Couldn't make it to Montréal? We got you!
We pulled some of our favourite moments from the skucamp stage into one episode. Todd Henry shares a smart way to think about AI on creative teams. PPAI's Josh Ellis shares the thinking behind Merch Moves Us, and three supplier CEOs take the hot seat. Brand strategist Ana Andjelic quizzes Bobby on merch ROI (he survived, mostly). Tony McNally makes the case for the teammate who questions everything. A print on demand session flips a common fear on its head, and Caleb Gilbertson closes with where he sees the distributor model heading.
One note before you listen: the segues between clips are voiced by AI Bobby. Bobby explains why at the top of the episode, and he'll always let you know when AI is part of the mix.
On today's show:
Todd Henry gave this year's keynote, and he framed AI using an idea from his colleague Andy Crouch. A hammer is a tool: it extends what you can already do. An accordion is an instrument: it lets you make something you can imagine but couldn't produce on your own. A calculator is a device: it replaces a skill so completely that you lose it (Todd admits he hasn't done hard math in his head in 25 years).
His warning for anyone handing their writing to AI:
"If you use AI to do all of your creative writing for you, it is just a matter of time before you lose your capacity to do creative writing, because writing is thinking."
— Todd Henry
The goal is the instrument. Keep the imagination human and let AI help you play it.
Josh Ellis (a familiar voice if you caught skucast Episode 217) is behind the Merch Moves Us campaign, and its starting point was blunt. Marketers see the viral swag moments. What they don't see is ROI or cost per impression. So the campaign speaks their language with case studies, real numbers, paid social, and a toolkit distributors can share with clients (some of it white-label). Josh calls it the industry's "Got Milk?" moment.
Catherine Graham put three supplier CEOs in the hot seat: Alan Meinstein of Spector & Co., Josh Militello of PCNA, and Pierre Montaubin of Koozie Group. Pierre did the math out loud. Shipping 97% on time and in full sounds great until you realize the other 3% is roughly 90 orders a day.
His point: no supplier ships perfectly, so the real test is how you respond when an order goes wrong.
Ana Andjelic, former chief brand officer at Banana Republic and Esprit, was one of the first CMOs to treat merch as a real pillar of brand strategy. Bobby offered "return on emotion" as his ROI answer. Ana called it too fuzzy.
"You need to operationalize it."
— Ana Andjelic
For retail clients, that means tracking average order value, basket size, traffic, and return customers before and after a campaign. For service companies, it means sentiment, affinity, and mentions measured over a 3, 6, 9 and 12-month plan. Short-term impressions alone won't tell the story.
Tony McNally has spent 22 years in promo and lived through a couple of acquisitions. His advice on the person who pushes back on every new idea? Give them the mic.
He shared the story of building an online proof approval flow. The team designed for "I approve" and "I don't approve." Then Dolly asked what happens when the client says no but wants a change. Nobody had thought of it. Without safety and honesty, Tony says, change doesn't stick.
commonsku's Dave Shultz sat down with Jayson Tompkins of Fulfill Engine and Ryan Wenkus of FAST Platform. Jayson took on the fear that POD cannibalizes bulk business with a restaurant analogy: imagine being refused dessert because they're worried you won't finish your burger.
His proof point is a snack gifting company that learned promo three years ago and started offering print on demand. It's now a $100 million-plus business, and it wins the bulk orders too.
Caleb Gilbertson started Imprint Engine in his living room 14 years ago. Today the team is 150 people around the world, and he thinks AI will reshape the distributor model faster than anyone is ready for.
"Yesterday, we sold products, and today, we manage projects. Tomorrow, we design outcomes."
— Caleb Gilbertson
His challenge: next time you say AI will never do something, ask what it would need to do it tomorrow.
In this episode, we also discuss:
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Ask skucast
Want more on AI, merch ROI, or leading change? Ask any of the 350+ guests who've been on the show. It's free.
Try Ask skucast →[00:00:06] Welcome to skucamp Montréal, plus a note on testing AI in this episode
[00:02:15] Todd Henry on AI as a tool, instrument, or device
[00:04:46] Josh Ellis on Merch Moves Us and speaking marketers' language
[00:06:21] Supplier CEO hot seat: 97% on time and the orders that go wrong
[00:08:12] Ana Andjelic on who owns the merch ROI scorecard
[00:10:49] Tony McNally on leaning into Doubtful Dolly
[00:12:54] Print on demand as dessert, not a threat to bulk
[00:14:30] Caleb Gilbertson on AI and reinventing distributor value
🎙️ Read Full Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Bobby: Hi, friends. Bobby Lehew here, Chief AI Officer at commonsku. Today's episode is a little different. We're sharing some highlights from our business boot camp experience called skucamp. It's a gathering created to challenge, inspire, and equip forward-thinking leaders in promo. Now, skucamp started from this passion of ours to elevate the industry and inspire leaders like you, and it's grown into this one-of-a-kind experience that brings together some of the brightest minds in the business.
