Branding With Intention

Rocket Science Branding helps clients aim for the stars.

Since childhood, Andrea Pereira has been fascinated by the starry night sky. Intrigued by the notion that there was so much “out there,” Pereira was reminded to dream big and reach for the stars. She’s carried that inspiration into her promotional products company Rocket Science Branding (RSB) where she helps clients achieve their marketing goals through branded merchandise.

“My business is more than selling promotional items,” says Pereira, founder and Senior Branded Merchandise Ideator with RSB. “It’s also looking at the client’s business, community demographics, what’s converting and what’s yielding results. If you want to market your business right, you should be putting some real, deliberate thought into your branded merchandise.”

While technically she’s CEO, she’s not comfortable with that title. She prefers Senior Branded Merchandise Ideator because of the thought she puts into products that will yield the best results for her clients. It’s this intentional approach that Pereira believes sets her apart from competitors.

“We don’t hand clients a catalog, tell them to pick an item and then throw their logo on it,” she explains. “We show them a custom curated collection of products and help them choose the items that best fit their marketing goals.”

Promotional items, she says, should tell the story of a company and its culture, and they should be based on their goals, brand, and persona.

“When you think of promotional items as an expression of your brand, it should be conveyed with the same attention to detail as other aspects of your marketing strategy. If you’re going to spend $10 million on an advertising campaign, why would you throw pennies around for promotional items with no thought about the visual impact they can make?”

Pereira earned a bachelor’s degree and an MBA at Pepperdine University Graziadio Business School with a focus on organizational change management. After graduating, she worked in marketing for nearly 20 years, including 10 years at Innovative Products Inc. where she honed her knowledge about the promotional products industry. She never studied graphic design and doesn’t have an art background, so she learned about color and design on the job from the CEO who was both her boss and her mentor.

“I learned how color works, and how to really think about creating and designing products that make people feel special,” Pereira recalls.

Since starting RSB in 2019, the company has grown to a staff of nine, including contractors. The company name, Rocket Science Branding, is partly a nod to her love of the starry skies, but it’s also an inside joke with her family. Pereira is Indian and grew up with conservative Indian parents. While her cousins became doctors, engineers, or university professors, she was selling pens and T-shirts. “Since I’m not a doctor or an engineer,” she told them at the time, “I’ll call my company Rocket Science Branding.”

She says she’s proud of her involvement with several professional organizations, including the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) where she chairs the Education Advisory Committee. She’s also a board member for NextUp, a nonprofit that provides mentoring, education, and community to help advance all women in business and is involved with the Southern California region of the National Minority Supplier Development Council.

Though Pereira has enjoyed success with her current roster of clients, her goal is to work with larger companies. If and when that happens, “it will feel like an award because we put so much creativity and strategy into the RFP presentations,” she says.

With that focus and attention to detail, Pereira is sure to reach the stars.