December 18, 2024 | 12:30pm EST

Raising Your Game: Becoming a Promotional Professional

Paul Kiewiet
MAS+ CIP CPC

You work in one of the fastest growing and most dynamic of all advertising media. Learn ten ways to become a proud professional and grow your income, your business and your reputation.

Learning Outcomes:

• How to develop best practices and habits to grow
• Learn what to let go of to receive more
• Become a trusted brand

Paul Kiewiet MAS+ is retiring from MiPPA after serving 12 1/2 years as the executive director. The author of “Summit: Reaching the Peak of Your Potential” and a frequent industry speaker, writer and consultant - Paul is an inductee into the PPAI Hall of Fame and the MiPPA Hall of Fame. Paul founded and built a sales promotion agency/distributor serving several major brands and was a multimillion dollar producer. He served the PPAI board of directors and was chairman of the board of PPAI.

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January 29, 2025 | 12:30pm EST

5 Big Trends Dominating the Branded Merch Game (and How to Win)

Bobby Lehew
Chief Content Officer, commonsku

Virtually every major media outlet, from The New York Times to Vogue, now highlights stories celebrating merch. Why? “Merch madness” has entered a new era, where brand expression and personal identity create a bold opportunity for those who understand the cultural zeitgeist and learn to seize its power and use it effectively. As merch pros, if we prepare for this opportunity, we can reshape our selling positions and our businesses to reap extraordinary benefits now and in the future. Join Bobby Lehew as he shares examples from the world's best merch stories –from Johnnie Walker to A24 to Glossier and Apple– and learn how these brands embrace merch to cut through the noise of distraction to impact their fans who matter most. 

You’ll learn: 

• How younger buyers now think about merch
• How the world now views merch and why that new perspective matters 
• How fan-fueled engagement has radically reshaped the merch experience 
• Why merch is the OG of social impact marketing 
• How to think bolder, better, and bigger about the opportunities in 2024
• The #1 differentiator that will help you position your business to win 

Bobby Lehew is the Chief Content Officer at commonsku, a cloud-based CRM and order management platform designed for the promotional products industry by promotional product experts. commonsku has over 800 distributor customers and over 100 supplier customers that powers over $1.8 billion in annual sales. Prior to joining commonsku, Bobby was the CEO for 15 years at Robyn, a branded merch fulfillment company that specialized in private-label, e-commerce company stores. A PPAI Gold Pyramid Award winner, a PPAI Silver Technology recipient, an Addy Award recipient, and recognized (in his work with Robyn) three years in a row by Inc. Magazine as one of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the U.S., Bobby is host of the popular podcast, skucast, author of the merch newsletter "The Backpack," and he crafted the MarketingProfs workshop, “Storytelling: Using the Power of Story to Drive Action” and is a frequent speaker on the topics of marketing and storytelling.

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January 29, 2025

Bobby Lehew

February 26, 2025

Tim Andrews

March 26, 2025

Aida Simmons

April 30, 2025

Charity Gibson

May 28, 2025

Gloria LaFont

June 25, 2025

Vance Morris

July 30, 2025

Sandra Kelley

August 27, 2025

Bill Petrie

September 24, 2025

Cliff Quicksell

October 29, 2025

Gloria LaFont

November 19, 2025

December 17, 2025