While players celebrate on the field,
hundreds of promotional products companies spring into overdrive
TREVOSE, PA –February 1, 2010 – The Advertising Specialty Institute® (ASI) says that more than 50,000 Super Bowl T-shirts will be produced overnight for fans to snap up on the morning following the big game.
That means that while players immediately start celebrating on the field with their hot Super Bowl shirts and gear, hundreds of ASI member companies have already started the presses to make thousands of logoed Super Bowl items for delivery in record time to anxious sports fanatics.
According to Jeff Henderson, executive vice president of ASI member company Pony Xpress Printing (asi/297068), an officially licensed provider of Super Bowl XLIV apparel, “We start making T-shirts when the game ends and it’s all hands on deck with more than 50 staffers working split shifts, and that includes me. We start delivering shirts overnight to stores, so they are on shelves the next morning for fans. When things get really hectic, it’s not uncommon to have a mini traffic jam that requires employees to direct trucks in and out of the warehouse. They come in to pick up for their stores and, of course, everyone wants their tees first.”
Henderson also said that, “While more fashionable designs are hot this year, compared to typical athletic designs, the majority of shirts will be the traditional ‘locker room tee’ you see players putting on right after the game.”
ASI research shows that the T-shirt, a long-time promotional products powerhouse, continues to be the top-selling apparel item for the last three years among Super Bowl fans. Companies also continue to order them throughout the football season as employee gifts and giveaways to clients.
In addition to shirts, sports-related products provided by ASI member companies include watches from Fossil (asi/55145), the big #1 foam finger from Spirit Industries (asi/88740), a cooler shaped like a helmet from America Zebra Line (asi/35745), a helmet snack server (chips stay in the top and dip goes in the facemask) from LarLu (asi/66390) and jackets.
More than 2,000 jackets are anticipated to be ordered online immediately at the end of the nation’s most-watched gridiron contest.
“Cumberland-style Super Bowl jackets, our most popular, are decorated on-demand and shipped within 72 hours directly to the fan,” said Matt Gray, chief operating officer of ASI member Dunbrooke Apparel Corp. (asi/50930), a licensed Super Bowl supplier of Reebok jackets to the retail market. “We bring in 12-hour nightshift crews to man the embroidery machines and begin the process the minute the final game whistle blows.”
Shirts, jackets and other wearables are among the top six product categories by sales volume in the advertising specialties industry, according to ASI’s annual State of the Industry™ research report. Sales of all promotional products were nearly $20 billion in 2008. Buyers identify such products as the most effective medium among all advertising, next to the Internet, according to a recent study from ASI.
For more information, contact Scott Fuhr, corporate communications director, at [email protected].
About ASI
The Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI) is the largest 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 22,000 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 ASI online at asicentral.com and on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, the CEO’s blog and the ASI Social Network.
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