A ribbon is a pretty simple promotional product.
Until someone orders 150,000 of them.
Then asks you to send them to 1,876 different locations across Queensland.
That’s when a ribbon stops being a product and becomes a logistics exercise.
The Branding Business was given exactly that challenge for a recent event.
At first glance, the manufacturing was the big number. Produce 150,000 custom ribbons, maintain consistent colour and quality, approve samples and get the production completed on time.
But making them was only part of the job.
Someone still had to work out which location received what, make sure the data was correct, pack the individual consignments, label them and get nearly 1,900 deliveries moving through the freight network at roughly the same time.
And there wasn’t much room for error.
That’s the part of promotional merchandise most people never see.
The product is sometimes the easy bit.
Large merchandise programs are increasingly data and logistics projects with a branded product sitting in the middle. A spreadsheet can be just as important as the printing press.
One incorrect postcode matters.
One duplicate address matters.
One box with the wrong label matters.
And when you’re delivering to hundreds or thousands of locations, tiny errors multiply very quickly.
For this project, 99% of deliveries arrived on time.
We’re proud to be part of such an important project. But we’re even prouder of the warehouse and logistics team who have delivered this program not once, but four years running. Because we’ve learned over the years that a great promotional product sitting in the wrong warehouse—or arriving the day after an event—isn’t a great promotional product at all.
The Branding Business | Brisbane
Ideas. Production. Warehousing. Distribution.
thebrandingbusiness.com.au
