ASI® Announces New Relationship With Experian®

January 31, 2005 – Trevose, PA – Advertising Specialty Institute^® (ASI), the largest member organization in the promotional products industry, today announced a new relationship with Experian®, a global information solutions company, to give ASI distributor member firms the ability to check the creditworthiness of end-buyer customers and prospects.

Distributor firms can use a simple, trustworthy and cost-effective service to estimate how quickly and how reliably clients are likely to pay, allowing them to better manage cash flow and to target clients with the best paying habits. Experian’s business reports include the payment and credit history of more than 18 million public and private companies.   

As a part of the agreement, ASI and Experian jointly developed a new business report, called QuickCheck, that delivers current, reliable and useful credit summaries and business background information specifically tailored for the needs of promotional products distributor firms.  QuickCheck is available exclusively to ASI member firms and is a part of Experian’s SmartBusinessReports™, a product suite which provides five additional reporting options. Experian’s SmartBusinessReports™ are available to ASI member firms starting at less than $10 each.   

” We continue to proactively identify the needs of ASI distributor and supplier member firms, and try to fulfill those needs by either creating our own products or by partnering with leading experts, like Experian, to find solutions,” said Timothy M. Andrews, ASI’s president.     

In addition to the customized reports designed for distributor member firms, ASI supplier member firms that subscribe to ASI CreditConnect, which provides unlimited access to the industry’s most timely credit data on distributor firms, can now also obtain credit information for companies that aren’t yet members of ASI. 

“While members obviously won’t check every customer before every order, we think they will want to confirm the paying habits of clients placing extraordinarily large orders, clients that are new and clients suspected of having business problems,” said Dale Denham, ASI senior vice president.  “Credit reports are an absolute necessity in making better decisions regarding potential and existing customers and also help prevent losses associated with fraud, late payments and fabricated references.”

All ASI member firms receive substantial discounts on the QuickCheck report and all of Experian’s SmartBusinessReports offerings.  ASI supplier member firms that subscribe to ASI CreditConnect will save 20 percent.

To learn more about QuickCheck and all of Experian’s specialized reports for ASI member firms, visit www.asicentral.com/experian.  ASI CreditConnect subscribers can visit www.asicreditconnect.com to take advantage of 20 percent savings.

About ASI
Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media organization serving the promotional products industry, with a membership of 20,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms (manufacturers) of promotional products.  Supplier firms use ASI print and electronic resources to market products to more than 17,000 distributor firms.  Distributor firms use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain more than 700,000 promotional products, to locate supplier firms and to market services to buyers of promotional products.  It provides catalogs, informational directories, newsletters, magazines, websites and databases, and offers interactive e-commerce, marketing and selling tools.  Visit www.asicentral.com.  

About Experian
Experian is a global leader in providing information solutions to organizations and consumers.  It helps organizations find, develop and manage profitable customer relationships by providing information, decision-making solutions and processing services.  It empowers consumers to understand, manage and protect their personal information and assets.  Experian works with more than 50,000 clients across diverse industries, including financial services, telecommunications, health care, insurance, retail and catalog, automotive, manufacturing, leisure, utilities, e-commerce, property and government.  Experian is a subsidiary of GUS plc and has headquarters in Nottingham, UK, and Costa Mesa, California.  Its 12,000 people in 26 countries support clients in more than 60 countries.  Annual sales exceed $2.5 billion.  Visit www.experian.com.

The word ‘Experian’ is a registered trademark in the EU and other countries and is owned by Experian Ltd and/or its associated companies.