ASI recently awarded $1,000 scholarships to three college students who wrote winning essays about participating in ASI’s industry-wide internship program: Taylor Abraham of IMS Branded Solutions (asi/231482), Madison Apshire of Americom Marketing (asi/159113) and Nina Auslander of VisABILITY (asi/202720).

The ASI Summer Internship Program is free to ASI members who hire one or more interns to work at their company for the summer. Since ASI started its program in 2016 to attract more young professionals to the industry and get them excited about the power of promotional products, nearly 1,000 interns have participated. During the summer of 2019, a record 316 interns worked at 21 supplier and 222 distributor companies.

“I’m incredibly proud of our scholarship winners for working hard while learning all they can about the promotional products industry,” said Timothy M. Andrews, ASI president and chief executive officer. “It’s clear from their winning essays that they have real futures ahead of them as entrepreneurs and creative marketers. Their energy, ideas and zeal are exactly what we need to keep our industry relevant and growing.”

ASI supplies participating interns (#PromoInternASI) with training webinars, free access to ESP^®, invitations to ASI Chicago and ASI Roadshows, digital subscriptions to ASI magazines, a gift pack, certificate of completion and the chance to compete for a scholarship by writing about what they learned over the summer.

Below are the winning essays, which offer unique insights into experiencing the promotional products industry through a millennial’s eyes:

Taylor Abraham, of Cedar Rapids, IA, and Coe College. Interned at IMS Branded Solutions (asi/231482)

Life Experience I Have Gained Through My Internship

As an intern in the ASI Program at IMS Branded Solutions in Cedar Rapids, Iowa I learned just how big the promotional product industry is. I am majoring in Public Accounting and Business Administration at Coe College in Cedar Rapids and what I have learned this summer will certainly help me apply what I am learning in the classroom to the real world. One thing that stood out the most to me this summer was traveling to the ASI Chicago Show with my fellow co-workers and getting to meet hundreds of vendors who supply a wide range of offerings.

I have noticed how many people ask me and my co-workers, “what do you do?” This question is so difficult to answer in full because of the thousands of products we can supply and the wide scope of what we provide our customers. My answer to this question has changed over the summer. At first, I started by saying, “we put logos on basically anything you can think of.” Now my answer has evolved to, “we help companies and individuals brand themselves by using promotional products and apparel to put their best image forward.” When it comes to pricing, I learned that customers who are looking for the absolute lowest price on everything may not be for our company. We focus on what else we can offer. We are providing more than just a product — we are providing an experience. ASI allows us to do this by having an easy way to create virtuals online that allow us to come to our customers with creative ideas on how they can brand themselves, not just waiting around for them to ask if we can do something, like put a logo on a balloon for example.

As an intern, I mainly worked on the accounts receivable and accounts payable for IMS. I went through and recorded and paid vendor invoices from ASI suppliers. This gave me a feel for who the big players are in the ASI world as well as learn who IMS partners with and how the system works. I found it fun to be able to go and meet some of the people that I have emailed with and talked to over the phone in person at the ASI Show. I also learned how to read supplier invoices and find the information I need in order to record margins. I not only paid the bills from suppliers, but I also billed the IMS customers and processed their payments. This taught me how to price on different margins, and how to account for setup charges, shipping, products, etc. In the classroom, we focus heavily on the big picture, but this internship really taught me the day-to-day details of real accounting.

During this internship, I also worked on how to present IMS on social media. At the ASI Show, I took a few of the Social Media classes along with a class on creating videos to highlight what your company really does. I learned a ton from these classes and what the keynote speakers had to say stuck with me. My favorite was the class on creating videos because it showed me a wide array of resources that ASI and ASI vendors already have for distributors like IMS. One thing I will always remember is the speaker telling us one important fact: “If people can see it, they believe it.” This stuck with me because I truly believe it! If customers see all of the processes that go into what we do, they are more likely to believe in the products we are selling them. We have started to create these videos here at IMS. We have created short tutorial videos on how new promo products work along with the processes our screen printing and embroidery orders take.

Another project all of us interns worked on was creating and marketing an inventory sale. We noticed a lot of challenges with this but then realized this is what we are supposed to help our customers with. We needed this experience in order to realize the needs of our clients and gain the knowledge needed so that we are able to relate with our customers and provide the best services possible.

I have learned a lot and done a lot over this summer while interning at IMS Branded Solutions, but the last thing I will mention that I helped with was a substantial bank in the area going through a name change. This bank is the customer of one of our full-time sales employees but this job proved to be too big for just one person. I watched the whole team at IMS come together to help put our best foot forward with this customer. Since this bank was rebranding and changing everything about their name and logo, this meant EVERYTHING they had to brand themselves needed to be replaced. We provided pens, pencils, notebooks, bank bags, apparel, and umbrellas to name a few. ASI helped all of us with this customer by providing an easy way to provide them with a wide range of promotional product ideas. I worked heavily on the pricing and billing of this customer. I billed a little over $200,000 in just one month alone. I knew the importance of making sure that everything was right on the invoices I sent. I also learned the importance of making sure I had all of the right documentation in order to bill the customer. ASI provided as a major assist in my search for supplier information like their emails and phone numbers.

