From Humble Beginnings
There we were — my dad and I — having our umpteenth conversation about how tough it was for us to get the media interested in what our clients were doing.
It was the spring of 1987 and we were handling p.r. and marketing communications for a number of companies in the business-to-business arena. My father had his own agency and a stable of clients, including a handful that provided marketing services to packaged goods companies. I had recently left a New York City ad agency and joined my dad while figuring out my next move.
We represented a company called ShelfVision, which made coupon dispensers; GiftPax, which distributed samples to new mothers in hospitals; Donnelley Marketing, which distributed coupons to households via its Carol Wright program; Target Marketing, which offered field marketing services; and The Cooperative Marketing Co., which placed credit card take-one applications in retail establishments. (By the way, only Target Marketing still exists.)
Each of these companies was launching new concepts and new products that enabled marketers to pinpoint their consumer prospects and motivate them with a promotional offer of some sort. Our job was to get coverage for them in the retail and marketing press. Our problem was that, at the time, most of the marketing trades were advertising-oriented and considered any activity that didn’t involve a TV commercial as out of their realm.
Meanwhile, we were in a unique position to see the activities of all our clients and the significant growth they were experiencing as a result of marketers’ increased interest in reaching consumers with targeted messages. By virtue of the mass of clients we had in this area, we realized there was a common denominator to their efforts. They all were responding to marketers’ desire to get accountability from their programs. They saw themselves as sampling companies, coupon companies, direct mail companies. We saw them as all being part of something larger than themselves: the promotion industry.
So there we were, scratching our heads one afternoon, discussing how much easier our lives would be if there were a magazine out there that talked about all the amazing things our clients and other companies like them were doing. We still can’t remember who said it first, but one of us quipped, “Why don’t we start one?”
And thus was born PROMO, six months after those fateful words were uttered. It was the right idea at the right time, executed by a couple of guys who knew nothing about publishing, but who had the support of so many in the industry who wanted to see them succeed.
On behalf of my dad, Kerry Sr., who’s probably reading this on the deck of his boat; my mom, who’s by his side and without whom we’d never have made it; my sister, Amie, who worked with us for several years as a writer and as the architect of our PRO Awards program; and my brother Sean, who somehow escaped getting sucked into this enterprise but had to endure all those years where the main family conversation topic was the promotion industry, I’d like to thank all of you — readers, advertisers, and employees past and present — for your support and good wishes.
Without it, you wouldn’t be holding this issue — our 171st — in your hands.
