ASI® Upgrades Wearables Business, Uniforms and Stitches Magazines Premier Issues Arrive in January

TREVOSE, PA – October 10, 2006 – Advertising Specialty Institute®, the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, announced today it is upgrading Wearables Business, Uniforms and Stitches magazines – providing redesigned graphics, higher-quality paper and additional editorial features in each issue – starting with January 2007 issues.

The magazines will be presented on a high-quality, elegant European paper stock, upgrading the weight from 38-pound to 54-pound for Wearables Business and Stitches and to 62-pound for Uniforms.  Minimum book sizes are set to double to 64 pages for Wearables Business and Stitches and more than double to 72 pages for Uniforms.  New editorial features, such as insightful case studies, step-by-step processes and product trends will be added, providing readers with more access to solid strategies designed to help grow their business.

ASI will also be re-launching Modern Uniforms magazine as Uniforms magazine.  Theo Fels, respected designer from the Richardson + Fels consultancy in New York, has been retained for the re-launch.   

Timothy M. Andrews, president of ASI, noted that there are benefits for both ASI distributors and suppliers from these developments and the upgrades to these magazines.  

“Distributors will benefit from the improved editorial content in Wearables Business and Uniforms magazines,” Andrews said.  “We will be providing them with knowledge about how to increase sales in the uniforms and the general wearables marketplaces, and wearables is one of the fastest-growing segments of the advertising specialty industry.”

Andrews believes that Stitches subscribers will be introduced to a whole new source of revenue. “The more than 21,000 readers of Stitches, mostly contract embroiderers and decorators, have been telling me that they want to do business with more ad specialty distributors. These upgrades are setting the stage for producing resources and services that will help embroidery firms and ASI distributors contact each other, building their respective businesses.” 

Rich Fairfield, publisher for ASI’s magazines, expressed that he is pleased with the progress of the upgrades.

“We are increasing the quality of the paper, the number of pages, and we will also be including more educational material for readers to learn how to grow their business,” Fairfield said.  “We want to improve the experience that readers and advertisers have when interacting with these publications.”

Reactions from readers and advertisers in the industry have been positive.

“We are looking forward to the new designs,” said Becky Blair, marketing coordinator for Dunbrooke (asi/50930).  “Advertising in ASI magazines has given us an edge with our marketing efforts, allowing us to target buyers who are interested in our many quality apparel items.  These three magazines will provide even more opportunities for us to create customized ads that will reach ASI distributors and increase our sales.”

“The addition of these three magazines, especially Wearables Business, will round out an already impressive line-up of publications,” said Gabrielle Rohde, president of Rohde Royce Inc. (asi/83278).  “The acquisitions will allow us to reach distributors very effectively.”

In addition to her duties as editor in chief for Counselor®, Advantages™, Successful Promotions™ and Supplier Global Resource®, Melinda Ligos will also be editor in chief of these three apparel publications.  Andy Cohen, editor of Counselor, is directing the editorial upgrades for the next two months, until Melinda returns from maternity leave.  

Jay Gordon will be editor of Uniforms magazine.  Prior to coming to ASI, Gordon spent 14 years as managing editor with Donohue Meehan Publishing Company and Penton Media, Inc., and before that he was editor of Convenience Store Decisions magazine.  Nicole Rollender will join ASI as editor of both Stitches and Wearables Business.  She most recently was the managing editor for two monthly business magazines, FundRaising Success and Catalog Success. 

Ed Koehler expands his role as advertising director for these three magazines, Leigh Hughes will continue to represent these titles for classifieds, and Dreama McDaniel, wearables category director for ASI, will be helping to derive more value from advertisers’ marketing investments in these publications.  

The frequency of Wearables Business and Stitches magazines will initially be 11 times and 10 times per year, respectively, and will include new special double issues.  Uniforms will be produced six times per year, unchanged from Modern Uniforms’ current frequency, and will be delivered starting with the January/February issue – mailing in mid-December.

For more information about the upgrades to these magazines, contact Rich Fairfield, publisher for ASI, at 800-546-1350, or at [email protected].

About ASI
Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, with a membership of 22,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms (manufacturers) of advertising specialties. Supplier firms use ASI print and electronic resources to market products to more than 19,000 ASI distributor firms. Distributor firms use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain more than 750,000 ad specialties, 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.