Episode 337: Mastering Client Complexity Through Mergers: A Chat with Kate Ivory and Laura Mazy, Premier Press

Mergers and acquisitions on the distributor side of the business have been hot for the past 12 to 18 months. And one company who's been making some amazing acquisitions is Premier Press. Premier Press acquired KG Specialties a few years ago and last year acquired Giddy Promotions. All three of these companies are Commonsku distributor customers and all three based in Portland, Oregon. On today's show, we're exploring mergers, acquisitions, marketing, and the changing landscape of an increasingly complex customer. Welcome to the Skucast, the podcast for innovators and maverick thinkers in the branded merch space. My name is Bobby LeHew. I'm glad you're here. Premier Press is a privately held, women-owned company. They're carbon neutral, wind powered, and they're SGP company, which means they are Sustainable Green Printing Partnership certified company that creates luxury products through earth-friendly practices. Headquartered in a 170,000-square-foot facility in Portland, Oregon, with over 200 employees, their expertise lies in leveraging data, commercial offset and digital printing, packing, kitting, warehousing, mailing, and distribution services. And with all of these services on site. Joining us today, two guests, Laura Mazy, Director of Marketing at Premiere, and Kate Ivory, who is now the Director of Promotional Merchandise at Premiere. Before our chat with Kate and Laura, I want to share a fast update. SKU Camp, our business bootcamp for promo leaders, is 80% sold out. We just launched this event and we're already at 80%. If you wanna learn how to create an unforgettable customer experience or how to navigate economic volatility or learn how tariffs are impacting the industry's largest suppliers, at SKU Camp, we're tackling all this, plus insights on ethical sourcing, raising leaders, developing an agency mindset, fashion-forward merch, and innovative lead gen tactics. Scoop up the last tickets over at skucamp.com. Now back to the SkuCast and our guests. Laura Mazy is a marketing and brand leader with 30 years experience working with Fortune 20 clients and celebrities. Her career spans coast to coast, starting with agency side work in Philly and New York City. She managed large-scale brand activations, including celebrity-level spring break events. Her experiential marketing clients included NBC, MTV, the VMA Awards, Ben Jerry's, Coca-Cola, Calvin Klein, and many more A-list brands. Laura also spent 12 years at Kroger, where she oversaw and led all general merchandise advertising campaigns nationally. Kate Ivory is now the Director of Promotional Merchandise at Premier, and prior to merging with Premier, was the founder of Giddy Promotions. Kate started her career in retail, moved into management in the restaurant industry, and several times in her career was awarded Employee of the Year. Kate started Giddy, her distributorship, in 2003 with nothing more than grit and determination and grew it to a multimillion-dollar distributorship. She has served on the NW PMA Regional Board, is a PPAI Fellow, and currently the RAC Liaison for NW PMA. And here's one of the most important things about Kate. She is one of the most beloved people in the industry. Her honesty, insight, humility, and her ability to face life no matter the obstacle with a smile has encouraged so many of us. It's a joy to talk with her as she joins the Premier team and expands their vision for what branded merch can do. Today's episode is brought to you courtesy of us at CommonSkew. Over 800 distributors powering $1.8 billion in network volume rely on CommonSkew's connected workflow. Process more orders, connect your team, and dramatically grow your sales. To learn how, visit commonskew.com. Now here's my chat with Laura and Kate.

Welcome to the SKU Cast.

Thanks for having us.

Yeah.

Laura, since Premiere has such a wide array of offerings, how do you explain Premiere to customers?

So we are a creative production company, but we're not just a vendor, we're a partner. So talking with our clients, I hear over and over, time and time again, it feels like you work here. So we're constantly finding new ways to go beyond and discover new ideas. And our goal is to make it easier to bring brands to life. So we offer end-to-end solutions, whether you're an established brand or launching something new. And we have a lot of mottos around here. We believe in a world free of dull marketing and in bringing order to the chaos of creative production and distribution. And we operate out of a 170,000-square-foot facility. And honestly, it's kind of like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. And it's like you start in the inspiration room and then you go through wide format printing and screen printing, embroidery, heat press. And this is me being a drone flying all around the shop.

That's awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. And then from there, you know, you can go to kitting. We have a huge T250 and then warehousing, mailing, shipping, distribution, in-house photo studio, creative department, and it's all under one roof. It's really wild. You have to come in for a tour.

Absolutely.

