Advertising Specialty Institute Names First New Publisher in 35 Years

February 23, 2004, Trevose, PA – Advertising Specialty Institute, the largest member organization in the promotional products industry, has appointed Richard Fairfield as Publisher, responsible for expanding the market position of ASI’s three print magazines, The Counselor, Advantage, and Imprint, as well as increasing circulation and integrating online and print products.

Before joining ASI, Fairfield was Senior Vice President, Business Development & Operations at American Express Publishing, where he managed strategic planning for traditional brands and online media. In that role, he launched all online products for Travel + Leisure, T & L Golf, Food & Wine, Departures, and SkyGuide magazines.

Prior to that, Fairfield was a business manager at Time, Inc., where he is credited with breathing new life into publications, such as Money magazine and Life.

“I am pleased to welcome Rich to ASI,” says ASI President Timothy M. Andrews. “He brings to the table a fresh look at our already vital publications with an early focus on print and online opportunities for readers and advertisers.”

Fairfield holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Business School and a Bachelor of Arts in physics and music from Columbia College in New York. He succeeds Marvin Spike, now Publisher Emeritus and advisor at ASI.

Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media organization serving the promotional products industry, with a membership of 20,000 Distributors (sellers) and Suppliers (manufacturers) of promotional products. Suppliers use ASI print and electronic resources to promote their products to more than 17,000 ASI Distributors. Distributors use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain more than 650,000 promotional products, to locate Supplier products and to promote their services to buyers of promotional products. ASI was founded in 1950 and employs a staff of 500. The company offers catalogs, informational directories, newsletters, magazines, Web sites and databases, and provides a variety of interactive business, marketing and selling tools.