Baisch and Skinner: wholesale floral distributor - we shop the world's markets

Kicking off SAF Palm Springs 2007 was the much-anticipated announcement of Floral Management's 14th annual Marketer of the Year. This year's winner: wholesaler Baisch & Skinner, Inc., in St. Louis, for creating a cooperative marketing effort on behalf of their florists.

Award sponsor Dwight Larimer, AAF, president of Design Master Color Tool, Inc., presented the Baisch & Skinner team with the $5,000 cash prize. Floral Management's editor in chief, Kate F. Penn, provided convention attendees with details of the campaign, explaining that in the spring of 2006, John Baisch, president, and Steve Frye, vice president and general manager, set out to help increase sales for local retailers in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

"What they were really attempting to create, was a brand," Penn said. "A brand that conveys the unique and high quality nature of your neighborhood florist."

That effort, funded by Baisch & Skinner and participating retailers and suppliers, became the St. Louis Florists Network. The Network's tagline: Buy quality. Buy local. Experts in the art of expression. The campaign has generated an enormous amount of exposure and results for St. Louis florists, through radio promotions, print advertising, strategic event partnerships and much more, all of which are detailed in the cover story of the October issue of Floral Management.

In accepting the award, John Baisch gave special thanks to the company's directors of marketing, Tom Hofeditz and Kim Hoffer, who "turned our idea for this into a reality."

"They are a testament to the importance of surrounding yourself with dynamic, positive people who think outside the box and who challenge the status quo," Baisch told the audience at the Kick-Off Breakfast.“

He also thanked the 36 retailers involved in the network, who "realize that the real competition is not from the local florist down the street, but from entities much larger ... together they formed a choir that could be heard throughout the whole city."

Excerpt from SAF.

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