I would love to do that. I love the visual. Thanks for that for the audio, for those listening to audio. That's a fantastic visual. Since you provide so many different services to customers and you like this, one-stop shop, like, hate to use the phrase, but it's a similar phrase to capture what you're doing. Do you have a particular niche, industry focus?

I would say our ideal customer is any brand, big or small, that wants to stay relevant, organized, stand out, and create printed materials or customers that makes an impact. So, you know, we work with brands looking to bring their brand full circle or their company promotion full circle, whether it's a global ongoing campaign or emerging brands, or sometimes We work with the agencies and we help their clients launch brands. And our ideal customer is anyone that needs a seamless start-to-finish brand experience from concept to execution. And what I love about working here is we have 200 in-house experts, so I can just run out on the floor. We have a row of account directors and project managers. So if we're launching a new activation or environmental or an influencer kit or ordering, you know, print for a franchise, we can just run out and, and talk to people. Yeah. And we have glass doors here. When I first started working here, like, literally someone was running by and I was like, what's going on? So we just, we have very dedicated in-house experts here.

It's getting that rush order taken care of.

Yeah.

Kate Ivory, you have so many fans in the community and friends of not only customers of Commsky, but folks that you've interacted with throughout your career in the industry. So it was big news when you partnered when Giddy partnered with Premier. Why, for you, why was Giddy such a great— I mean, why was Premier such a great fit?

Well, I think, Bobby, really, it's, you know, we were a 10-person shop, small. And what, what I— it was largely a business decision for me, right? I'm not 12 anymore, sadly. I'm 27 now.

But I'm too— we're the same age.

For me, it was, you know, that looming something needed to happen in the future anyway. I wasn't actively looking to make a change. I was introduced to Premier by another distributor that had joined them a year ago. And I started learning about just what Laura was talking about, the amazing depth that they had to offer. And it was so many different solutions to the challenges a small distributor faces, right?

Yeah.

And So next comes the question of culture. You know, how do they, how do they treat their employees? How do they treat their customers? How do they treat their vendors? And I spent quite a bit of time with their executive team learning about them. And it just became obvious to me that the ability to be a one-stop shop, which we've said for years and years and years, but to truly have that capacity was incredibly enticing. And so, and, and our customers at this date and time seem to be flocking to it.

I was going to ask you that because you've had a lot of experience in this business. You've done all kinds of programs. You've done every kind of conceivable promo program that you can possibly do. And have you seen the complexity grow so strongly? I mean, you were, you also have other reasons that you partnered with Premier, but also I'm assuming then this client complexity and just finding a partner that has the kind of capacity and things that Premier can do was a big plus.

For you and your clients? It was huge. I think that on a daily basis, we as a sales team of merch are continually saying to each other, what the heck is going on? It used to be, you know, it was, you know, I hate to say slap a brand on some or, you know, logo on something, but that was several 15, 20 years ago. We've moved into being far more creative, but now it's far more creative, far more complex, and far quicker than ever before. Yeah. And I think that the challenges of that with a small team, it just wears on you. And so as Laura mentioned earlier, just having the ability to go out and say, who knows about XYZ? And, you know, there's 5 or 6 people that run to your aid to talk it through with you. Yeah. And it's really fabulous. I think that our customers, their worlds are more complex as well.

Right. Yeah.

More is being demanded of us and our companies are looking for efficiencies. They're looking for ways that we don't have, you know, they don't have to spend money on creative because they don't have the team, they don't have the resources or whatever. And so they can come to us and we have that ability to just step into that role for them as part of their team.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I—

go ahead, Laura. Sorry, I just wanted to add, you know, to have that funnel, to have that channel. So there's, there's, for example, there's a lot of parades and Portland, the Rose Parade and the Pride Parade. So if you need t-shirts for 200 employees and the giveaways and the banners and the vinyl and the float, you know, things on the float, you know, we can deliver it all to you neatly wrapped up with a bow on top. We'll deliver your entire program to you. And I think for our clients, that's really important because, you know, slapping a brand on it, now it's become programs and campaigns and there's media and social coordinators. And I think we can Thank smartphones for all of this, because everyone's out there being a photographer and posting, and it has to be buttoned up and perfect. So any program or campaign or activation you have, we can just bring it all, all of it to you.