[00:00:33] This year's lineup was loaded with insights and actionable tactics, all against the backdrop of beautiful Montréal. Today, you'll hear Todd Henry on leading creative teams, a look at the marketing shift that's happening in merch, a candid supplier CEO interview, brand strategist and author Ana Andjelic on how merch went from a side gig to a main act, and Tony McNally on building a team that embraces change.
[00:00:59] Plus, the future of print on demand and what the next-gen merch agency looks like. Today's episode is brought to you courtesy of us at commonsku. Over 950 distributors powering $1.8 billion in network volume rely on commonsku's connected workflow. Process more orders, connect your team, and dramatically grow your sales.
[00:01:18] To learn more, visit commonsku.com. Now, here are the highlights from the skucamp stage in Montréal. Oh, and one more thing. During this episode, you're going to hear segues from me about the clips that are coming up, but actually, it's not from me. It's from AI Bobby. We're experimenting and playing with tools.
[00:01:38] We'll always let you know when we use AI. We just thought this was a perfect case to try it out. I'll always be here to host guests in person and to do introductions, but every now and then, we'll test some things because you're a generous audience and you let us do that. Here's the episode.
[00:01:55] AI Bobby: So our keynote this year was Todd Henry. Some of you were at skucon a couple years ago and heard him talk about bringing out your own creative best. This time, he turned it toward your team, and I love how he frames AI here. He gives you 3 ways to think about it, and honestly, only one of them is the one you want.
[00:02:15] Here's Todd.
[00:02:15] Todd: I have a colleague, Andy Crouch, who talks about AI in 3 categories. He says, "We can think about it as tools, we can think about it as instruments, or as devices." So a tool is like a hammer. A tool extends your human capacity. So I could hammer a nail with my hand, but it's gonna be really painful.
[00:02:32] I maybe could do it eventually, depending on how soft the wood is. But if you give me a hammer, boom, boom, boom. It's an extension of my human capacity. Then we have instruments. How many of you were walking around last night and heard the gentleman playing the accordion out on the street, right? So beautiful.
[00:02:50] Or the woman who was playing violin. They can imagine those sounds in their head, but they can't make the sound of an accordion or make the sound of a violin. And the instrument gives them the capacity to do things they could imagine but couldn't do. That's an instrument. A device replaces human capacity. So, for example, I haven't done hard math in my head for 25 years.
[00:03:19] Why haven't I done hard math in my head? I've got this device in my pocket all the time that will do all the math I want, all the time, way better than I could do it. Why would I do that? I use a device to replace my capacity. Well, because I no longer have to do that, now I no longer can do hard math in my head, which means now I have to use my calculator to do hard math because I've lost that capacity.
[00:03:49] And this is what a device does. It replaces a capacity that we once maybe were really great at, but it replaces it to the point that we lose our ability to engage in that behaviour. So what Andy would argue is that if we use AI as a tool, which some people do, which is just basically like a better Google, you know, fine.
[00:04:11] If you use it as a device, it can be very damaging. If you use AI to do all of your creative writing for you, it is just a matter of time before you lose your capacity to do creative writing, because writing is thinking. So if you're never embracing the friction of writing, then eventually you will lose your capacity to write.
[00:04:32] Instead, he would argue we need to think of AI as an instrument. AI is an alien brain that we can leverage to accomplish things we can imagine but couldn't do on our own. But there's still a human element of imagination and desire.
[00:04:46] AI Bobby: Next up, the marketing shift that's happening in merch. Josh Ellis is Senior Director of Media, Research, and Public Affairs at PPAI, and he's the guy behind the Merch Moves Us campaign. Here's Josh on why marketers haven't been buying what we've been selling, and what it's gonna take to change that.
[00:05:05] Josh: I think what we saw in the research that went into it is that marketers are looking at things that are different than what we had been sharing with them as an industry.
[00:05:15] They see the cool campaigns that go viral and things like that, but what they don't see is the ROI behind it. They don't see the cost per impression behind it. So with this campaign, we're taking a much stronger approach of leaning into the language that marketers speak, which is the numbers and facts that they can back up their spend with.
[00:05:35] And so we've a ton of case studies (thanks for showing this off here), with real numbers behind them. And it's not just the website itself, although we've put a big investment into paid social, so this reaches the targeted audience of marketers and branders and things like that.
[00:05:52] But also this toolkit, which you're seeing on the site now, for companies that are limited in their marketing budget, whether by personnel or strategy. We've put together a ton of assets that you can share with your clients, white label in some cases. And the idea being that this is our "Got Milk?", right?
[00:06:12] This is the industry's combined message that is a rising tide lifting all boats to elevate this medium.
