Once crowned “The Sultan of Swag” by The Wall Street Journal and venerated by colleagues and competitors alike for his lifelong commitment to the industry he helped to shape, Norman Cohn, chairman emeritus of the Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI), passed away on Friday night, surrounded by family. He was 93.

Norman Cohn, ASI

The 2023 recipient of the Counselor Lifetime Achievement Award, Cohn spent 75 years at the forefront of the promotional products industry, launching his illustrious career first as a distributor while still in high school. He later switched to the supplier side and ultimately, to heading up ASI, the Trevose, PA-based, family-owned organization that serves as a central hub of the promotional products industry.

Under his decades of stewardship, Cohn helped usher the $27.7 billion promotional products industry into a new millennium, championing technology and innovation, while still holding true to the tenet that the industry is a relationship-based business above all. “If I’m to be remembered for anything, I’d like it to be for helping the over 20,000 distributor and supplier members grow their businesses and improve their profitability,” Cohn once said. “I love the idea that they will be able to pass on their businesses to future generations like our family has done.”

ASI CEO Ashish Mittal said of Cohn, “Though our time together was brief, it was enough to understand the depth of what Norman built – not just a business, but a set of values, a culture and a standard of care that has guided this company for decades. I am humbled to step into this role at such a profound moment, and I do not take lightly the responsibility of honoring everything he and this family have created. His legacy will not simply be remembered here – it will be the foundation on which everything we do is built.”

In reflection, Tim Andrews, who retired as president and CEO of ASI in March 2026 after 23 years on the job, said, “Over more than two decades, I had the privilege of working alongside Norman, but our relationship extended far beyond business. He took a genuine interest in my life, my friends, my family and my growth, offering guidance and encouragement in ways that were always thoughtful and personal. He was always there just when I needed him, or saying just what I needed to hear. I came to admire not only what he built, but who he was – a man of deep kindness, humility and with a great sense of humor. I loved him, and I will always be grateful for the influence he had on my life.”

One oft-told story that exemplified Cohn’s essential traits involved the chairman walking down an ASI hallway pushing a large cart stacked high with wholesale-sized boxes of pretzels. It wasn’t because ASI was entering the pretzel business; instead, Cohn had learned that an employee was a fan of Snyder’s pretzels and purchased a pallet as a reward for the successful completion of a project. The employee was thrilled with the treasure trove.

Cohn’s Early Life 

Cohn was born in 1933 in Waterloo, IA, the son of Maurice and Bess Cohn, and graduated with a B.S. and a B.A. from the University of Northern Iowa. While a senior in high school, he had a light bulb moment that changed the course of his life – and the trajectory of an entire industry. His father owned five grocery stores, and his uncles had a scrap metal business. One day, during a visit, he noticed that his uncles’ office was packed with cases of Smucker’s preserves, which his uncles would give away as holiday gifts to clients. Cohn wondered why his father – who sold a lot of Smucker’s products in his grocery stores – couldn’t sell the gift packs to clients as well. He wrote the Smucker’s factory in Ohio, who told him that though they appreciated his family’s business, they couldn’t sell the gift packs because they had an exclusive arrangement with Bankers Advertising (asi/131650) out of Iowa City, IA.

Though that first foray was a dead end, it didn’t stop Cohn from putting together some food gifts with his father, Maurice, and offering them to local companies for their employees and customers, starting a new business dubbed Santa Claus Industries.

“I did well enough that even after graduating high school in 1950, I delayed going straight off to college and continued selling even when I did start going to college,” Cohn recalled in an interview. “I’d travel around, selling, and stay at YMCAs for $10 per week and allow myself a food budget of $1 per day.”

One notable sale occurred at the age of 21, when Cohn visited a company called Pillsbury Mills in Minnesota. Cohn was asked if he could provide 7,000 turkeys to give out to their employees, and Cohn agreed readily, “not knowing how I’d pay for 7,000 turkeys, how or where to keep the turkeys in cold storage until they could be delivered, or how to ship said 7,000 frozen turkeys to different locations across the country.” Cohn brought his dilemma to a local banker who took a chance on the young entrepreneur and gave him a loan to enable the deal. “Ultimately, it all worked out OK,” Cohn said, remembering the story decades later.

