The Middle Ground

Promo’s history has typically been defined by customers aiming to maximize their budgets with high-volume, low-cost items. However, during the pandemic, this dynamic was turned on its head. With no events to spend on, buyers shifted toward high-end products that matched their glossy retail brand aesthetic. Now, customer demand has settled into a middle ground.

Michael Scott Cohen, CEO of Harper + Scott (asi/220052) and a Counselor’s Power 50 member, has seen a tug-of-war between brand affinity and cost consciousness, with uncertainty around tariffs and the economy fueling spending hesitations. People want the value of a retail brand name, but aren’t willing to pay retail prices. “Everyone still wants that champagne experience, but they’re bringing a sparkling water budget to the table,” Cohen says. “So for us, it’s just pushing more on how to make that fizz feel premium.”

Sometimes, that means selecting one high-end item and building an executive gift kit or influencer mailer out from there with a few smaller additions. Sometimes, it’s decreasing order quantities while retaining that higher per-item price point. Sometimes, it’s picking a retail-inspired piece, rather than a retail brand one, to stay on target with budget.

Marissa Carlino, chief merchandise officer at Creative Solutions (asi/170769), reports that her clients have largely narrowed their focus to a mid-tier price range where they can reach a wide variety of customers. It has forced both Carlino and the clients she serves to concentrate on qualifying recipients to make sure that a given campaign is reaching the right audience. That’s become key across the board – justification for the spend.

“Clients are asking for value,” Cohen says. “But at the same time, how do they define value? It really depends on who their audience is and what the intent is behind the purchase.”

Because of that, it’s not that clients are never willing to shell out top dollar for their promo campaigns, says Johanna Lucia, vice president of client services at Brilliant (asi/146116). It’s that they need a reason why.

For example, high-end items are a staple of the influencer marketing campaigns that Harper + Scott frequently fulfills because retail brands and recognizability can be especially important for recipients perceiving the value of the gift.

Among the most important product attributes is usability; clients want promo that end-users are going to hang onto. With giveaways at conferences and conventions, for example, there’s more awareness that an item needs to be something small, but still valuable, that people can travel with – otherwise, it’s going to be left in their hotel room if there’s no space in the suitcase.

“If we can guarantee it’s a good product that will last, that won’t end up in a landfill, which can be used over and over again,” Lucia says, “that justifies why a client would like to spend more money on a product.”

Product tastes will continue to shift. In today’s climate, Lucia says domestically made items have become more of a differentiator for distributors, with suppliers pushing their Made-in-USA items and more clients asking for them. And sometimes inventory availability makes it less about what the customer wants and more about what they can get.

Still, at the end of the day, customers want what their competitors are doing – but better. For some, that means pivoting away from standard retail brands to lesser-known, small business purchases, says Carlino, who along with her sister Lorin Carlino Ogawa, was named ASI Media’s 2023 Distributor Salespeople of the Year. Clients like knowing that they’re choosing what could be the “next big thing,” she adds – and that they’re providing a promo experience that’s unique to them and their brand.

The opportunity to tell a brand’s story with promo is a particularly poignant value add for distributors, Lucia says – and that’s true regardless of price. A creative experience or a bespoke item is surely an extra incentive for clients to up their spend, but designing a promo item to feel like it belongs to their brand can make customers at any price point feel like their merch is high-end, regardless if it costs 80 cents or $80. “It’s about elevating the item and not just slapping a logo on it,” Carlino says. “It’s about making it something that feels custom to their brand.”