Panini America Behind the Scenes: Inside The “Kobe” Conference Room

Every Monday morning, I join Scott Prusha, my product-promoting partner, for a weekly marketing meeting with Jason Howarth, Panini America‘s Vice President of Marketing and, more importantly, our boss.

With so much exciting, marketable stuff going on around us all the time, no two meetings are ever quite the same. Well, aside from two key facts: The weekly marketing meetings always start the same way (with me or Scott or, more likely, both being reprimanded for another misstep) and they’re always held in the same place: The “Kobe” Conference Room.

It’s the preferred marketing meeting place not just because it’s close, but mostly because it’s decorated dashingly with many mementos honoring the great Kobe Bryant, our most recognizable ambassador and exclusive Panini spokesman.

And while Prusha, who clearly has a future in the interior decorating field, has understandably made Kobe the focus of those four walls, he’s also added a whole room full of other attention-getters that double as great doses of visual Vivarin when those meetings tend to run long.

In fact, I didn’t notice until just yesterday — when I lost yet another in-meeting battle with ADD — that there’s a game-used Eric Lindros hockey stick in one corner leaning up against a shelving unit next to a game-used base from the 2002 World Series.

Anyway, I thought it was cool and I thought you’d think it’s cool, too. So here’s an insider’s look at the magical, mystical “Kobe” Conference Room.