Baton Rouge-based AST Marketing Group is embarking on its third office expansion in two years.
The merchandise distributor headquarters will move to 7909 Wrenwood Blvd., off Jefferson Highway in the Bocage area, effective July 1.
The move is to accommodate the company’s growth, which added five employees to bring its total workforce to seven, says Carey Guglielmo Jr. The company recently hired Stacey Messina as its business development director.
The future of the AST Marketing Group’s current location at 7737 Old Hammond Hwy. is to be determined, Guglielmo says, adding it could become a sales and marketing space while the Wrenwood location could function as a management office.
AST Marketing Group is a promotional merchandise distributor with an emphasis on premium brands and exclusive. The company launched less than two years ago in Baton Rouge, which is the hometown of Guglielmo and co-founder Billy Haile. Both men formerly worked for NIKE North America and combined have 45 years of experience with that corporation.
“Those 45 years—it’s allowed us to very quickly put together a unique model that’s unprecedented on the Gulf Coast,” he says.
Guglielmo says AST Marketing Group has carved out a niche, primarily due to the technology it’s brings to the market and in the space in which it competes.
The company is operating at a 352% growth rate in the past 23 months, Guglielmo says. It has set its eyes on the goal of $2 million in sales for 2016.
“We are at 206% (in sales) through the first five months of 2016 compared to the first five months of 2015,” he says, attributing the majority of the sales to its strategic clients such as Community Coffee, All-Star Automotive, and Yeti among others.
Guglielmo says AST Marketing Group has 215 clients. Approximately 80% are local, he says.
The company also recently invested in a more than 100,000-square-foot warehouse in Chicago that allowed it to expand its corporate web store initiative and to expand regionally.
—Alexandria Burris
