MEDIA RELEASE:
Sweet Memories Win Event Merchandise Category in Australian Promotional Products Awards 2019
In the competitive world of promotional products, innovative thinking, customer care and a willingness to find cost-effective, engaging solutions to clients’ marketing needs are all critical components of any successful business.
For Australian-owned promotional gifts company, Sweet Memories, these components are worth celebrating. Being announced the winner in the Event Merchandise category of the 2019 APPA prize, says Sweet Memories’ founder, Lisa Gork, reflects the success of Sweet Memories as a growing brand, doing global business with an impressive range of companies, including Disney and Marvel.
The Event Merchandise category is about the ability to provide cost-effective, engaging promotional merchandise that connects with its target audience and enhances the brand’s reputation and presence.
“One important aspect of the client’s brief was that the products needed to produced locally – the only possible way to work with artwork that would only be ready one month before the required delivery date. Manufacturing Marvel t-shirts also had specific limitations and needed to be produced within one week of receipt of the final, approved artwork. For Star Wars, the client needed to see a physical pre-production sample before mass production,” says Gork.
As well as 90% of the merchandise for the store, Sweet Memories was also commissioned to supply uniforms and branded identification lanyards for Oz Comic-Con staff and volunteers at the events - adding up to a total of 39 separate merchandise and uniform items, in addition items in different print colours. As a returning client with a new order for Sweet Memories - Gork says the international brands’ choice to buy from her Australian-based business is a powerful show of faith in her business’s professionalism and expertise.
Sourcing quality suppliers is something Gork always takes seriously and dealing with high-profile international brands, such as Marvel and Disney, means the extra diligence of adhering to incredibly rigid guidelines that include what shirt brand must be used for merchandise. Research and test washes of the suggested brand led Gork to seek a better quality alternative for her client - something that was done within the same budget, without compromising print integrity.
“Disney take superior print quality seriously, so we ran comparison samples and delivered these test t-shirts to Disney. Their team’s inspection revealed the obvious difference in quality fabric and with our offer to source the higher quality fabric at the same price, our extra efforts in sourcing the best possible fabric that didn’t break their budget resulted in creating superior t-shirts that we knew would make customers happy,” Gork says. “To deliver the same standard of complete satisfaction with our Marvel garments, we also focused on print quality but, due to complex designs on some t-shirts, we adapted print processes for each individual artwork.”
Being awarded the 2019 APPA prize for her company’s efforts is, she says, confirmation that her experience is also recognised by her industry peers.
In 2018, we asked to produce Star Wars clothing locally and our ongoing association with the Oz Comic-Con brand is testament to the success of our work. We’re proud to have worked on four Oz Comic-Con events per year for the last 3 years, as well as the merchandise range and staff uniforms - and we have just completed the new range for 2019,” says Gork. “Finding promotional product-related marketing solutions for other brands helps their business grow - and that means we’re doing our job properly.”