Overall, I would rate this internship an A+! I look forward to growing with IMS and using the resources that ASI membership provides us. One thing I wish I would've done more during this internship would be to participate more in the videos provided for ASI interns. I can now see how those could be even more beneficial. Other than that, I am thankful for all of the opportunities I have had and the knowledge I have gained from this experience. I enjoyed getting to work with the other interns at IMS Branded Solutions to create new ideas for IMS and help grow the company.

Madison Apshire, of Silsbee, TX, and Lamar University. Interned at Americom Marketing (asi/159113).

In addition to a scholarship, Apshire won a Lenovo T520 laptop donated by ASI Business Savings partner Lenovo

When I received a call from the CEO of Americom Marketing, Charlie Cooper, I hadn’t the slightest idea what it might be for. For months I had kept in touch (more like pestered him through email), seeking any opportunity to work with him and his company. When I heard his offer of an internship with ASI, I immediately thought YES, I will do it. As he explained further that it was a focus in the promotional product industry my excitement lessened slightly because at the time a job involving pens and mugs did not sound like the exciting start to a career I had hoped for. That just goes to show how little I knew about the promo product industry. After an hour of thought I called him back and confirmed I wanted the position, and thus my summer adventure began!

Adventure is not an overstatement, for the time I have had as an ASI intern at Americom Marketing has been the experience of a life time. I have braved the torturous client pitch, withstood the oh-so-fun product organization, and stretched the horizons of my knowledge. I started off digging into the webinars and learning as much as I could about the promo industry and the distributor need-to-knows. I found the live webinars incredibly informative, especially over the history of ASI and how to operate ESP. I went from practically zero knowledge of the promotional product industry to leading a presentation over the industry at our company’s weekly meeting in a matter of three weeks. One of the most valuable webinars I watched was “Creative Marketing Campaigns That ‘Wow’ Clients & Get Results.” I loved how it engaged you and motivated you to think outside of the box when presenting a pitch to clients, but also to do it with sense (don’t mail a bomb).

Of course, not every moment has been filled with excitement. There was a whole day I focused on organizing all of the promotional items my company collected from the ASI Show in Fort Worth on display for our clients to browse. However, even in the mundane I have found that you can generate value to benefit not just yourself but also your clients and co-workers. For example, when organizing the promo items I uncovered idea-generating products for me to pitch to potential clients and helped my co-workers be able to efficiently show their clients products we could present to them.

This internship has opened numerous doors for me at Americom Marketing, for it was with that first presentation I gave that encouraged the CEO to offer me an account manager position. My position with Americom is multifaceted, and includes sales, marketing research, proposal pitches, graphic design, the occasional product modeling (interesting stories there), promotional items and whatever else my co-workers ask for my assistance with. Basically, I am responsible for any and all things my co-workers feel I can take on (and I am totally OK with it!). I see this internship as an opportunity to grow my knowledge beyond my college education and into real world applications. Not once have my co-workers doubted my ability to adapt and grow to the level they request, and it is with the persistence of challenges I have grown in confidence in myself. Before I had this position, I was a part-time gym worker with the responsibility of keeping kids from attacking each other and fending off germs left behind on the equipment. Honestly, I was starting to question what all of the effort in college was for if this was as good as I could do. Don’t get me wrong – I learned valuable lessons at that gym also (my patience level has grown tremendously thanks to that kid zone), but there was very limited growth monetarily and career wise compared to what I now have access to, and so ASI, I am forever grateful to you.

One example of a challenge one of my co-workers gave me was preparing a promotional item pitch to a different local health and fitness club. The challenge was I had never spoken to the owners before or even stepped foot into their fitness center, and therefore had no knowledge of what culture or style I was preparing this pitch for. I embraced the challenge though, and prepared a broad scope of promo athletic apparel, equipment and beverage containers. To say I was not nervous when the day came for me to present my presentation would be a lie. I had never presented in front of a client at that point, so of course my mind was racing with “what if” questions. Thankfully our social media manager, Amanda, joined me and spoke to the owners first when we met them, allowing me to see their personalities and how to present myself. I learned valuable lessons that day: one, always bring a pen (I completely forgot a pen and needed to jot down the owner’s requests, Amanda saved the day again!), and two: it’s OK if the client does not immediately want to place an order. About a month later, they emailed to place an order for mousepads and I am in the final stages of getting the products to them as we speak!

Through this internship I have learned that promotional items are so much more than clutter jammed into your kitchen junk drawer. They are opportunities to present tangible brand engagement and calls to action that get results. In this internship, my creativity and mental grit have been challenged, but with this has come growth not just professionally but also in self-confidence. In more ways than I thought possible, I have learned not only about the marketing industry, but also about myself, my limits and the direction I now want to go in my career. I have established an appreciation for those in this industry who put their clients first and make effort to generate brand reach in their own unique ways. The CPIs and industry growth don’t lie – those pens do matter!

