Phil Harder, CEO & Founder


certificate

Connecting Brands with Customers-Worldwide

In 2006, The Kellogg Company was facing a challenge – Cereal City, the museum experience created to replace plant tours, was struggling financially and facing closure. Kellogg turned to their local commercial printing partner, EPI, to potentially assume the production of their iconic Photo on A Box - an immersive experience started at Cereal City, where a brand enthusiast can get their photo superimposed on a box of Frosted Flakes. That request, and a long history of listening to clients and producing solutions to meet their needs, was the catalyst for EPI to enter into a joint venture with Duffey Petrosky (a full-service agency), and fund a start-up to be known as Turnkey Merchandise Programs (TMP). From there, KelloggStore.com was introduced as a centralized marketplace for Kellogg brand enthusiasts to gain access to the wide array of licensed Kellogg’s merchandise all in one immersive branded shop experience. Over the last decade, TMP has grown their community of clients to include many other household brand names, and serves millions of consumers with quality branded merchandise - from limited edition Tony the Tiger plush slippers, to designer-inspired Pepsi Backpacks. What started as strictly a retail strategy, evolved into a product development and marketing powerhouse over the years. Today TMP manages 27 different privately labeled e-commerce sites, with several more in the pipeline.

Now semi-retired, Phil Harder, the founder of TMP, gave the company its footing through his combination of patience, perseverance and personal integrity. Phil did not follow the mantra of “build it and they will come”. Instead here invested in the talent and technology to not only build websites and stock them with unique products, but most importantly, to deploy an arsenal of digital marketing tactics to not only gain traffic but to convert visitors into buyers. Over the last decade, the company has earned an excellent reputation in the multi-billion dollar licensing industry, which is a surprisingly small and close knit group of people.

" If a brand has a significant number of existing Licensees, we’ll source from those Licensees and bring together an online collection, paying back a share of the revenue to the Brand, with low to no risk to the Brand itself. "

TMP helps brands connect at a deeper level with their loyalists, enthusiasts, collectors, supporters and donors. They do this through carefully curated collections of licensed merchandise to celebrate each brand’s unique DNA, and aggregate it all into a central marketplace. The brand wins, because their “tribe” has one place to go to gain access to the myriad of merchandise available, and they monetize their value of Intellectual Property. “If a brand has a significant number of existing Licensees, we’ll source from those Licensees and bring together an online collection, paying back a share of the revenue to the Brand, with low to no risk to the Brand itself,” explains TMP’s current President, Holly Ringle. “If a Brand has no Licensees, we’ll create the collection from the ground up, developing the products to be sold and taking the inventory risk, all while paying back royalties to the Brand.”

The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation came to TMP in late 2016 with a mission to make Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural design and artwork accessible to the public worldwide. Dissatisfied with their existing strategy, including digital marketing, e-commerce, and fulfillment capabilities, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundationtasked TMP to help increase brand awareness and brand loyalty. TMP developed aomni-channel marketing strategy to bring the Foundation’s e-commerce site to the forefront of the digital marketplace, while tackling their underlying issues of fulfillment and audience connection. Adding to the existing licensed merchandise, TMP developed distinguished designs to fill gaps in the assortment for product categories such as drinkware, apparel and gift wrap. The Foundation’s e-commerce site is on track to realize another year of double digit growth.

In the foreseeable future, TMP plans to reinvest by insourcing mass-personalization capabilities, including Direct-to-Garment printing, to move a larger portion of their supply-chain to Print-On-Demand. TMP also plans to focus on growth within in the non-profit sector – building and powering e-commerce stores for non-profit causes. To be sure, the company will always fall back on its original foundation of actively listening to their clients and responding to the rapidly evolving digital consumer with engaging products, offers and webstores.


Company

Turnkey-Merchandise-Programs, L.L.C.

Management

Phil Harder,
CEO & Founder

Description

TMP offers full service eCommerce solutions, branded and licensed merchandise development, turnkey catalog programs and marketing support to corporate, sport, and non-profit brands.


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