It's a really good point you both have stressed. We've seen this, and I think it's why we've seen merger and acquisitions heat up probably over the past 18 months in the industry like we've never seen before, because the client complexity has grown. But Kate, I think you hit on something that when you and I were sort of growing up in the business, it was find, find the stuff, deliver the stuff. Those were the two requirements. That was, that was basically it. And now it's kit the stuff, design the stuff, source it conscientiously, be aware that there's going to be a pre-engagement, during engagement, a post-engagement on this. There's just so many things around the experience.

Photograph this stuff or it never happened.

Yeah, right, exactly. Well, and speaking of, of, so Premier is this really large organization. You have all these capabilities, but there was something about Giddy too that Premier needed, saw, and wanted. What was that, Laura? What was it that you saw in Giddy that you felt like could help Premier?

Yeah, so Giddy had a great reputation. I actually knew them from my client side days. Whenever someone would come to me as a client, they would bring me Giddy stuff. And then my husband also same thing. So our entire house and my entire desk was filled with Giddy stuff.

So marketer right there.

Yeah, they had impeccable standards, which made them a perfect match. And we had always done merch and apparel, but on a much smaller scale. So when we acquired KG Specialties, we got the equipment, but Giddy also had years and years of expertise. So to bring that team in has really leveled us up in that space because now we have over 100 years of combined experience, not to age all of us, but And then another big advantage was their strong healthcare client base. So we are HIPAA and SOC 2 certified. Yeah. Means that we have strict security and privacy standards to protect sensitive data. Like there's envelopes around here that says confidential on it. Mm-hmm. And we didn't have a lot of client overlap, so it was a great way to expand our reach. And I mean, they're just an incredible team and we're super honored to have them on board. Whenever Kate and I are talking about marketing ideas, we're like, like we're so excited to be together.

I can imagine.

I can imagine.

Well, Laura, since you alluded to this a little bit, you spent 12 years on the client side with some pretty big brands and you created multiple campaigns. Your previous experience as a client is incredible. And you, you've obviously been at Premier leading this marketing effort for a while now, but as you survey the promo space, what have you seen lacking? Putting on your client hat, what have you seen lacking in the promo space? And maybe in light of what appealed to you with Giddy?

Yeah, thank you. So I grew up in the true guerrilla marketing days in New York where we would do wild postings. I would like run after a bus and slap a poster on the back of it. Wow. And so, you know, just gathering the real, you know, grassroots, you know, from that world. And like you said, now it's just this very polished and bigger teams, bigger marketing teams, bigger programs. I would say so many clients go to so many multiple vendors and to pull everything that they need for brand activation. And it doesn't make sense to me. Why wouldn't you just come in, drop off your list in one place and have a team that can handle it all? Yeah. And I call everyone SMEs, subject matter experts. So we have so many SMEs out here. So whether it's a banner, a direct mail piece, branded t-shirts, hats, embroidery, rubber patches, or if we have to go talk to a freight expert or someone in the creative department, I would just say having this entire team under one roof to handle the whole thing is a total game changer. And it's, it's, it's a formula that's really working for our clients, I believe.

Clearly, it seems like it. And I loved your approach there with the SMEs. I mean, you're using a different language, but it's kind of potent for the client, right? When you're talking with a client, you go in and we have a subject matter expert in importing. Yeah. And customization and whatever it might be, crystal awards or print or whatever.

It's fantastic. Yeah. And we—

I do think this is the evolution of the business, and I think this is why it's gotten harder and harder for distributors. It's just because of this particular aspect of the complexity of, of clients. Let's talk a little bit about the mergers and acquisitions and how the market has changed. Kate, mergers and acquisitions, I mentioned they've heated up over the past couple of years. It's signaling something big in the market, which we've already talked about. But you've been a pro. What do you think is happening also on the client side that's creating this need for more services? Like, what are you seeing with clients? Are they Are they doing exactly what Laura said there, where they're, they're, they're consolidating their partner, partner base and, or, or have their needs grown just wider? And I think we've seen this through the evolution of hitting, but I'll shut up and let you talk. What are you seeing on the client side?

