Incentive - December 2008 - (Page 61) Relaxing Rewards PAGE 65 Dinner and a Movie PAGE 70 Natural and Earth-friendly body, skin and spa products are the perfect treat for your winners Dining and entertainment gift cards give hard workers a night off with family or friends Expanding Options for Promotional Products By Alex Palmer Tumi will be one of the incentive-level brands at the PPAI Expo this year T he definition of “promotional products” is expanding, at least if the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) has anything to say about it. This year’s PPAI Expo, taking place at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, Las Vegas, Jan. 12–16, will feature “brand.”— a showcase of incentive, rather than traditional, promotional products. The “brand.” gallery will were sold only through manufacturers’ reps or not at all in years past. Also breaking from the past, this stable of brands will constitute a “show within a show,” distinct from the rest of the Expo instead of intermingled with the many other promotional products booths. “Basically what you might have seen at The Motivation Show we’ll have at the “brand.”[gallery],” says Darel “It’s not just the ten- or fifteen-dollar items anymore.” —Darel Cook, PPAI include many incentive-level brands including Sony, Bose, Tumi, Dooney & Bourke and Waterford. There will be at least 16 brands showing under their own representatives this year that Cook, PPAI’s director of expositions. Since many of those at the Expo are more oriented to the promotional products market, he expects that the pavilion will “help educate the promotional consultants and distributors at the show about what brands can offer and what incentives can offer as a business to help you grow as a business.” Both the Incentive Marketing Association and the Incentive Manufacturers and Representatives Alliance will have representatives in the pavilion, offering information and answering questions for distributors who walk through. Cook says many clients are reaching out to their promotional consultants, specifically in areas like safety programs and corporate gifting, for merchandise with higher price points. “It’s not just the ten- or fifteen-dollar gift items anymore; continued on page 63 incentivemag.com | December 2008 | Incentive | 61 http://www.incentivemag.com
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