TREVOSE, PA – July 20, 2009 - Advertising Specialty Institute^®, the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, announced today it has enhanced the ASI ContentBridge platform that allows distributors to build highly customized Websites, boost their online presence and improve their operations. 

ASI ContentBridge provides distributors with direct access to all of ASI’s product and supplier data.  The newest version makes implementing services faster and easier with an enhanced data stream.  In addition to building custom sites, customers are currently using the service to integrate product data with order management systems, improve search engine optimization results and implement search engine marketing campaigns on sites like Google. 

The Vernon Company (asi/351700), a Counselor® Top 40 Distributor™, has been using ASI ContentBridge to import products from its top 500 suppliers and to dramatically improve its website.

“The value ASI brings to the table far exceeds all other possibilities out there,” said Dave Regan, vice president of sales for The Vernon Company.  “By using ASI ContentBridge, we’ve improved the accuracy of our website, our orders and everything else involved with processing a sale.”

Regan also noted that his company chose ASI only after a careful review and evaluation of several other options.  When the company reviewed product and image quality, the accuracy of the data and the costs involved, ASI was the clear-cut choice for the organization.

“Prior to using ASI ContentBridge, posting products to our website was a time-consuming, manual process.  This meant we could feature a limited number of products, and there was more room for inconsistencies and errors,” said Regan.  “Now, using ASI ContentBridge, we can showcase almost eight times the number of products we did previously, and our sales force imports data directly into an order template to complete sales faster.”

Jack Nadel International (asi/279600), also a Counselor® Top 40 Distributor™, has discovered the versatility of using the service.

“ASI ContentBridge has been great for our company,” said Craig Nadel, president of Jack Nadel International.  “We have integrated it into our own website and also use it for company stores and for presentations for prospects.  It has enabled us to add features beyond what we could do ourselves from our own IT efforts.”

The capabilities of ASI ContentBridge are providing larger distributors with an exclusive edge. 

“Distributors using ASI ContentBridge are growing their business, improving their customer service and have fewer errors,” said Timothy M. Andrews, president and chief executive officer of ASI.  “We’re pleased with the installations we’ve completed, including The Vernon Company and Jack Nadel International, and results have provided a high return on investment for those companies that they can’t get anywhere else.”

ASI ContentBridge offers the same quality data that powers ESP Online™ and LogoMall websites and includes information such as pricing, set-up fees, product images and supplier ratings. 

In addition to vital product information, all educational and editorial content produced by ASI is available in digital audio and video formats to allow distributors to have information at their fingertips about new products, sales strategies and important industry news.  ASI invests over $1.3 million annually to create and deliver educational content.  

When suppliers update their product and pricing information with ASI, it is automatically forwarded to distributors with ASI ContentBridge to feed their websites and business systems.  In turn, the latest product data reaches distributors and end-buyers faster, increasing sales and saving administrative costs and time.

Data can either be streamed in real-time from ASI’s servers, or downloaded periodically over the Internet through a simple interface.

For more information, visit asicontentbridge.com, or contact Dan O’Halloran, senior vice president of distributor services for ASI, at dohalloran@asicentral.com.

About ASI 
Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, with a membership of over 26,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms (manufacturers) of advertising specialties.  Supplier firms use ASI print and electronic resources to market products to over 22,000 ASI distributor firms.  Distributor firms use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain nearly every product in the industry from more than 3,500 reputable suppliers, to locate supplier firms and to market services to buyers.  ASI provides catalogs, information directories, newsletters, magazines, websites and databases, and offers e-commerce, marketing and selling tools.  Visit asicentral.com.

Contact

Dawn Marie,
Executive director of corporate communications

Email industry news and press releases to Chris Ruvo, Digital News Director and Promogram Editor at cruvo@asicentral.com

If you’re a reporter or other member of the news media, please email press@asicentral.com