ASI® Announces Counselor Power 50 for 2008

Annual Ranking Recognizes Most Influential Leaders in Advertising Specialty Industry

TREVOSE, PA – November 11, 2008 – Advertising Specialty Institute®, the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, announced today its annual Counselor® Power 50 ranking to recognize the industry’s most influential leaders.   

The Counselor Power 50 is an impressive group of executives who have redefined innovation at their companies, are setting the pace for the marketplace and whom other distributors and suppliers emulate in their best practices.

The ranking is determined by a panel of editorial experts at the award-winning Counselor magazine.  The panel first sent a survey to industry distributors and suppliers, asking them to nominate potential newcomers to the list and to also indicate whether those on last year’s list should move up or down, or be removed.  It also carefully weighed other factors, such as nominees’ achievements throughout the year and the health of their companies.

“We have received many comments about the Counselor Power 50 list,” said Timothy M. Andrews, president and chief executive officer of ASI.  “Distributors and suppliers like to tell us who should move up or down in the rankings as well as who should be moved off the list entirely.  Our readers are not shy.”

This year’s group was announced at the second ASI Power Summit, an exclusive event attended by over 200 executives and business leaders from around the globe who discuss issues vital to the advertising specialty industry, identify best practices and determine ways in which the industry can productively move forward. 

The top-ranked executive in the 2008 Counselor Power 50 ranking is Marty Lott, president of SanMar; followed by Eric Bensussen and Jay Deutsch, president and CEO, respectively, of Bensussen Deutsch & Associates, Inc.; and Paul Lage, MAS, president and CEO of Norwood Promotional Products.  

Distributors and suppliers can learn more about the lessons learned from these successful leaders and timely initiatives at their companies in the upcoming issues of Counselor magazine.

Nominees for the list can be either ASI members or non-members, and nominations can be made by a representative working at any advertising specialty company in North America.

For the complete Counselor Power 50 ranking for 2008, visit asicentral.com/power50.  For more information, contact Rich Fairfield, publisher for ASI, at [email protected].

About ASI
Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, with a membership of over 25,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms (manufacturers) of advertising specialties.  Supplier firms use ASI print and electronic resources to market products to over 21,000 ASI distributor firms.  Distributor firms use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain nearly every product in the industry from more than 3,500 reputable suppliers, to locate supplier firms and to market services to buyers.  ASI provides catalogs, information directories, newsletters, magazines, websites and databases, and offers e-commerce, marketing and selling tools.  Visit www.asicentral.com.