[00:06:21] AI Bobby: So every skucamp, Catherine puts 3 supplier CEOs in what she calls the hot seat. This year, it was Alan from Spector, PCNA's brand-new CEO Josh, and Pierre from Koozie Group. And Pierre said something you don't hear a supplier say on stage very often.
[00:06:39] Even when you ship almost every order on time, some still go wrong. So the real test is how you fix them. Here's Pierre.
[00:06:48] Pierre: Yeah. So what we want, as everybody in this room, I guess, as a supplier, is to delight your customers with orders that ship on time and with good quality. And it's more than words, right?
[00:07:00] I think we had the same struggles that PCNA had over the last few years, and we know that you don't think in averages, right? So when we are shipping 97% on time in full, which is what we do, there's 3% of you. It's 90 orders a day. So I can look at every one of you in this room and say, "I'm probably gonna screw up one of your orders." It's how do we react to those screw-ups, right?
[00:07:31] So how do we retool our service, customer service end to end, from the first person that picks up the phone to the person that's gonna solve your problem? So that's our new North Star. It's called Polaris. Nothing to do with the off-road vehicles that you see on the streets here, right? Totally different.
[00:07:50] So Polaris is our North Star. It's gonna take a journey, right? It's a lot to look at. We take a lot of feedback. We created a customer advisory board (I think we have one member here) in June of this year, to listen to our customers more than we ever did. But yeah, this is the journey we've embarked on. It's gonna take some time, but this is the goal.
[00:08:12] AI Bobby: Okay. This next one, I'll be honest. Interviewing Ana felt like sitting down with my professor, about to fail an exam. Ana Andjelic is a brand strategist, an author, and a former chief brand officer at Banana Republic and Esprit. She was one of the first CMOs to treat merch as a real pillar of brand strategy.
[00:08:31] So I asked her how we answer clients who want an ROI on merch. Here's what happened.
[00:08:36] Bobby: When we face clients and they want to have the ROI conversation, and they...
[00:08:42] Ana: Just create a scorecard. Look, look, look. No, no, no, no. It's a great question. But you need to ask them, who owns the scorecard?
[00:08:49] Bobby: Who owns the scorecard?
[00:08:50] Ana: Yeah. Who owns the scorecard right now? Tell me.
[00:08:53] Bobby: Okay. With marketing.
[00:08:55] Ana: Okay. But...
[00:08:55] Bobby: Right?
[00:08:56] Ana: Right. Like marketing. What is on that scorecard?
[00:08:59] Bobby: They want, here's what they wanna know: "Okay, I see this cool merch campaign you want us to do. I have to go to my boss and tell them what the return on investment is for this."
[00:09:08] Ana: Correct. So how do you define return on investment?
[00:09:10] Bobby: They're typically defining it in terms of impressions, which is not easy to measure.
[00:09:14] Ana: But how are you defining it?
[00:09:15] Bobby: I define it as return on emotion and return on imp...
[00:09:19] Ana: Oh, but that's too fuzzy. You need to operationalize it.
[00:09:22] Bobby: Okay. How?
[00:09:25] Ana: That's why it's not merch.
[00:09:27] Bobby: I told you I was going to school, and I was afraid. I was sitting with my professor...
[00:09:31] Ana: No, no. Again, you need to be like, "Hey, does this increase average order value? Does it increase the size of your basket?"
[00:09:40] Bobby: Okay.
[00:09:40] Ana: For them, so they can track sales and track the increase in sales before and after.
[00:09:47] Bobby: Okay, but you said merch was a long play.
[00:09:50] Ana: Absolutely.
[00:09:50] Bobby: And they're gonna wanna measure the return...
[00:09:53] Ana: And free margin. Sentiment. I think these are the sell-through measures. So they need to exist, because they're unbelievably important. So that's like, does it increase average order value, the basket size, the return, the traffic?
[00:10:05] Does it increase traffic? Does it increase return customers?
[00:10:08] Bobby: Okay. That's easy to measure for retail.
[00:10:10] Ana: Absolutely, but...
[00:10:11] Bobby: But for service companies?
[00:10:13] Ana: For service companies, then say, what is the brand sentiment? What are the brand mentions among the creative class? Who are the observers, the critics?
[00:10:23] Is there any media pickup on this? Is there any pickup among sub-sectors? Is there any pickup among cultural commentators? So that's like affinity, mentions. And then say, "Come back to me. Let's do a 3-month, 6-month, 9-month, 12-month plan. And let's see how everything else... Is it mentioned with everything else that you're doing?"
[00:10:44] Okay. Sentiment, affinity, mentions. Not just short-term impressions.
[00:10:49] AI Bobby: If you know Tony McNally, you know he's everybody's best friend in this industry. Tony's been in promo for 22 years, and he's been through a couple of acquisitions along the way, so in his words, he knows a little bit about change.
