All Entries in the "Volume 3, Issue 9" Category

Not Just Trinkets Anymore

Corporate branding through promotional products and corporate merchandise, once a cottage industry, has grown to over a $20 billion a year industry with numerous applications.

When I first entered the industry in 1977 with a sportswear screen printing and embroidery business called Two’s Company, my future mother-in-law questioned the longevity of my chosen career, stating, “T-shirts are just a fad.” At the time, few people realized that the T-shirt, and related sportswear items, would become such a powerful branding tool, with individuals of every age sometimes paying to wear your company’s corporate logo and brand on their chest.

According to a study commissioned by the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI), 95% of the 839 businesses surveyed used promotional products. Today, companies in every industry and of every size use promotional products to launch and promote new products, reward employees for their accomplishments and build customer loyalty.

The use of promotional products as a brand-building tool has become a staple for many companies and organizations. It has become as important to their advertising budgets as their print, radio and television campaigns. The key to their success is the creativeness of the product and how it ties into their long-term goals and what the measurable return on their investment is. Just think of how many impressions your corporate logo on a T-shirt receives over the course of its life.

There are hundreds of applications for corporate merchandise and promotional products in today’s business world. The key is to come up with a product that fits your company’s image in a creative and effective manner. Your promotional products distributor should offer suggestions that reflect the image of the company, perpetuate your firm’s brand and contribute to annual marketing goals.

Newport—A Dream Destination for Work and Pleasure

You dream of a Newport vacation, touring the mansions, setting sail on the bay, and a fabulous dinner at one of our amazing restaurants, but then the family drags you to Disney instead. Has this happened to you? Why wait for the next family vacation when you can bring your next corporate event to Newport?

Newport has something for everyone, for all different budgets and we have more corporate event space than just your typical conference room. Francis Malbone House offers twenty luxurious rooms and they are happy to rent out the full inn to a large group coming into Newport. We also have larger hotels if your corporate outing needs more space, such as the Hyatt on Goat Island that offers 257 guest rooms as well as 27,000 square feet of function space with audio visual services and wireless internet, as well as a free shuttle to downtown Newport. There is also the Hotel Viking with 208 guest rooms, a shuttle service and conference space that gives you all the amenities a corporate outing may need. The Newport Marriott is also a great choice, right in the heart of Newport on America’s Cup Avenue. The Marriott name is known all over the world and continues to keep their standards high. With 17 meeting rooms, 16,084 square feet of total meeting space and 319 guest rooms, this hotel is ready to book any corporate outing.

After finding the perfect place for accommodations, there is plenty of fun to be had in our city by the sea. The Newport Mansions and the Preservation Society offer mansion tours year-round, and are happy to accommodate a large group. 12 Meters Charters offers a variety of cruises to fit your needs and can accommodate up to 300 guests. Newport Vineyards has been renovating their space and will soon open a new restaurant to go with their already wonderful wine tastings and tours.

Ready to take your group for dinner? We have that covered, too. With over 200 restaurants in our city, there are options for everyone. Midtown Oyster Bar, located on Lower Thames Street has event space that can be rented for a large party and can accommodate up to 200 people at a time. The Landing Restaurant and Bar can provide the perfect backdrop for your party. Their waterfront room seats 100 guests but the restaurant can accommodate 300 throughout the facility. If you are looking for a traditional Clam Bake, Newport has that, too. Kempenaar’s Clambake Club is a facility that easily serves a small intimate group, but can also expand to accommodate a gathering of 700 or more!

These are just a few of the many great resources Newport has to offer, but your corporate outing is not limited to Newport alone. Chamber members have more to offer including wine tastings, pumpkin patches, and sporting events. With happenings going on year-round, Newport is the destination for work and play! More information can be provided by visiting Newportchamber.com or calling the staff at 401.847.1600.

Learning Isn’t Just for Kids

As a new school year has begun and people’s thoughts turn to fall clothes, school supplies, and new things to learn, it’s also a good time for employers to think about learning in their workplace. Study after study has found that supporting and providing development opportunities for employees has major benefits for everyone involved. The American Psychological Association (APA) reports that “the opportunity to gain new skills and experiences can increase employee motivation and job satisfaction,and help workers more effectively manage job stress.” Development opportunities also benefit companies “by enhancing organizational effectiveness and improving work quality, as well as by helping the organization attract and retain top-quality employees.” Those are some pretty big payoffs from such a simple investment.

Now, there’s no one-size-fits-all employee development plan. But, there are many ways employers can provide personal and professional growth and development opportunities, many of which are as big or as small as the companies themselves. There are three basic ways any employer can kickstart their business’s learning plan without investing a lot of time or money.

