Industry Mourns Mary Hanson, RepLink Co-Creator and Former Publisher of Potentials in Marketing
Mary Hanson helped develop the RepLink product catalog platform with her late husband, Jon Hanson, and contributed to the incentive, rewards, and recognition field through publishing, industry associations, and education.Publishing and Industry Education
Helping Connect the Incentive Marketplace
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Mary Hanson, co-creator of RepLink, the IRR industry’s leading catalog data platform, has died. The family had not yet provided more details as of this writing. She is also former publisher of the Potentials in Marketing, a leading publication in the incentive field that is no longer in publication. The family announced the news on Linkedin and indicated that more details would follow. A date of death and information on memorial arrangements were not available at the time of this report.
Hanson and her husband, Jon Hanson, created RepLink, a merchandise information service connecting incentive suppliers, independent representatives, and incentive companies that maintains data for about 80 companies and many incentive, reward and loyalty catalogs. See ESM: IRR Industry Loses a Pioneer: Jon B. Hanson, Replink Co-Founder.
Introduced in 1993, the system helped the industry move from printed catalogs and manually assembled presentations toward electronic product searches, shared merchandise information, and digital sales presentations.
With Hanson long retired from Replink, the company today is run by David Boodey, President/Partner, and Kate Fabienke, Executive Vice President / Partner, and the daughter of Mary and Jon Hanson.
Publishing and Industry Education
As publisher of Potentials in Marketing, Hanson contributed to an important source of news and information for professionals in the incentive business. Her involvement also extended to industry associations and education, supporting the exchange of knowledge and professional development within the field. She also was a Certified Professional of Incentive Management (CPIM).
Helping Connect the Incentive Marketplace
Through RepLink, the Hansons helped build a resource that made it easier for suppliers to share product information and for representatives and incentive companies to source merchandise for reward and corporate gift programs. An early innovation, the service evolved over more than three decades to support product data management, sales presentations, and connections with incentive catalog platforms. It was the pre-cursor of API-connections powering the most sophisticated catalog platforms in the world.
Her career spanned complementary parts of the industry: publishing information about the business, supporting education and association activities, and helping develop technology used to bring incentive merchandise to market.
RRN extends its condolences to Hanson’s family, friends, colleagues, and the industry professionals who worked with her.
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