Promotion Magazine’s “Five Minutes with Ty Bramley”

Edition 9 of Promotion Magazine included an article with Specialty Balloon’s chief Ty Bramley. Here’s the transcript of the interview and article.

How long have you been in the promotional industry and how did you get started?

I’ve been in the promotional industry for six years, and I got started when looking for a business to purchase after moving on from another industry. My career background covers a varied range of positions and industries, including: wide format digital print and manufacturing. I came across Specialty Balloons and then invested a fair amount of time investigating the promotions industry before deciding to purchase. And, as always with a business venture, there’s only so much planning and preparation you can do before you jump in and start swimming, earning your stripes, and so on. I did plenty of that in the first year or so; I still am, really [laughs].

 

What do you think are some of the biggest challenges facing industry suppliers in the near future?

I’ve seen some major changes in the industry since I began and a lot of that centres on sourcing product from overseas. Price, as in most industries, is a huge factor in winning business in the promotional game. However, we, as suppliers, must guard against the degradation of product quality in the short and long term, and this is very important not only for product integrity, but also to ensure local labour and local skills to not deplete to irretrievable levels. Therefore, I think one of the biggest challenges to the industry will be maintaining points of difference and quality for the long term and not just being another me-too business in the herd chasing a quick buck. A unique brand of quality is something we strive for here at SBP: we do all our printing in-house, and we also produce and mix our inks in-house to match client requirements to a tee, where possible. I think businesses that safeguard themselves in this manner are the ones that will adapt and survive as the industry changes.

 

With social media evolving all the time, have you introduced it into your company?

Yes. I started looking at social media, facebook in particular, last year (2010) when the trend really started to gain some notoriety in business circles and general business practices. However, it was something that I was very new to and found difficult to find time and know the correct approach for. At around the same time we employed a marketing agency in a support role to help us achieve general projects and progress our strategy. Since then, I have worked a lot closer with social media and gained a healthy respect for its importance in the overall marketing pie. We introduced a very proactive policy aimed at not just increasing our user fan-base, but also generating a positive user relationship with our brand. We are still in the infancy stage of the program really, but with facebook alone having over 500 million users worldwide it’s clear that social media is a space you must have a voice within.

 

In your experience what makes a good distributor and what advice would you give distributors to help them better the industry?

I think the best distributors are those that do all they can to achieve and maintain a high-level of customer service and satisfaction. That is certainly a core value we place a great deal of importance on, to the point of making it a cultural device that then happens and perpetuates itself organically throughout your staff and business practices. Again, a distributor who is just out to make a quick buck and does not take the time and care to ensure client satisfaction will not prosper for long. So my advice would be to invest in your client and supplier relationships – if you do it right, then you’ll create a business that grows and makes a better industry for all.

 

What does the future hold for Specialty Balloons?

Specialty Balloons has a great many things planned for the immediate and long-term future. Our core market of custom balloon printing is growing all the time and we’re always focused on developing our services, product range, and capabilities in this area so they grow along with the demand, and we keep the “latest and greatest” in printing options and services available to our customers. We’ve also got some exciting new products on the boil, which we plan to release later this year. I guess, ‘watch this space’ is all I can say at the moment [grins confidently].