Nina Auslander, of Lyons, CO, and Oberlin College. Interned at VisABILITY (asi/202720)

It was a crisp January day, and I was visiting VisABILITY, a company that distributes and designs public radio and television merchandise in the hopes of becoming an intern for them that summer. The office appeared to be stuck in time—prints from mid-1990s pledge drives hung on the walls, and there was green wall-to-wall carpeting. Yet the products themselves were thoroughly modern: sweatshirts with premium cotton and water bottles with insulated linings. As I was receiving a tour of the office, Janice Gavan, the company president, handed me a stack of stickers with the slogans “Public Radio Nerd” and “Stand with the Facts.”

“Thank you very much!” I exclaimed. You would be forgiven in thinking that my enthusiasm was exaggerated to get a potential employer to hire me. After all, what cynical 19-year-old would get that excited by mere stickers? But my joy was sincere. I do, in fact, consider myself a public radio nerd: I’m constantly listening to podcasts produced by NPR, and a picture hanging on the wall of public radio host Ira Glass posing with Janice left me starstruck. I was delighted to find socks embroidered with elaborate NPR puns. In many ways, I was the perfect sales target for VisABILITY. But instead of buying their merchandise, I hoped to work for them.

After that interview, I posted pictures of the NPR stickers Janice Gavan had given me earlier (after first proudly sticking one of them on my laptop). My phone was inundated with messages from my college friends asking if they could have a sticker. It appeared that the need to associate oneself with NPR—to proudly proclaim to our liberal college campus that they, too, were a “Public Radio Nerd”—was irresistible.

Later, after getting the internship and watching the ASI webinars, I learned the true value of those stickers. While I had gotten them and then given them away for free, they were not a loss to NPR, but a gain: A product such as a sticker typically gets thousands of eyeballs in its lifetime, and stickers are incredibly cheap to produce. The NPR logo is also incredibly recognizable, a key component for any brand. Therefore, not only were my fellow students establishing their own personal brand as conscious consumers of media, but also doing a favor for NPR by spreading awareness for their organization. The product I was giving away to my friends appeared to us as free, but in reality, they were paying the price by being unwitting advertising agents.

Not only is there an automatic association with the NPR logo, but there is also an immediate assumption of the type of consumer who would purchase NPR products. We all have an image of who listens to public radio in our heads: perhaps someone who drinks alternative milks in an environmentally friendly metal thermos, always composts and is conscientious of where their products come from. Therefore, not only was the branding of the product important, but so was the quality of the product itself: a typical public radio listener wants a product that is sustainable and high quality. No self-respecting pledge member was going to want a cheap plastic cup or scratchy cotton T-shirt. Instead, I can’t count the amount of stainless-steel straw sets we sent out, along with eco-friendly canvas totes, sustainable tumblers and heaps of Chico Bags. This, I learned from the webinars, is an example of understanding your demographic. In the case of the public radio consumer, the underlying basic products of NPR merchandise were as much a part of the brand as the slogans emblazoned on the products.

Understanding specific demographics is a key component of VisABILITY’s design process. Before manufacturing, VisABILITY works with a specific station to tailor the product to their audience. For example, it makes much more sense for a bison to be displayed on a mug for Yellowstone Public Radio than for WUNC in North Carolina. After the product is manufactured at a factory, my role in the company came into play. As an intern for VisABILITY, my job was two-fold: I spent time researching public media programs and assisting with other managerial tasks, but I was also part of the fulfillment crew, where I processed outgoing shipments, conducted physical inventory counts, and learned how to use shipping equipment computer programs.

When working on the fulfillment crew, being careful was a must. Mugs and pints were snugly wrapped in paper and packaged in two layers of boxes to prevent jostling. “Think of it like you’re wrapping a gift for someone,” said Vanessa, my immediate supervisor. “After all, many of these customers are getting these items as a thank-you for supporting the station.” This makes VisABILITY different from other distributors, where the demand is simply from individual consumers. Instead, the company is concerned with maintaining loyalty with both the stations and the consumers. In a crowded industry, standing out as a company that valued the quality of their products over speed of production and shipment was critical. It was much more important, I was reminded time and again, to do the job well rather than quickly.

One of the webinars, called “Your 24/7 Presence: Hot Digital and Mobile Branding Ideas,” discussed this very idea. Instead of worrying about what product one was selling, it was best for the company to be concerned what experience the company was selling, as that was more likely to create loyalty. Because our company was small, we were able to provide personalized touches, such as adding Car Talk postcards to every Car Talk order and customizing each order with the particular radio station’s message. Moreover, many of the public radio stations ordering from VisABILITY have personal relationships with the company stretching back decades. Therefore, not only were we distributing thank-you gifts to these individuals, but they were also individuals that VisABILITY knew well. Because the distributor, supplier and end-buyer relationship relies so heavily on positive personal relationships, it was crucial that we sent them the highest quality products possible. Working for VisABILITY this summer taught me the role that promotional products play in establishing our own personal brands, how the ethos of a particular brand can stretch beyond their logo, and how vital personal touches can be in establishing one’s brand.

(For information on joining the 2020 ASI Internship Program, please contact ASI Senior Marketing Manager Christine Shaw at cshaw@asicentral.com.)