ASI® Announces New Relationship With Experian®

January 31, 2005 – Trevose, PA – Advertising Specialty Institute^® (ASI), the largest member organization in the promotional products industry, today announced a new relationship with Experian®, a global information solutions company, to give ASI distributor member firms the ability to check the creditworthiness of end-buyer customers and prospects.

Distributor firms can use a simple, trustworthy and cost-effective service to estimate how quickly and how reliably clients are likely to pay, allowing them to better manage cash flow and to target clients with the best paying habits. Experian’s business reports include the payment and credit history of more than 18 million public and private companies.

As a part of the agreement, ASI and Experian jointly developed a new business report, called QuickCheck, that delivers current, reliable and useful credit summaries and business background information specifically tailored for the needs of promotional products distributor firms.  QuickCheck is available exclusively to ASI member firms and is a part of Experian’s SmartBusinessReports™, a product suite which provides five additional reporting options. Experian’s SmartBusinessReports™ are available to ASI member firms starting at less than $10 each.

” We continue to proactively identify the needs of ASI distributor and supplier member firms, and try to fulfill those needs by either creating our own products or by partnering with leading experts, like Experian, to find solutions,” said Timothy M. Andrews, ASI’s president.

In addition to the customized reports designed for distributor member firms, ASI supplier member firms that subscribe to ASI CreditConnect, which provides unlimited access to the industry’s most timely credit data on distributor firms, can now also obtain credit information for companies that aren’t yet members of ASI.

“While members obviously won’t check every customer before every order, we think they will want to confirm the paying habits of clients placing extraordinarily large orders, clients that are new and clients suspected of having business problems,” said Dale Denham, ASI senior vice president.  “Credit reports are an absolute necessity in making better decisions regarding potential and existing customers and also help prevent losses associated with fraud, late payments and fabricated references.”

All ASI member firms receive substantial discounts on the QuickCheck report and all of Experian’s SmartBusinessReports offerings.  ASI supplier member firms that subscribe to ASI CreditConnect will save 20 percent.