[00:11:03] Here he is on that one person on your team who pushes back on everything, and why you wanna lean in.
[00:11:10] Tony: Your challengers. I hate to say it, Negative Nancy. I'm not gonna use Negative Nancy. Let's call her Doubtful Dolly, right? Doubtful Dolly is gonna question everything that you're gonna do. Doubtful Dolly's probably been there for a long time.
[00:11:25] She's like, "I write this on this piece of paper. I save this piece of paper in a folder, and it's worked for me for 15 years, and that's how we're gonna do it." Well, Doubtful Dolly, you're living in that comfort zone, right? But I say lean into her. Allow them to question. Allow them to have that open platform to be honest with you and question what you're gonna do.
[00:11:47] You're gonna find that some of the greatest nuggets come out of the questions that your biggest challengers pose to you. I have an example. I have an employee who... Back in the e-com days, we were trying to figure out how do you create an online platform where a client can approve their proof in an email, right?
[00:12:05] So we're like, "Oh, we're gonna upload the PDF. We're gonna send the email to the client, and they're gonna say, 'I approve,' 'I don't approve,' and they'll send an email back to you." Dolly comes to me, and Dolly's like, "Tony, this isn't gonna work." I'm like, "Dolly, what are you talking about? We're gonna send the email.
[00:12:21] They're gonna say I like it, I don't like it. It's gonna send it back to us so we can move on." "Tony, you're missing something. If they say no, then what?" So it's yes, or it's no with a change. And we were so focused on getting this project done, it was a blind spot. We weren't allowing the client to have that opportunity to say no with a change.
[00:12:41] Something so simple that we were just dead set on, that Doubtful Dolly brought up to us. So yeah, without safety, without honesty, you're not gonna get change.
[00:12:54] AI Bobby: Print on demand. If you still picture, like, a Happy Birthday Mom T-shirt, this one's for you. Dave Shultz sat down with Jayson from Fulfill Engine and Ryan from FAST Platform.
[00:13:05] Here's Jayson on the fear that POD eats into your bulk business.
[00:13:10] Jayson: Can you imagine going to a restaurant and asking for dessert, and they're like, "No, we don't serve dessert here because we're worried you wouldn't eat the hamburger that you had before it"? Right? Like, POD is the dessert. Okay? It's a new way to bring in revenue.
[00:13:25] It's a new way to meet your clients, because everything we've been hearing for the past 2 days is all about how do we elevate ourselves as distributors? How do we elevate ourselves as suppliers? And if you're a supplier, it's about giving your distributors and the people working with you more options to buy the already amazing product that you've sourced, and the amazing people that you have decorating it.
[00:13:43] And then if you're a distributor, it's about giving your customers the ability to have flexible programs. One of the fastest-growing partners we have, and it's one of the fastest-growing companies in our entire industry, 3 years ago didn't know how to make swag. They didn't know anything about the promo market.
[00:13:59] All they did was snacks, okay? Well, they came out to Long Beach 3 years ago. They learned about this industry. They went to PPAI. They learned about promo products, and all of a sudden, they started offering print on demand. And guess what? They're getting all the bulk orders, too. So now they're a $100 million-plus company in less than 3 years, because they transitioned from a snack gifting company to swag, and now they are a swag solution.
[00:14:23] So it really is about becoming a solutions engineer rather than just a transactional distributor.
[00:14:30] AI Bobby: We closed out skucamp with Caleb Gilbertson. Caleb started Imprint Engine in his living room 14 years ago, and today they've got 150 teammates around the world. And honestly, he's spent more time thinking about AI than just about anyone I know in this industry.
[00:14:47] Here's where he thinks distributors are headed.
[00:14:49] Caleb: I think AI changes the entire distributor model completely. It's gonna change the whole industry. I think it's gonna happen way faster than any of us are prepared for. So yesterday, we sold products, and today, we manage projects. Tomorrow, we design outcomes, and I think that's the trajectory we're on.
[00:15:11] The biggest threat isn't AI. I think it's defending value that's already gone, or going very, very quickly. So coming back to this question, you know, what will AI never replace? Don't ask if it can do it today. Every time you say, "AI will never replace that," ask what it would need in order to do it tomorrow.
[00:15:32] It's gonna need knowledge, context, reasoning, tools, and agency, and it's coming really fast. And then what are you gonna do when all that exists? Like, what are you gonna do with your day when AI can do all these things? So yeah, in closing, I don't think the future is about AI. I think it's about the reinvention of value.
[00:15:53] And I think it's gonna belong to the ones willing to reinvent it.
[00:15:56] AI Bobby: And that's a wrap on our skucamp highlights from Montréal. A huge thank you to every speaker who shared the stage with us, and to all of you who showed up and made it what it is. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.