After a few years of selling, Cohn learned more about the promotional products industry and the logoed merchandise it sold. His family applied to be a supplier through the Advertising Specialty National Associates (ASNA) – an industry association at the time. However, the ASNA turned the Cohns’ application down, since nobody was offering food gifts then. “This was an industry that sold primarily calendars and ballpoint pens,” Cohn reflected in a 2019 interview.

Rather than give up, however, he waited a year or so, then joined the Advertising Specialty Guild, a competitor to the ASNA started by Joseph Segel, founder of ASI and later QVC and The Franklin Mint. The Cohn family was able to exhibit at the guild’s trade shows and sell its food gifts to distributors. After becoming an industry supplier, the Cohns began buying other suppliers. By the late 1950s, Cohn’s family had become the largest supplier in the industry. “My parents had a lot of faith in me, and I was able to make them see this business had potential,” Cohn once said.

In 1962, Norman and his father acquired ASI from Segel, sold off all their supplier activities and moved to the Philadelphia area, immersing themselves full time into growing ASI and the industry.

Norman Cohn was named ASI’s chairman of the board in 1967 and remained active in the company throughout the rest of his life, whether strolling an ASI Show floor in a signature red derby, personally greeting a new hire at their cubicle or regaling employees with his startlingly accurate predictions at ASI’s annual holiday party.

Over the years, Cohn enjoyed working with all five of his children in different roles at ASI. He transitioned to chairman emeritus over the last decade, working closely alongside two of his children, Matthew Cohn and Stephanie Cohn Schaeffer. In March, ASI named Matthew and Stephanie as co-chairs, the third-generation leaders of the family business. In recent years, 10 of the 11 grandchildren (excluding the youngest, who is 3), have also worked or interned at ASI, representing the fourth generation and extending a family legacy that Norman Cohn helped build across decades. He was proud to have three of his grandchildren currently working at ASI.

His daughter Stephanie shared: “I had the privilege of working alongside my dad and learning from him every day. Whether we were at the office, a tradeshow or grabbing a late-night hot dog at the ASI Show in Chicago, he made everything more fun. He believed you should wake up every day and love what you do – it shouldn’t feel like work. And with him, it never did. He always said, ‘The best is yet to come,’ and he made you believe it. I carry that forward as I continue his legacy – taking care of our customers and employees and helping them grow and succeed – determined to always make him proud and to make those words true.”

A Legacy of Innovation

Over the years, Cohn introduced numerous innovations to the industry – including a demonstration of the fax machine. When fax machines first came out, Cohn brought two to an industry trade show. “People would come to our booth, and there was one in one end of the booth and one in the other end, and we said to people, ‘Here, write something, anything you want, your name, your wife’s name, whatever.’ Then we said, ‘Walk over there.’ And they found on that second machine what they had written because the first one had transmitted it. They couldn’t believe it,” Cohn recalled in a 2019 interview.

Norman Cohn (left) with his son Matthew Cohn and daughter Stephanie Cohn Schaeffer, holding a photo of his father Maurice Cohn.

His devotion to technology continued into the social media age, when, at 91, Cohn became an inadvertent viral influencer on TikTok. A 2024 video of Cohn unboxing a package of V8 juices posted by his granddaughter received around 6.9 million views, hundreds of thousands of likes and thousands of comments. The initial video spawned several follow-ups and an invitation from the Campbell Soup Company to visit V8 headquarters.

Other innovations that occurred under Cohn’s watch include introducing the first full-color catalog and creating the first industry-specific, computerized business software system to manage supplier and distributor businesses. ASI Computer Systems remains the most widely used business management system in the industry. Cohn also oversaw ASI’s reentry into the trade show business with ASI Show in 1998.

