PPAI is accepting submissions to the 2022 Pyramid Awards through May 7. The annual awards honor creative excellence in the promotional products industry and recognize dependable suppliers, outstanding promotions, creative campaigns and exceptional craftsmanship by its members. To highlight and learn from 2021 Pyramid Award winners, PPB Newslink is speaking with them to learn more about what it means to secure a PPAI Pyramid win. This installment features Appleton, Wisconsin-headquartered distributor AIA Corporation and its silver award in the Branding category for its submission, “2019 National Sales Meeting.”

AIA’s campaign sought to re-establish its national sales meeting as a must-attend event and set future expectations. The theme and brand of the campaign were created by combining the beauty of the meeting’s location and showing the momentum and growth the event would create for owners’ businesses. Its slogan consisted of three words—strengthen, summit and succeed—which described the benefits that attendees would reap by attending the event. The style of the logo is professional, modern, simple and playful to represent business and social events. AIA Digital Graphic Designer Rachel Ries says, “2020 was the first time we submitted to the Pyramid competition. We decided to submit because we wanted to showcase all the hard work that was put into the branding behind our National Sales Conference. Our marketing team went above and beyond with the collateral and assets to make the event stand out.”

Ries adds, “We chose to submit our National Sales Conference because from the top of the mountain range—our event was held in Park City, Utah—to the bottom every detail was distinctly put into place. Every design had a purpose and our collateral and assets matched that. There was a feeling of pure accomplishment in Park City during the event, which was held in 2019. The entire resort was decked out in the branding that we had put together for the event. It was something we wanted to be recognized for, which is why we chose to submit it to the competition.”

AIA notes that its ability to successfully re-brand the event set the stage for future AIA events, re-establishing it as the must-attend event for its community. The campaign’s win also pays dividends for the distributor. Ries says, “As a marketing team, we are very proud to have won this award. We have displayed it in our office for anyone who visits to see. It’s a very prestigious award and we only hope that we continue to create programs that we are proud of to submit for future competition. The award serves mostly as motivation to continue to create branded events and marketing programs that we, as a team, are proud of. It's a great way for our team to sell our services of marketing, branding and promo to our distributors.”

For more information and to submit entries to the 2022 PPAI Pyramid Awards, go to www.ppai.org/pyramid. For assistance or additional questions, email awards@ppai.org.