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ASI® Announces First Quarter Results of Distributors’ Extreme Makeover Contestants

TREVOSE, PA – November 22, 2005 – Advertising Specialty Institute®, the largest media organization serving the promotional products industry, announced today that its Distributors’ Extreme Makeover contestants have each produced double-digit percentage revenue growth within the contest’s first quarter.

The contest, which launched in August, provides The Brand Company (asi/145018), BrandMasters (asi/234692) and Weekend Warrior Promotions (asi/356446) with the opportunity to compete head-to-head with each other for one year. The company with the largest percentage revenue growth multiplied by its sales profitability from start to finish wins. The following positive revenue results were achieved during the first quarter, versus the same period last year:

  • The Brand Company, owned by Becky Allan in Schulenburg, Texas:  +82%
  • BrandMasters (formerly MW Images), owned by the brother-and-sister team of Jennifer Webb and Ron Marvel in Edwardsburg, Michigan:  +54%
  • Weekend Warrior Promotions, owned by the husband-and-wife team of Maura and Ed Burgess in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:  +53%

These growth figures can be attributed to the firm owners making changes to their business strategies, by introducing the use of leading ASI marketing and research tools and by deploying recommendations from a leading promotional products industry marketing consultant, David Blaise.

“The first step this quarter was to help each of the finalists get a clear picture of what they ultimately want their companies to be,” said Blaise. “The next step was to outline the strategy and provide them with the business-building tools from ASI. Now, it is a race to see who can use the ASI tools and implement the strategies most effectively to get the job done.”

All three firms are combining the advice they are receiving from Blaise with the selling power of these products and services from ASI:

  • ESP® Online, the industry’s leading marketing and research tool, with access to 750,000 promotional products from 3,200 suppliers
  • LogoMall®, a customizable Website, featuring over 300,000 products for sale
  • ASItransact™, the efficient electronic order management system
  • A supply of redesigned ASI catalogs

Responses from leaders at the companies are promising.

Ed Burgess, co-owner of Weekend Warrior Promotional Products, said “We identified a new positioning point, promotions that drive profits – seven days a week, which has helped us as much as anything else we have done. Then we started streamlining steps and creating efficiency, by using ESP Online and the Technologo virtual sampling tool. I now have four or five hours a day available for selling.”

Becky Allan, owner of The Brand Company, said “By identifying two niche markets, the healthcare industry and the cattle industry, I have been able to establish a winning marketing strategy that is producing more results than ever before. I enjoy using ASItransact from ASI, because now I spend less time on order tracking tasks. The company is on an upswing moving into the second quarter.”

Ron Marvel, co-owner of BrandMasters, said “We sharpened our advertising plans to better focus upon the religion market and also a specialized market catering to animal control officers. In addition, we changed our company name from MW Images to BrandMasters, to further define and better reflect to our clients the consultative role our firm plays.”

The successes reflected in the contest thus far are encouraging and the firms will now begin executing the strategies they have formulated.

All North American ASI distributor member firms were qualified to enter the contest and all applicants received a 30-day trial of ESP Online, a copy of the audio training program Inside the Mind of a Promotional Products Client and will receive an invitation to an online business-building seminar.

The winning company will receive five years worth of ASI marketing and research products to use to continue supporting its growth strategy moving forward.

For more information about the contest, advice shared by the three companies on their blogs and photos, visit www.asicentral.com/makeover. To listen to audio interviews with firm owners and to learn more about the expertise of David Blaise, click on http://makeover.topsecretsweb.com. For a free trial of ESP Online, visit www.asicentral.com/esponline.

About ASI
Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media organization serving the promotional products industry, with a membership of 21,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms (manufacturers) of promotional products. Supplier firms use ASI print and electronic resources to market products to more than 18,000 ASI distributor firms. Distributor firms use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain more than 750,000 promotional products, to locate supplier firms and to market services to buyers. ASI provides catalogs, informational directories, newsletters, magazines, Websites and databases, and offers interactive e-commerce, marketing and selling tools. Visit www.asicentral.com.