of endearment even if you didn't mean it that way...

And now, on with the Bomb-Throwing:

• The New New York Incentive/Brand/Motivation Show is off to a flying start--I'm told more than 75% of the booths are sold and the organizers are hoping for 1000-1500 attendees. Hurray for them. And contrary to what I heard in the Rumor Mill, resellers ARE invited--it's the opinion of the organizers that the nature of the show will not attract any resellers that don't value brands.
• Mike Unger left Hoover after several years in the Special Markets Chair. There are no specific plans to replace him as yet--Hoover was sold to Royal and Mike tells me that Royal, not Hoover, will determine how they continue to approach our market. Look for an MRC to take it because Hoover has other fish to fry.
• If any of you are looking for a job--the AT Cross position is open. Cross' website has the posting, as does monster.com. Vilia Johnson's shoes will be difficult to fill--as Cross needs someone who understands the Promotional Products Market AND can satisfy the new EVP Marketing's need for someone who's Brand-savvy. That's a short list.
• I detect a bit of Brand-snobbery these days about the Promotional Products business. Yeah, yeah I know--there are 20,000 of them and only 5 "get it", but that's simply not true. Do we really know how much Branded stuff is being bought by PP distributors outside the "sanctioned" channels? I had a chat the other day with a distributor who was seeking Apple's approval to put a client logo on iPods. Did the distributor buy said iPods from Incentive Concepts? Please. He bought them from another authorized Apple reseller. How much business is evaporating because the PP community finds the Special Markets Divisions of Branded products companies too difficult, too arrogant, or too expensive to deal with?
• And on that note-I challenge anyone to give me 25 good-sized "Incentive" accounts that are not primarily focused on Promotional Products. I can get to 10, and then it gets difficult. Face it--if there ever was a "war", it's over--and "they" won. We either learn to speak their language or we face the possibility of becoming irrelevant.

Expect more of this on a pretty much ongoing basis. Feel free to weigh in, or not--I respect your decision regardless. Or just pick up the phone and call me--I'm happy to bat this back and forth. I promise to keep anybody's ID confidential, but I do reserve the right to use our chats as fodder for future musings.

Enjoy...

Pete