The Advertising Specialty Institute^® (ASI) honored 188 of the top-performing suppliers in the $23 billion promotional products industry and named Towel Specialties as the Supplier of the Year at its annual Counselor Distributor Choice Awards. The winning companies were celebrated at an awards ceremony held Wednesday during ASI’s yearly trade show at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL.

Towel Specialties (asi/91605), a Maryland-based supplier owned by Eric Weinstein, was lauded for robust organic sales growth, top ratings in ASI’s ESP^® performance rating categories and winning the Distributor Choice Award in the “Towels and Robes” category for more than a decade running.

“At Towel Specialties, putting the customer first still means something,” said Timothy M. Andrews, president and chief executive officer of ASI. “It means building long-lasting relationships with clients by meeting every need and every deadline, providing first-class customer service experiences and putting the customer’s priorities ahead of everything else.”

For the Counselor Distributor Choice Awards, distributors across North America choose which companies to honor by voting for their most-valued supplier. Winners are selected based on votes and data from ASI’s Supplier Performance Ratings. All told, 188 finalists qualified in 56 product categories. This year, distributors cast over 50,000 votes.

Click here to view a complete list of winners in the 2018 Counselor Distributor Choice Awards.

To be considered a finalist, an ASI supplier must be rated at least four stars overall in ESP and rank as one of the most clicked companies in their category in ESP. This year, suppliers could be chosen in up to eight of their top product categories, in terms of clicks their products receive in ESP.

In addition to honoring individual companies, ASI also celebrated Mike Welker, vice president of Touchstone (asi/345631), as the Advantages Distributor Salesperson of the Year, Cristina Ysselstein, sales manager for the Northern California territory at ETS Express (asi/51197) as the SGR Supplier Sales Rep of the Year award and Ludy Sousa, a customer service representative for Hub Pen (asi/61966), as SGR Customer Service Rep of the Year.  MORE INFO