Bruce Fox Blog

Estimated Read Time: 2.5 Minutes

Color is vital in this industry.

Whether you want navy and white branded sunglasses or the perfect shade of maroon for pens, color defines our products and industry. The more color choices and options with color, the better, right?

So why isn’t that the case for the awards and plaques segment? I can’t even begin on how many boring plaques or hanging awards that I’ve seen that don’t even bother with such a classic and basic element. Don’t get me wrong, I like the classy black and white look, but at least spice it up every once and a while.

Estimated Read Time: 5.5 Minutes

When you picture a successful awards event, what do you see? The room decorated perfectly? Happy chatter as party people mingle around the room? The speaker delivering a rousing speech that inspires the crowd to their feet?

What about the awards?

What about the awards delivering that “wow factor” that turns into the talk of the night?

Who wouldn’t want that? Giving an award that inspires awe, happiness, and excitement, while still being on point with the branding, purpose, and all other requirements.

Sounds like a dream come true, right? It doesn’t have to be just a dream.

That’s why I’ve put together two lists – one to help you get the ROI that only an effective award can bring and the other on how to deliver that “wow factor” that you’ve been dreaming about.

Estimated Read Time: 8 Minutes

Design a custom award from scratch? It must mean that you pick from a few colors and throw in some “custom text” and a logo, right?

Not exactly.

That’s a DYR project, and that’s what we call “customizable stock.”

A true custom project is completely different. How much? It’s like comparing building a house from scratch versus buying a pre-built home.

Estimated Read Time: 3 minutes

In December, we gave you a glimpse into a bit of our company culture with our Behind the Fox holiday blog. We promised you more blogs about getting to know the people and culture behind the fox logo. This time it’s about, you’ve guessed it, NASCAR.

It has been deeply engrained into our company culture, but I’m not sure which came first – the love for NASCAR or us making so many of the NASCAR trophies. I suspect the chicken and the egg quandary might apply here.

Estimated read time: 5 minutes

Santa is a magical being. He can survive in the frozen tundra, can deliver presents all over the world in one night, and is able to check that infinitely long list of who is naughty or nice twice. Santa is amazing – he is a parent’s favorite person, and their worst nightmare (no one can compete with Santa’s reputation and deep pocketbook).

Santa and his elves work tirelessly on making toys all year. Buddy the Elf told us all about the elf life, remember? They make stuffed animals, rocking horses, and so much more. So, Santa and his elves can make anything, right?

Read Time: 3 Minutes

Photo by Nine Köpfer on Unsplash

Being a promotional products distributor usually means wearing lots of different hats. Therefore, a lot of skills are required of promotional product professionals in order to have a successful business and bank account. Among some of the more obvious ones: perseverance, resourcefulness, and a lot of patience.

Read Time: 6 Minutes

If you’ve somehow managed to never fall victim to bad design (I don’t believe you) then it’s at least certain you’ve seen it. The example that always comes immediately to mind is an eye sore of a building in nearby Louisville (picture above) called the Kaden Building. Is is perhaps, the ugliest building I’ve ever seen and I involuntarily curl my lip in disgust every time I pass it. Who designed this building? None other than Frank Lloyd Wright.

For anyone that doesn’t know who Frank Lloyd Wright is, it’s worth taking a second to pull him up on Wikipedia. He’s a famous American architect who designed over 1,000 structures including his most famous, the Fallingwater house. Over 500 of those designs were actually created. And in fact, your town, like mine, might even be the “lucky” home of one of his designs. The thing is, while Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs were inarguably beautiful, they were crap.

Read Time: 7 Minutes

If you're like me, you scour every blog you come across that offers you a list of marketing tools to save you time, headaches, or a way to block your ex-boyfriend's entire existence. Okay... maybe that's just me.

The point is, I'll read anything I can find that could give me some insight into the biggest, baddest , and latest marketing tools to make my job easier because I'm kind of obsessed with efficiency. And here's why...

Read Time - 3 Minutes

Have you ever wondered why the word “why” doesn’t start with the letter Y?  Well, I have, and I can’t find any reason why “why” starts with W.

And while we’re on the topic of W—or at least I am—how come it isn’t “Double V”?  And how is it W, when pronounced, is the only letter that has more than one syllable?

Why isn’t “you” just “U”?  (Female sheep don’t know either.)  Does the spelling of the letter C include the letter C at all?  Why does the word “noel” have an L in it?  But I digress, as I often do, so please forgive me.  I went to school in Illinois near a town called Effingham where I earned an English degree, so it can be said I have a BA in BS.  A man of letters indeed!

OK, so I’m annoying inquisitive by nature, and I ask “Why?” pretty frequently.  Usually about parking-on-the-driveway-and-driving-on-the-parkway kinda stuff.  I admit I am a proud disciple of useless and trivial quasi-information.  Ironically, I don’t know why.

But there is one “Why?” question that was recently posed to me by a distributor that is certainly not a trivial matter.  It’s a big question.

“Why should I take on custom recognition?”

The answers are as easy as A-B-C:

 Read Time - 5 Minutes

“What do you mean ‘dial’?” my daughter replied, with a genuinely puzzled look.

Unless you’re a fan of challenging and convoluted discussions, DO NOT mistakenly use the verb “dial” in reference to a telephone when talking with a 10-year old.  What followed was much like trying to describe what the color blue sounds like.  Frustrated, I ended up deploying a Google image search to illustrate what my words were miserably failing to convey.  (The irony of using Google to demonstrate how a rotary phone works is not lost on me, by the way.)

The conversation served as a stark reminder of how rapidly our world has changed—and continues to change.  It made me think about how vision and adaptability are critical to maintaining relevancy in the business world, where complacency is fatal to progress and survival.  As an awards supplier, it made me contemplate how the landscape around employee recognition has evolved and reshaped, and what it means to our business—and yours.

I wondered about the fate of the factories that at one time were cranking out rotary phones.  Did they adapt or die?  What examples could be found of companies that have reshaped themselves in the face of changing markets or obsolescence?  As it happens, there are a bunch.  And some are nothing short of weird.  Which I like.

Try this match game: