2019 PCA Magazine

PREMIUMCIGARS.ORG JULY-AUGUST 2019 | PCA The Magazine 27 going to help all of our members continue to get better at their business and at the same time defend their business from onerous regulations and policies? So that’s really the two-pronged approach that will allow us to carry out our mission to grow and protect the premium cigar and pipe industry. How did you come up with Premium Cigar Association? In talking with all of our stakeholders and going through the rebranding process, it was really understood that we needed to be very clear and simple and concise, especially after working with the long acronymof IPCPR for all these years. The best example is whenwe’re onCapitol Hill, you have a finite amount of time in terms of meetings and you don’t want towaste it by taking the first fiveminutes explaining your name. I often talk about this by using a Venn diagram. The overlap of manufacturers and retailers and consumers, if we rebranded solely toward those three groups, then the overlaps would have presented to us with amyriad of fun, creative name possibilities. But in the small, little space where it overlaps with policymakers and regulators and politicians—the space where we really needed to hit the mark—it mademuchmore sense for a clean, straightforward approach. So, that’s where it was settled. PremiumCigar Association is very straightforward and direct, which for an association, is always the best way forward. What about including pipes or pipe tobacco as part of the name? Our stakeholders understood, especially in terms of our public face with policymakers, any sort of version of the word tobacco in our name was going to be detrimental to our mission and what we were trying to do. Premium cigars are also a larger focus of regulation, by and large. Most of what we do is built around the premium cigar and the premium cigar exemption. To differentiate ourselves from other tobacco products and drive home those differences, using premium cigar in the name made the most sense. But we do specifically address the inclusiveness of the industry in our tagline: The Leading Advocate for the Premium Cigar and Pipe Industry. Of course we’re still going to be very devoted to pipes and pipe tobacco and we were very cognizant of that during this process. Just because we’re the Premium Cigar Association doesn’t mean we’re not going to continue to fight for pipes or represent pipes or fight for our pipe manufacturers and pipe tobacco manufacturers, as well as our retailers, to sell these products. We recognize this is a change, but we still wanted to make sure that we do them justice within our messaging and the rest of the brand that we use. That’s why the new logo is a tobacco leaf because that’s what represents the entirety of this business—frommanufacturing all the way to the consumer, and it includes both premium cigars and pipe tobacco. IPCPR PAC created “The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act” signed into law IPCPR’s full legislative team is hired. Kip Talley is the first Director of Federal Affairs, followed by Matt Dogali to handle state affairs, and then Rachel Hyde later that same year to work on both state and federal issues. Prior to 2013, only Chris McCalla managed all legislative duties. IPCPR begins grassroots campaign and launches legislative website ipcprlegislative.org Rachel Hyde takes on the added role of deputy director of state affairs (Today, she covers the entire country.) Later in 2016, IPCPR hires Tyler Henson as a regional lobbyist. Headquarters moves from Columbus, Georgia, to Washington D.C. IPCPR hires third regional lobbyist, David Jessup Association changes name to Premium Cigar Association (PCA) 2008 2009 2013 2014 2017 2017 IPCPR hires second regional lobbyist, Brett Mecum 2018 PCA PREMIUM CIGAR ASSOCIATION IPCPR launches cigaraction.org 2019 2016 2016 To differentiate ourselves from other tobacco products and drive home those differences, using premium cigar in the name made the most sense. But we do specifically address the inclusiveness of the industry in our tagline: The Leading Advocate for the Premium Cigar and Pipe Industry.