As the owner of PBJ Custom Merch, Rich Patterson has crafted an elevator pitch that could inspire future marketing students for years to come.
Patterson has made custom apparel, uniforms and more for Hollywood A listers—among a host of others—for close to two decades.
And there was a time when he was tasked with a near-impossible ask for the crew producing Mission Impossible 4 – outfitting 1,000 people with custom apparel, including a request from the uber-famous Tom Cruise for a jacket for his young daughter.
The problem? The size and style of jacket simply did not exist for the youngest Cruise.
“The production manager said to me, ‘You have to get me this jacket – my job's on the line,” Patterson recalls. “I said, “Ok, don't worry, I got you, we'll figure this out.’ And we did, because this kind of stuff happens everyday in our business.”
Patterson’s pivot saw him take the jacket to a tailor for a Cruise customization. Crisis averted.
It’s this level of hyper-aware customer service that’s seen PBJ Custom Merch attract clients spanning the globe, from Hollywood productions, to major brands known the world over, all the way down to helping everyday Joe Citizen.
Based in New Westminster, Patterson’s sweet spots are found in apparel, uniforms, swag and building web stores for corporate clients. And Patterson’s client list is vast: the zombie thriller The Last of Us, Nurse Next Door, Telus, the Canadian Olympic Committee and Coca-Cola, just to name a few.
“I'm so proud. We're a small company here in New Westminster, we definitely punch above our weight,” Patterson says. “I was a little nervous working with a huge company like Coca-Cola but everything was delivered on time, on budget and they were so happy.”
PBJ’s ability to consistently punch up is due in large part to the company’s local roots. This is a family-owned, Lower Mainland operation where 90% of its apparel projects are sourced from warehouses in B.C., decorated in Lower Mainland facilities and shipped to clients. It’s a system that bolsters the circular economy by keeping clients’ marketing dollars in Western Canada.
There’s also a sense of philanthropy that drives the work Patterson’s team does: beekeeping; community gardens; rainwater cisterns and composting; and donating one per cent of annual revenues to eco-charities in the Kootenays and on Vancouver Island.
“To me, business is about relationships and that’s how I measure success,” Patterson says. “All the referrals we get is a great indication of people who've enjoyed our service, like our product and are willing to share our name.”
As for the company name, it’s not simply just an ode to perhaps the greatest comfort food of all time. Rather, it’s an amalgam of Patterson’s past – the company used to be called Patterson Brands – coupled with his long standing business partner Jayne Ircha.
“I had to get Jayne in the company title somehow,” Patterson says. “So I thought PBJ, because of peanut butter and jelly. We make your brand sticky and we make your message stick.”
