Ace Marketing & Promotions Inc. is a full service promotional marketing company offering a wide array of business solutions. Established in 1998, the Company has built a successful, scalable business platform capable of consolidating a portion of the promotional products industry.

A Fragmented $18-billion Industry

The promotional products industry plays an increasingly vital role in corporate and product brand development. As a whole the industry generates more than $18 billion in sales annually. However, the industry is highly fragmented, with over 21,000 distributorships and no single distributor accounting for more than 2% of the market. The Promotional Products Association International estimates that in 2005 only 1,000 of the 21,000 distributorships achieved annual sales in excess of $2.5 million. Nearly 80% of the distributors are believed to be privately owned family businesses with no growth or exit strategies. These distributorships, each ranging from $1 million to $15 million in sales, present opportunities for acquisition. Ace management believes the industry environment is favorable for consolidation and acquisition is the fastest strategy to large-scale growth.

Ace Advantages

Ace presently has over 2000 customer accounts ranging from Fortune 500 companies to local schools and small businesses.

The Company has built its business around the concept of high quality innovative branded merchandise, competitive pricing, and consistently superior customer service. Its operational platform, using top-line technology, is designed for economies of scale and ensures superior relations with major industry suppliers. The platform also provides superior support to an expanding team of experienced, well-connected salespeople who are key to acquiring new business.

The major advantage Ace holds over most companies in the promotional product industry is the ability to provide integrated business solutions to its customers as trusted advisors. The majority of companies in the promotional product industry offer only branded merchandise, whereas,

Ace offers solutions in:
Branded Merchandise
Importing
Incentive / Rewards programs
Printing / Forms Management
Fulfillment / Warehousing
E-commerce / Website Design
Database Management / Integrated Marketing Solutions

The ability to offer multiple solutions and integrate them is what separates Ace from the average promotional product distributor. Where nearly all of the competition continues to be viewed as commodity based “order takers”, our solutions based services deepen the relationship with our clients as our sales consultants become trusted advisors and Ace becomes a valued business partner.

Positioned for Growth

Ace has grown organically through referrals based on its high quality service. It is also expanding through hiring leading independent salespersons who are well supported by the Ace proprietary business structure. By offering more services and solutions to their customers, new recruits will have the ability to expand their present business by simply making the move to Ace. Upon integrating their client base into our system they too become trusted advisors that provide integrated business solutions instead of a commodity based promotional product salesperson.

These achievements position the Company to accelerate growth through acquisition and consolidation of other companies as well as simply recruiting experienced salespeople. Once a company is acquired, the new clients will all be introduced to the additional services that are now available in our promotional marketing model.

We have effectively carved out a niche for Ace Marketing. Marketing and Branding companies create an image and direction for clients. Ad agencies develop print, TV, radio and other campaigns aimed at goals of recruiting, introducing new products or services, etc. Traditional promotional product companies offer imprinted merchandise and apparel. Ace Marketing & Promotions finds itself in a unique position of providing value added services that compliment those of the ad agency, as well as branding and marketing companies while at the same time far exceeding the capabilities of a standard promotional products distributor.

A Market on the Move

Promotional products include advertising specialties, premiums, incentives, business gifts, awards, prizes, commemoratives and other imprinted or decorated items. Sales of these products rose steadily from $5.13 billion in 1991 to $17.85 in 2000. In a tight economy, sales dipped to $15.63 billion in 2002 and rose again to over $18 billion by 2006.

Driving this growth is the corporate trend toward integrated and targeted marketing strategies. These involve not only advertising, but also sales promotions, internal communications, public relations and other disciplines. Business objectives include building brand awareness, raising company profile, promoting products and services, improving employee awareness, and increasing customer loyalty.

While the majority of promotional products businesses are small, the top 40 distributors in the industry had sales between $32 million and $240 million for 2006. Currently control of sales lies predominantly with independent sales representatives, as there is little brand recognition of individual distributors.

Ace management has addressed this growing market by employing leading technology for research, ordering, tracking, fulfillment and warehousing, print and forms management, e-commerce, database management and value-added services, as well as advanced communications to build a wide-ranging sales force with deep industry knowledge and connections not limited by location.

Business Strategy

Ace Marketing’s growth to date is based on a scalable corporate structure, using top-of-the-line technology, to create advantages over most small distributors by:

  • Quickly targeting the best products and prices to meet a client’s needs,
  • Providing in-house art capabilities for rapidly customizing merchandise,
  • Providing fulfillment and warehousing services for inventory or custom programs,
  • Offering direct overseas importing for large quantities,
  • Providing incentive and reward programs for both customers and employees,
  • Providing full service print and forms management solutions,
  • Providing full e-commerce solutions, including company stores and website design,
  • Managing purchase orders consistently from query to final order,
  • Tracking shipments effectively regardless of size or the overseas location of the supplier, and
  • Offering database management software, which integrates with each service offered and allows the customer the ability to quantify the results of any given marketing campaign or promotion.

In addition, Ace offers a wide array of services not offered by most distributors. These additional services allow our salespeople the opportunity to open new doors and create more sales with both new and old customers. By providing all the necessary back-office support, these efficiencies also free salespersons to focus on selling. The in-house computer system allows access from off-site, enabling sales staff to operate from any location.