Our Promotional Product Trade Association is also celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year – that at #PPWeek 14th – 18th September 2015 is a great reason to shout about what’s great about our industry.
The Sourcing Team believe in supporting our industry and industry body, with our founder and CEO has also contributed to the association as a board member for many years and taking the position of Chair and President. We believe the association is there to ensure best practice and the highest standards for the buyers and to provide support for their members to help promote and grow the industry.
How times have changed in the last five years let alone 50! Wow
Looking at a book found in the office cupboard (which is filled with stuff we don’t want to bin!) We found a book which was given to Gill when she joined the bpma board of directors in 1995 – what’s funny is actually lots of what is in there is the same today!
The code of practice, responsibilities of distributors and suppliers; honesty and dignity and observe ethical practice …. But, the industry has changed dramatically in many ways. The world is changing so incredibly fast and the needs of our customers today are far greater and more intense than they were when the bpma was established 50 years ago.
Today aside from creating great branded promotional products we must lead on responsible sourcing – encompassing ethical trading, product safety compliance and of course sustainability.
We love the promotional product industry. It takes a lot of work to remain a serious player; today you have to be experts in so many areas as mentioned above and have a huge set of expertise to do a great job for the client and add value. You need to have good marketing skills (online and offline), procurement training (supported by a range of best practice processes), creative and design, understanding of the key manufacturing processes, finance and international trading to name a few. You need to travel the world to find and assess manufacturers and work closely with product designers and supply partners in order to pull it all together.
Passion is what The Sourcing Team has for their business and that’s why we love to celebrate our industry whenever the opportunity arises! Promotional product week – #PPWeek is about sharing our love for what is a massive global industry, one that adds value to the brand proposition and delivers results.
#PPWeek started in the UK 2013 – it was something our American Trade Association had been doing for a few years (PPAI) and the bpma thought it was a great idea to bring to the UK. We embraced the chance to shout about great promotional products so our first year was the “Pink & Green
Campaign” – where the team went fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support across London – wearing pink or green wigs, and giving out gorgeous oyster wallets and lens cloths for each donation. The team fully embraced the campaign – raising both awareness for #PPWeek and money for Macmillan.
The second year we wanted to tie in the so popular “Selfie” so we ran our PromoSelfie campaign … photos of customers, clients and connections with their favourite promotional product. To end the week a bit of TST silliness and fun at the office with the promotional product video – all the team were interviewed by the lovely Charlotte – talking about their favourite promotional product – it was an afternoon of uncontrollable laughter! And again, money was raised for Macmillan Cancer Support.
Year three – 2015!
The bpma theme this year for #PPWeek is “Promotions in Action” – so the team started to brainstorm out how that might work with our usual thinking of fun, sharing great work and raising money for charity. What we decided to do was to run an event in Croydon – huge development is going on in the Croydon area, so what better time for us to promote promotional merchandise to the local business community. We found a fantastic venue called ProjectB – the owner Karen has created a really wonderful space that is used for a range of different events and it’s a great space to celebrate #PPWeek. We have invited local businesses, many of our network connections and some of our top supply partners to an afternoon of networking and fun.
The event will commence from 12.00 noon to 6pm on the 15th September – refreshments including canapes and pink cocktails. Showcasing six or seven great client campaigns and demonstrating how we at The Sourcing Team “Pull it all together” in the marketing space, embracing the whole “promotions in action” theme.
In addition, we have the team from another wonderful charity OneLife coming along to video and photograph the event so we can capture and share on social media, in order to increase the reach about promotional products and all things marketing! 
Our supply partners have been incredible and supplied lots of wonderful prizes for the raffle and silent auction along with supporting The Sourcing Team Pink Goodie Bags and, other branded materials for use on the day. It will certainly showcase how to use branded merchandise as part of an campaign to promote awareness for your brand and much, much more.
It is by invitation only and looks to be a truly fantastic afternoon of networking, idea sharing and fun!
We all look forward to welcoming our guests and spending an afternoon making new friends. Watch out for our images and video of the day!