ASI’s San Diego Show Delivers Golden Sales Opportunities

Wayne Brady wows a packed house during a private performance

TREVOSE, PA – May 20, 2011 – The three-day ASI Show in San Diego wound down Friday after hosting 2,100 distributors who spent time meeting with 375 exhibitors to learn about their most exciting product offerings.

The California show at the San Diego Convention Center from Wednesday, May 18, through Friday, May 20, drew distributors from about 1,060 firms, up 7% from last year. The number of exhibiting firms was up 75 from 2010, including many Counselor Top 40 suppliers.

“Distributors and suppliers continue to be enthusiastic about the industry’s continuing sales rebound,” said Timothy M. Andrews, president of The ASI Show and president and chief executive officer of the Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI). “People are feeling optimistic and excited about the rest of the year.”

The show opened with a full day of education (sponsored by Fields Mfg., asi/54100), which included a new Social Media Marketing track, along with a full slate of educational seminars and workshops offering 65 points toward the ASI Certification Program.

For the first time, the black-tie Counselor Awards – the industry’s most prestigious and anticipated awards event – were held at the San Diego Air and Space Museum. Marty Lott, the founder and president of SanMar, was honored as Counselor’s 2011 Person of the Year. Billy Dolan and Vivian Lo of Camsing Global were jointly recognized as Counselor International Person of the Year. Click here to view Counselor‘s Person of the Year profile of Marty Lott.

Counselor also honored the outstanding sales achievement of the Top 40 distributors and Top 40 suppliers in the industry. Click here to view the 2011 Top 40 distributors and click here to see the Top 40 suppliers.

Counselor also announced the winners of its annual Product Design Awards, honoring the most innovative, functional and eye-catching products in the industry. Suppliers and distributors nominated products in 14 different design categories.

Winners of all awards also appear in the June issue of Counselor magazine.

Thursday night, television star and Emmy-winning comedian Wayne Brady performed for a packed house, spending much of the evening improvising with members of the audience.

In discussing the California show, suppliers and distributors said they appreciated the superior networking opportunities and “Golden State” sales potentials.

Keith Lofton from SnugZ USA (asi/88060), said “ASI San Diego has been good. We’ve had the opportunity to really engage with customers. Distributors are looking for new ideas and new ways to market to their clients and being at the show is a terrific way for us to help them do that.”

Joe Betras from ThermoServ (asi/91080), added, “ASI San Diego has been a good show. As we don’t do a lot of business in California, being here gives us the opportunity to meet with distributors who have not seen our product line before. We’ve made a number of new contacts who can potentially be really good customers.”

Frank Ciraci from Proforma (asi/300094), said, “The ASI Shows are great for us. We value our partnership with ASI and the shows themselves are always very good events. There are a lot of learning opportunities, including walking the show floor and taking advantage of the education.”

Beverly Walter from Brown & Bigelow (asi/148500), said, “We are very excited to be here at ASI San Diego. It’s great that we have access to the show floor and all the new products and services debuting for the second half of the year.”

Register today for the next ASI Show in Chicago, July 19-21, at www.asishow.com. To learn more about exhibiting or sponsorship opportunities, contact Karen DiTomasso, vice president of sales, at [email protected].

About ASI
The Advertising Specialty Institute is the largest education, media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry, with a membership of over 26,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms (manufacturers) of advertising specialties. Supplier firms use ASI print and electronic resources to market products to over 23,000 ASI distributor firms. Distributor firms use ASI print and electronic resources, which contain nearly every product in the industry from more than 3,200 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 ASI at www.asicentral.com and on Facebook, Twitter , LinkedIn, YouTube and the CEO’s blog.

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