I think it's a little bit of everything. Again, circling back to just our workloads, they're huge. And I don't have, I mean, if I put myself in my customer's shoes, which is what I do with every customer, you know, I don't try to sell them. I'm trying to be them and I'm trying to think about what they need. And what I hear from all of them is I'm buried, I'm overworked, I have too much on my plate. So if I have to call more than one person about one large project, yeah, it's, it, you know, it exponentially adds to that workload. So having an expert here that understands their brand guidelines, that understands their colorways, that understands, you know, CMYK and PMS colors and how they can and can't use their logo on various items, I think is exponential in the ability to move and progress through all the various projects that Laura's talked about in one. You know, she can— my customer can drop it off and go, here, I need this. This is what I'm thinking. Tell me more. And, and I can touch on that big hairy subject of printing. I used to just go, don't talk to me about that. I know nothing. I don't want to know anything about that. Now I just go out and talk to an SME and they're like, come in and sit down and tell me. And I've sold a booklet, I've sold magazine now, I've sold everything now.

That's awesome.

Love it.

Good job.

You've crossed the chasm.

I've done it. I've gone over. Although I will say they're two different worlds. They are. I had the assumption that merch and print were not that different, but it's like Greek and Latin. So it's nice to have a whole team behind you to definitely, but I think it really is. It's a lot. I thought about this a lot, Bobby. I think social media, I think that the amount of information and creative, the, the DIY out there, it's like you're just bombarded constantly with amazing AI, amazing things. I just did an AI ChatGPT creative for a customer and I shouldn't probably talk about it, but it's like I literally put Yeti doing a tree 3 pose on a yoga mat out of ChatGPT. But because we can do all of that, it complicates our world too, right? It's not so simple anymore. So being able to make that one phone call to a group of people that can just take it and run with it, put it in a pretty package, hand it back to them and say, here, go be a hero with your boss.

Right.

Yeah, it's a great point. The other thing you alluded to there was the client taste. A client taste has increased, and so that's made our job even harder. So they're more discerning buyers, they're, they're pickier about things, rightfully so. Kate, I want to ask you this. You know, we're talking to distributors of all sizes. You know, we're talking to enterprise-level distributors, mid-size level distributors, small distributors. Joining forces with Premier meant you moved from a 10-person team to a 190-person team. That's no small move, obviously. Having gone through this now, there are more distributors listening that are contemplating merging. They might, they might be on the acquisition side. They may be on the side where they're thinking of selling their business, whatever. I know it's a lot to unpack, but how would you encourage distributors to help their team with the transition process?

It's hard.

It's— it is hard. I wish I could be a great coach and tell someone how to do it. I didn't do it well. And so I think that we had an NDA, so I took it to heart and didn't talk to anyone for 9 months, you know, except my husband. Right. And you get down to that point where it's time to make a decision of yes or no, and then it's yes. And then things move very quickly. And what I know as being in sales or knowing people is all of us have different personalities. And some people need a little bit more time to process change. Sure. And I know several people on my team had a really hard time with how quickly the transition happened. Yeah. Premier was wonderful. They were embracing of us. They were, you know, did everything they could to make us feel at home, but it felt very quick and fast. So I would encourage anybody that's looking at that, if you have an opportunity in your NDA to disclose a little sooner than we're moving next week, Yeah, that's really good advice though.

Okay.

I've talked to, as you know, many distributors who have gone through this process now and a lot of folks and all of them say the same thing you said.

Yeah, it was harder than expected. It's just really tough and you really can't talk about it until paperwork's signed. Sure. And because, you know, things can go sideways in a, in a heartbeat. I think that was really the most challenging thing. I think we'll probably, I'm going to assume we're probably going to talk about common SKU a little bit.

Next up.

Yes. Let's just get into it.

Did that now? No.

Speaking of, now that had to make the process a little easier, right?

It was, it'd be, it was a non-issue, right, Bobby? Because Premier had brought on KG Specialties prior to us, who Kyle's a great friend of mine. And I knew that they had used Common Skew. I think both of us are practically OGs of Common Skew, right? We've been here forever. Love Common Skew. And so that was a, that was just a no-brainer. It was like, great, easy peasy. Interestingly enough, we use Commonsku very differently than their team does.

Interesting.

Yeah.

A lot of things from each other. Good, you know, good tricks and tips and bad tricks. Whoa, no, you shouldn't be doing that. But it was lovely knowing and comfortable knowing we could come here and literally do our jobs today. Right. We had to learn a lot of things and a lot of processes and a lot of procedures and a lot of different things joining a larger company. Yeah. But our world remained largely the same, having the same common SKU to work from.