Another pivotal moment during his tenure as chairman occurred in April 2024, when ASI acquired the PRINTING United Alliance’s Power Meetings events and the Print & Promo Marketing media brand. In addition, the two companies formed a long-term strategic partnership to introduce promotional products to the print industry and vice versa.

A Spirit of Generosity

Beyond his professional success, Norman’s true north was always his care for the people around him. Reflecting on their 38-year partnership, Cohn’s son Matthew noted: “I was incredibly blessed to work alongside my father for nearly four decades. In those years of shared challenges and triumphs, every day was a masterclass in integrity and leadership. Dad always said, ‘If you take care of your employees, your customers and your community, the business will take care of itself.’ That wasn’t just a business philosophy – it was his lived reality. He was the most generous and compassionate person I’ve ever met, with a rare gift for making everyone feel seen. While he taught me the intricacies of the industry and made me a better businessperson, his genuine care for others is the lesson I hold most dear. He truly improved every life in his orbit, and I will forever strive to carry forward the extraordinary example he set.”

Norman Cohn’s life and career reflect a rare combination of entrepreneurial vision, civic leadership and lifelong service. His commitment to leadership began early. As a rising high school senior, he was elected Governor of the American Legion’s Boys State and selected as one of only two representatives from Iowa to attend American Legion Boys Nation, where he was elected Secretary of Defense, an honor that led to an invitation to meet President Harry S. Truman at the White House. After graduating from college, Cohn continued his service by enlisting in the Air National Guard, where he served for six years, including six months of active duty.

That early leadership carried into a lifetime of global civic engagement. In 1960, at just 27 years old, Cohn became the youngest member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO). He played an active role for decades, including service on the YPO International Board as Education Chair and Marketing Chair. During YPO’s first-ever Trip Around the World, he met his “beautiful, wonderful, amazing wife” Suzanne in Athens, beginning a partnership that has defined their shared leadership, philanthropy and global friendships.

His civic service also included an appointment by President Gerald Ford to the Bicentennial Council of the Thirteen Original States, where he served as Secretary, as well as board roles with organizations such as the National Liberty Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, National Public Radio, the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs International Board and as an active member of the White House Historical Society.

Together with his wife, Suzanne, Cohn has championed hundreds of charitable initiatives, combining quiet generosity with hands-on leadership. His impact has been especially meaningful in the fight against Type 1 diabetes, where his fundraising, advocacy and personal giving to Breakthrough T1D (formerly JDRF) have helped accelerate research long before the cause touched his own family.

His philanthropy also reflects a deep and enduring commitment to Jewish life and education, including long-standing support for synagogues, Jewish cultural institutions, Holocaust remembrance and education programs, and national Jewish organizations including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, The National Museum of American Jewish History, the Naples Holocaust Museum & Education Center, and Jewish Federation. More broadly, his giving spans education, community organizations, industry-wide scholarships and crisis relief efforts, including large-scale food support during the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

His contributions have been widely recognized, culminating in the YPO Legend Award in 2025, honoring not only his extraordinary leadership and service, but also his enduring care for others and commitment to those less fortunate.

Cohn also received a number of accolades for his tireless efforts to advance the industry over the years. In 2000, Cohn was named the Counselor International Person of the Year. And in 2023, he received Counselor’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Cohn once said, “From a young age, my parents instilled in us the importance of helping others. At ASI, we’re a small, family-owned company made up of people with big hearts.”

Norman Cohn is survived by his beloved wife of 61 years, Suzanne; his daughter Debra; daughter Kimberli and her husband, Scott; his son Jonathan; his daughter Stephanie and her husband, Robert; his son Matthew and his wife, Lea; and his 11 grandchildren: Morgan (Felix), Warner (Annabel), Connor, Madison (Joe), Isabelle, Sydney, Caroline, Mackenzie Skylar, Zachary, Benjamin and Tania.

Funeral arrangements will be announced shortly. A livestream of the service will be available for those who wish to join remotely.