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Friday, Apr 26, 2024

Swag Firm Has Lots of Swagger

When Ashley Wyatt wanted a name for her new events and promotion business, she came up with Anything 2 Everything. The idea was simple: No matter what clients requested, she could get the job done. “Anyone could call and say: ‘Can you do this?,” said Wyatt, 40. “We do corporate events, anything from the meeting planning to large-scale conferences where people might stay for a couple of days.” Wyatt, a mother of two, started her company in 2009 at her dining room table with a laptop. She had been in the promotional product business for nine years when three of her clients called and asked when she was coming back, so she launched her own firm. A2E, as the company is also called, started out simply providing corporate swag – custom-branded giveaways at events and trade shows, something it still does. At a recent women’s conference Wyatt’s firm provided 2,000 notebooks, pens and T-shirts. “There is still not very much investment. When someone places an order, they pay for it, and I buy everything,” she said. Today, the Sherman Oaks company employs six people and serves clients in the Greater Los Angeles area and Silicon Valley. It now organizes events for clients that include titans of the tech world Facebook Inc. and Instagram Inc. as well as traditional media such as TV Guide Magazine. That kind of clientele has helped land the company at the No. 4 spot on the Business Journal’s list of fastest growing private companies, with 363 percent growth over the last two years and $4.5 million in revenue last year. While Wyatt still works out of her home garage, which has been redesigned into an office, the company recently opened an office in San Francisco since the majority of its clients are in the Bay Area. Kimberly Newman, 30, who is vice president of events, moved to the Bay Area to take care of clients on the ground. Wyatt believes the secret of her success lies in a personal touch and the creativity that her firm brings to planning events. Just recently, A2E worked with Instagram to develop a pop-up art gallery called “La Galerie d’Instagram” at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, an annual event on the French Riviera attended by advertising and visual communications executives from around the world. A2E installed a gallery that showcased Instagram’s curated selections of images from the user community. Newman said Silicon Valley clients are progressive and creative people who are interested in showcasing the details of events on social media. They often ask what’s “sharable” and “buzz-worthy” for Facebook and Twitter. “We want to really make sure we can approach each client’s needs,” Newman said. – Olga Grigoryants

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