Waterloo – Solingen, 10.05.2010

Kick & Rush – Belgium, a leading company in the promotional product and textile industry declared today it’s renaming to mcs promotion Srl. By doing this, Kick & Rush is sharing their new identity with the Germany based mcs promotion GmbH. Both companies take this step to consolidate their respective market approach and thereby follow the development this specific industry is facing today and in the future, thus staying individual legal entities.

“It does not take a lot of fantasy to foresee in what direction this industry will develop” says Ralf Dickopf, CEO of mcs promotion. “The industry has already started to undergo a consolidation process like other industries have experienced before. With more than 3000 companies in Germany and 3 Bio € in volume, the promotional product industry is a substantial and important, yet very fragmented industry.”

It is not the market pressure that pushed us in this direction, but foremost the belief that this industry is in need of international players to serve multi-national companies across borders.

Kick & Rush and mcs promotion have a history of collaboration since many years. Both companies are members of the IPPAG group (www.ippag.net), a recognized network of promotional product specialists, present in more than 25 countries.

In this network, Thibaut Fontaine and Ralf Dickopf, have been together on the Board of Directors for many years.

For us this is the first step of establishing an international face in the market. Unlike few competitors, who have already taken a similar direction, our target goes beyond the existing setups.

“It will be good to have a multi-country setup, but we strive to be present in all important markets in Europe and beyond” says Arnaud de Broqueville, partner of Kick & Rush and responsible for the purchases.

Next to our market approach, mcs group will also centralize and professionalize important functions.

From IT development and fulfilment distribution to managing the supply chain with the challenges of
a growing demand for Corporate Social Responsibility, the new setup allows allocating and concentrating resources in a much more focussed way.

Especially when it comes to Fareast sourcing and production, it takes resources to follow the growing numbers of rules and regulations – to be accountable for our services also includes to work with audited suppliers and to have productions test done for every order that we realize.

“It sounds very basic but many companies seem to forget, that the base to promote a brand is to protect it from damage. On that base we can be creative and connect our clients brand to their consumers or audience.”

“We can compare this step to the networks airline companies founded long time ago” says Ralf Dickopf,
“If you look at the example of the Star Alliance, you will also find independent companies that are offering global, client focussed services that single airlines just cannot offer.

Every airline is happy to fly you from their hub lets say to New Your City – but who picks you up in Hamburg and connects you to with minimal waiting time to Salt Lake City to offer the competitive advantage clients want to have? ”

This truth is also valid for the promotional product industry: there are some good companies that are able to approach international customers and offer centralized consultancy on brand promotion and below the line activities. But who cares for the roll-out in lets say, 20 countries world wide, offering a distribution network that includes account management on a regional and national level.

Therefore it is the declared objective of mcs group to cover all major markets in the near future.

“We will allow ourselves two more years to have the 5-7 major European countries and emerging markets covered with either partner companies or with our own subsidiaries.”