So that's fantastic. And having a stressed out team, knowing that that one piece of it, which would've added to the stress and complexity far more, was, is a big deal. Laura, any thoughts on that before we move on?

I love the CommonScape community. I mean, I love if you can't find something that you can just go on the board and ask everyone. And yeah, mergers are, you know, I've been through a lot. I'm from, you know, like I said, New York and the dot-com and the Kroger days. And it's change management is, is really hard. And I think moving forward, we just have, we have a new HR person and we're going to be focusing on change management and helping that moving forward for sure.

It is hard. Now, no matter who—

and I've heard from people who feel like they've done it right and they said, you know, and then they will say the exact same thing that you said, Kate. And so it's just hard. It's really hard. But nice to know about the comments queue. Our team will be thrilled to hear that. I will be playing that for them as well.

It's just so fascinating how we're using the same platform. We've all, we've used it for so long and, and the differences that we do, it just, it was comical almost.

Yes. Yeah.

We do it this way, and they're like, yeah, oh, that makes sense, or we would say the same. And that's good interpretations, right? It also goes to different types of businesses.

Absolutely.

The types of clients you serve, right?

Very different clients than we do. And so we would figure out all these little different workarounds. They had their little different workarounds that they did. And fascinating.

It's gonna be good for our team to know too. That'll be very helpful. We have a final question for you, and I've actually let you pick whichever one you want to ask— we answer. And so I've never done this before, so I thought it would be fun for us to try something different, and that is you get to pick. Tell a story so that we can learn a little bit about more about you and your experience. Tell us about either the most challenging client project you've ever had and why it was challenging, or a brand or company that you follow for inspiration, or third is our book, podcast, video, or something you've absolutely loved lately. You can do all three if you want, but Laura, we'll start with you.

Well, I listened to you, your Why Aren't You Using Content podcast, so That was really great, just doing my content calendar for 2025. And I would just say, you know, earlier we were talking about how brand campaigns and programs are changing. And, you know, we can thank the Kim Kardashians and the Kylie Jenners of the world for that. And everyone needs to be following teen girls because they are setting the stage for the future of all these— this branded this and branded that and personalization. And having such a big company and different ages here, it's— you need to I know what the youth is up to, so I follow the youth.

That's actually really phenomenal advice because they are trendsetting and they are setting the standard. And it's funny because you tend to— we tend to want to disassociate B2C and B2B, but there's no such separation anymore. They're absolutely influencing what's happening in the market, and a B2B buyer is a consumer. So that is the fact.

Okay, Kate, how about you? I picked brand inspo, really, and it's It's, it's hard to say because I follow so many different companies. Like, I'm constantly scrolling between— and I couldn't name just one, right? Because somebody will get left out. I feel like, you know, the Oscars and— sure, thank my mom and my dad and Creative and Paperclip and Busteg and— right, right. Yes. Thumbprint and all of them. But what fascinates me when I'm following all of these is just how when they go to market, each of them has their own personality. I mean, we could be showing the same brands, we can be showing the same trends, we're showing the same scents, but they have their personalities behind it. And just like Laura spoke about a moment ago, I have a 27-year-old son who is very brand conscious and lives in Austin, and I spend an exorbitant amount of time picking his brain, talking to his fraternal brothers and saying, hey, What's up? What's cool? What do you want for your birthday? I mean, that list is expansive because he has his own apartment now. So we're covering all things from home goods to clothing to activities that he's doing. And so, yeah, and I remember in marketing, and I think it probably still holds true today, that pay attention to the middle schoolers. Yeah, I live with a middle schooler, so I'm in. They start the trend.

Friends.

Yeah, I want to be on the early end of it. Look at the middle schoolers.

That's such great advice.

Go ahead. You don't want to be cringe. Okay, right.

So no cap.

This has been phenomenal. Thank you both for delighting us with just the story behind the merger, a little bit of the acquisition merger story, but also just your perspective on how clients changed. I mean, you both are really speaking to the heart of what's happening in the market right now, and thanks for being willing to come on this QCast and talk about Well, thank you.

I would like to end that you have fabulous hair.

So congrats on that.

It took a lot of worry to get there, but I finally got it. Laura, thank you very much. And I appreciate you both. And now that I'm a bit red, we'll end the episode.

I told you, Laura, if you want to embarrass Bob, talk about his hair.

Yeah. Thank you, my friends.

We'll end on that note.

All right. Happy Friday.

Thank you.

Y'all too.