"Surf's Up": Our Industry Is At A Tipping Point

This week, I attended the PPAI North American Leadership Conference (NALC) and inaugural PPAI Product Safety Summit, where it became evident the promotional products industry has arrived at a critical industry tipping point.

Wikipedia defines, and I paraphrase, a tipping point as "the critical point in an evolving situation that leads to a new and irreversible development." Journalists apply the term to almost any change likely to lead to additional consequences. Marketers see it as a threshold that, once reached, will result in additional sales. In some usage, a tipping point is simply an addition or increment that might not seem extraordinary by itself but that unexpectedly is just the right amount of additional change necessary to make significant impact.