Establish a Learning Culture
The excitement and drive to learn new things must start at the top. Employees need to see that
management, from the company executives to the frontline managers, are passionate about growing their knowledge and skills. Managers should encourage their own employees to continue learning and give them the freedom to acquire new skills through a variety of formats, including online videos, webinars, or articles. Growth and development can also be woven into the yearly review and goal setting process. Each employee should set at least one development goal at the beginning of the year. Then, check back around the middle of the year to ensure progress is being made and that the developmental goal hasn’t been pushed aside for something that seems more important.

Host Internal Lunch and Learns
Schedule regular lunch and learn events where employees can learn something new over their lunch break. Whether or not you provide lunch is up to you and your budget, but you don’t have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to bring in subject experts to speak. Tap into the experts you already have on hand. Ask various departments or team members to host the lunch events and teach on everything from understanding social media to using the latest software version to the basics of invoicing and accounting. These luncheons can just be for personal enrichment or to help employees grow their skills in other work areas they might be interested in going into.

Support Professional Organization Involvement
Be supportive of employees’ professional organizations, whether you can cover the annual membership fees on the employees’ behalf or you just allow them time off to attend meetings. Employees will become even greater experts in their fields as they learn from specialized speakers and network with colleagues at organization events. Many local organizations also provide opportunities for members to attend nationally-recognized conferences and workshops at discounted rates. The more employees who are involved in local organizations, the better known your business will be around the community.

Learning isn’t just for kids returning to school! Everyone needs to continue learning throughout their life to keep from growing placid and out-of-touch…this includes your employees! Providing opportunities for growth and development will not only help keep workers motivated and satisfied, but their growth will also fuel your business to reach its full potential

Susan Esposito, Business Developer
Express Employment Professionals of Warwick

Ice Buckets & Pennies from Heaven

Is there a coincidence that the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has played out in such a dramatically successful way all over the world and at the same time we have been victimized by some of the worst news stories in recent memory? They’re piling up on us so rapidly, it seems surreal. What can we learn about social media, about philanthropy, about the human condition by this extraordinary phenomenon?

The setting for this viral movement is reflective and important. Beheadings. Ebola. Ferguson. Israel and Gaza. Russia and the Ukraine. Thousands of children streaming over our borders in search of a new life. Floods, tornados, hurricanes and sinkholes. Economy sputtering. Election silly season. The loss of Robin Williams, and with it the loss of humor often found in life’s serious side.

Amidst all of these nightly assaults from our televisions−and if we manage to miss it, there’s always the morning news to bring it right back−there was something that happened that gave us joy. It gave us something to do about the human plight. And we were pulled together in one unbroken human chain, from coast to coast, continent to continent.

The Ice Bucket Challenge. A moment in time. A silly, personal action that we share with millions on social media, inspiring laughs all across computer tops, iPads and iPhones in a nanosecond. It has popped up every once in a while for different charities and causes. But this year, this year was so different. An obscure disease, actually called an orphan disease, afflicting “only” 30,000 people in the United States. Maybe the small numbers reminded us of how we feel against the global times we live in and the hopelessness we carry around with us to effect any change at all.

But there was this thing you could do. This cold bucket of ice thing. And you could dump it over your own head. Shock yourself and take a video of it, then share it on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all the rest. You could make your friends do this, too. And then go to your computer and donate money to the ALS challenge, which has received over $109 million dollars, nationally, with about $1 million coming from the state of Massachusetts alone. And there’s no end in sight.

And for two or three weeks the little worlds we live in threw buckets of ice water over our heads−a personal moment of control over this bombardment of grief in our world. Have you done it? Even on a really hot day it jolts you. It’s as if the memories of a beheading, of a boy lying in the street oozing blood into the pavement, of dirty homeless children flooding this land of made-up dreams, of rockets red glare, red dragons, and bleeding eyes, were put out of our minds and our hearts for just a little while. We took control over our mental anguish and turned it positive, joyful, helpful and hopeful.

Not only has this event raised more money than has ever been collected at one time in ALS research, but there are also now over 3 million new donors. The challenge has created new opportunities to communicate, engage and develop people who previously had no interest or even knowledge about ALS.

Imagine if a PR person planned all this. Well, they would be receiving some top honors somewhere. But that didn’t happen. It began with one person–Pete Frates–totally disabled now, and without speech, he and his family began this to try to raise some money. And it went out of control. PR people rushed to keep up with it. Meetings are still being held to strategically invest these new dollars. And every day we see a new twist, watch a new video. Sometimes, you just don’t have any control at all.

A bucket of ice. Who knew? Who knows the power it will have on inroads to a cure? But in each of our small worlds, magnified on the screen of social media, we took control, we chose to laugh, we chose to do something rather dramatic, rather beautiful–we chose to be the essence of who we can be. We chose peace for a moment or two, or maybe because we shared it in those nanoseconds, the peace lasted a little longer. And in our gigging, shivering wetness, how beautiful we are!

It has been my great honor and privilege to support the communications and public relations efforts of the ALS Association’s Massachusetts Chapter, where the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge originated. In a 30-year career, I thought I had experienced the best of the best, but this was one unexpected joy.