Joe McEuen, owner of My Brand Promo in St. Louis, has clients in the liquor/beverage space, plus cosmetics, fast food and casinos. Not surprisingly, all of them have branding objectives with their promotional buying. But when McEuen’s most unlikely client – a public utility – chose to spend handsomely on an awareness and image-building program, it’s a clear signal that branding is a red-hot opportunity for distributors in this economic climate.

“They came to us in late 2016 and said they were changing not only their name and logo but all their colors. They wanted to start in early 2017 with an employee program before changing the look of their vehicles and field-employee uniforms and unveiling the whole thing to the public,” McEuen recalls. “We didn’t even get some aspects of the business, like the vehicle signage and the uniforms. The order had fewer than 100 SKUs but our revenue was well into six figures. It’s a company that doesn’t really have competitors, so we were surprised but very happy about the program.”

McEuen’s first task was to build an online store for internal employees to have access to T-shirts, polos and pullovers to get them excited about wearing the new brand. “They wanted to start with core stuff they were confident would be used,” he says. The utility also ordered caps, keychains, padfolios and pens for early 2017, and renews those orders quarterly. One complication: The brand’s new color was a PMS color, which limited some of the products McEuen could choose from.

Interestingly, the utility did want some customer-facing items early on, for a rural awareness program. “The company was involved in some local events out where it’s mostly farmland, so we did camo caps and other items agricultural people would use,” McEuen notes.

Mid-2017 saw the public rollout of the utility’s new name, logo and colors (the website and customers’ paper bills saw the last of the aesthetic changes). At the same time, “the public-facing employees were given newly decorated trucks and outfits, and we supplied those folks with pads and pens and other support materials for them to use and to give to customers,” McEuen says. Even better, his most recent meeting with the client in early 2018 gave all indications that the utility is happy with its promotional products and will continue its orders for the foreseeable future.