Scarce indeed is the company that does not need to promote itself. But exactly how a business promotes itself can vary in many ways. David Campbell, president and founder of Cool Air Creations Inc. in Smithfield constantly urges his commercial customers to carefully consider the ways they choose to advertise, because some methods, he knows, are more successful than others.
Cool Air Creations provides promotional products to businesses across the region, nation and the globe, applying company names and logos to brand such everyday items as caps, sweatshirts, jackets, tote bags and backpacks. The decorative work that Cool Air adds to products can be in the form of screen printing, embroidery or large-format digital graphics, and the company also can provide banners and signage.
“Our portfolio ranges from small, local companies to Fortune 500 behemoths and includes almost every name-brand apparel manufacturer you can think of,” Campbell said on the company Web site (www.morethantees.com). He regularly ships products to Canada and recently fulfilled a contract for shirts for a Swiss firm. To illustrate how much volume his company handles, Campbell said he processes about 150,000 shirts each week. He does not manufacture the products, but decorates them.
A quick check of the showroom at Cool Air revealed, on coffee mugs alone, such company names as Traveler, The Hartford, Dunkin’ Donuts, the Providence Police Department and Samuel Adams, the latter emblazoned on a ceramic mug heftier than others and probably intended for beer.
A tote bag that the U.S. Air Force Academy commissioned in 2005, bearing the individual names of its graduates on the front, hangs near a gray sweatshirt emblazoned with the logo and name of the Woonsocket High School Villa Novans. The showroom includes a section of heavy-duty jackets, sweatshirts and windbreakers intended for police, fire and rescue personnel, some in impossible-to-miss, bright yellow.
Born in Providence and raised in North Providence, the 38-year-old Campbell began his business in the most mundane way: he started airbrushing T-shirts in his parents’ garage in 1994 to sell to family, friends and others. “I haven’t touched an airbrush in 15 years,” he said.
So, how did he end up going from his parents’ garage to running a successful business?
“The simple answer is honest-to-goodness hard work and dedication,” he said. “The best thing about owning your own business is that you get to pick the first 200 hours you want to work each week. It is long days and lots of hours, but that is why we have the clientele we have. If I say I am going to do something, it is done.”
Cool Air is located off George Washington Highway near the Lincoln line in a 30,000-square-foot building Campbell said he had constructed at a cost of more than $3 million. He moved his business there one year ago, forced to leave Hamlet Avenue in Woonsocket after 11 years when his building there was razed to make way for two new middle schools.
Campbell is convinced that using promotional products is the “simplest, most cost-effective way” for a business to keep its name in front of potential customers and get its message across. What annoys him are companies that “misuse” his products, he said. A business will be taking part in a trade show, for instance, and needs a branded product to give away. Often they will choose the least expensive item, like a pen.
That’s a give-away, not a promotion, he said, because the promotional product should offer a direct tie-in to the company that provided it. As an example, he cites the clipboards he prepared for CVS Caremark Corp., with the company name emblazoned in bold letters on the plastic clip, keeping the name in front of patients and health care professionals day in and day out. “I do a monthly e-blast to my clients, and I constantly am trying to push the idea of coming in and talking to us about your target audience and how to get your message across,” he said. “Companies tend to choose these items based on their budget and not their needs.” •
COMPANY PROFILE
Cool Air Creations Inc.
OWNER: David Campbell
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Promotional products and specialty advertising
LOCATION: 10 Business Park Drive,
Smithfield
EMPLOYEES: 27
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1994
ANNUAL SALES: WND
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