All posts by

Charles Liu

Founder and Marketing Director of Cubic Promote

Charles Liu is the Founder and Marketing Director of Cubic Promote, an Australian supplier of promotional products, branded merchandise and corporate uniforms.

With more than 20 years of industry experience, Charles helps Australian organisations plan, source and deliver branded products and apparel for marketing campaigns, workplaces, conferences, corporate gifting programs and major events.

His expertise covers product branding, global logistics, project management, marketing, leadership, product safety and B2B supply. He works at the point where marketing ideas must become practical products—within a defined budget, production deadline and quality requirement.

20+ yearsindustry experience
~30people in the team
6,500+LinkedIn followers

Professional Experience

Charles has led Cubic Promote for more than two decades, helping develop the business from a small operation into a national B2B merchandise and uniform supplier with a team of approximately 30 people.

His experience extends across the complete promotional product supply process, including:

  • Understanding a customer’s campaign or operational requirements
  • Selecting suitable products and materials
  • Managing local and international suppliers
  • Planning manufacturing and freight timeframes
  • Identifying product safety and suitability risks
  • Coordinating quality control and delivery

Charles has worked with organisations across corporate, government, education, hospitality, healthcare, construction, sport, community and not-for-profit sectors. This has given him a practical understanding of how B2B buyers evaluate merchandise differently depending on their industry, audience, purchasing requirements and risk profile.

Areas of Expertise

Seven areas Charles works in day to day. Open any one to read the detail.

Product Branding

Charles has extensive practical experience with the principal decoration methods used in promotional merchandise and uniforms.

His specialist knowledge includes:

Screen printing: commonly used for apparel, tote bags and products requiring strong, durable colour coverage

Digital printing: used for detailed, multicoloured artwork and shorter production runs

  • Embroidery
  • Engraving
  • Sublimation
  • Heat Transfer
  • Debossing
  • Pad Printing

His role includes helping customers understand which branding method is most suitable for a product’s material, shape, intended use, artwork and available budget.

Global Logistics
  • Australian and offshore manufacturing
  • International supplier management
  • Production lead times
  • Air and sea freight
  • Customs and import considerations
  • Warehousing and distribution

This experience is particularly valuable for large, custom-made or time-sensitive projects where manufacturing and delivery must be coordinated across several suppliers and locations.

Project Management

Promotional merchandise projects often involve more than selecting and printing a product. They may require coordination among the customer, account manager, designer, production team, supplier, freight provider, and delivery location.

Charles has managed projects involving:

  • Multiple products or branding methods
  • Custom-manufactured merchandise
  • Strict event deadlines
  • Corporate approval processes
  • Warehousing and staged distribution

His project-management approach focuses on identifying risks early, setting realistic production expectations and maintaining clear approval points throughout the order.

Marketing and Branding

Charles holds a Bachelor of Economics with a focus on Marketing from Macquarie University, completed in 2000.

He combines his formal marketing education with more than two decades of practical experience advising organisations about branded merchandise. His work focuses on selecting products that are appropriate for the recipient, useful beyond the original campaign and capable of keeping a brand visible over time.

Leadership

As the founder of Cubic Promote, Charles has experience leading a multidisciplinary team across sales, account management, production, design, finance, technology, marketing and administration.

His leadership experience includes:

  • Building and managing teams
  • Developing internal processes
  • Introducing new technology and automation
  • Building supplier relationships
  • Supporting employee accountability
  • Developing new services and markets

Charles writes candidly about the challenges of leadership, including hiring mistakes, business uncertainty, workplace technology, and the pressure of running a growing company.

Product Safety

Charles has practical experience assessing whether promotional products are appropriate for their intended audience and use.

His product-safety knowledge includes:

  • Batteries and electronic merchandise
  • Materials, components and product construction
  • Labelling and packaging considerations
  • Supplier documentation
  • Product testing requirements

Where formal testing or certification is required, Charles works with suppliers and appropriate testing organisations rather than relying solely on general product claims.

B2B Merchandise Supply

Charles specialises in the commercial realities of supplying merchandise to organisations rather than individual consumers.

He understands that B2B buyers commonly need:

  • Formal quotations and purchase orders
  • Artwork approvals
  • Product samples
  • Predictable production schedules
  • Consistent branding across repeat orders

His approach is to help buyers find the most commercially sensible solution—not simply the cheapest product or the product with the highest unit price.

Industry Commentary and Content

Charles has built a professional audience of more than 6,500 followers on LinkedIn, where he shares commentary on promotional merchandise, branding, business ownership, leadership, and marketing. His long-form LinkedIn articles have covered subjects including:

  • Lessons learned from building a business
  • Leadership and hiring
  • Professional development
  • Books and business learning
  • Marketing and personal branding

Charles is also the host of The Promo Playbook by Cubic Promote, where he discusses promotional merchandise, branding, uniforms and the commercial thinking behind successful merchandise programs. He has contributed external marketing commentary, including insights for the American Marketing Association on how personal branding can help establish trust before a customer or business partner makes direct contact.

What Charles Writes About

Charles writes and reviews Cubic Promote content concerning:

  • Promotional product selection
  • Product branding and printing methods
  • Apparel and uniforms
  • Logistics and production planning
  • Product safety
  • Merchandise campaign strategy
  • B2B marketing
  • Leadership and business management

His articles draw on direct experience managing products, suppliers, customer briefs and business operations rather than simply summarising information available elsewhere.

Charles’s Approach

Charles believes the best promotional product is not necessarily the cheapest, most expensive or most unusual option. It is the product that suits its audience, performs its intended purpose and represents the organisation appropriately.

His advice focuses on making merchandise useful, commercially sensible and memorable for the right reasons.

What Makes Australians Throw Away Promotional Products? Survey Reported 

What Makes Australians Throw Away Promotional Products? Survey Reported 

We conducted an email survey asking 72 Australian end users of promotional products about what make them throw away using product, and 32% of them agree poor quality was the most common reason and…

Read the article

Recent articles

Page 1 of 28

What We Suggest When Word-of-Mouth Marketing Stalls

Key Points Word-of-mouth often slows when customers have no fresh reason to talk about the business after a purchase. Referral gifts and client milestones create natural opportunities to…

Read more

9 Merch Ideas for Mackay Agribusiness and Resources Events

Last Updated: 11 September 2026 From what I’ve seen around Mackay, agribusiness and resources shape a lot of the local events and the people who attend them. Many…

Read more

Shipping To Tasmania? What Delays Businesses Don’t Expect

Key Points Many Tasmania-bound freight services include a scheduled Bass Strait crossing. Express shipping does not guarantee next-day delivery to every Tasmanian postcode. Power banks, aerosols and other…

Read more

What Marketing Managers Want from Promotional Products Suppliers

Last Updated: 4 Sept 2026 Good customer service is the #1 one reason marketing managers choose and return for repeat orders, survey by Cubic Promote on 37 Australian…

Read more

5 Merch Ideas for Gold Coast Tourism Operators

Key Points The best tourism merchandise is useful during the visitor experience. Sunscreen, drink bottles, hats, tote bags and beach towels suit many Gold Coast tourism businesses. Match…

Read more

What Happens When Print Files Aren’t Print-Ready

You’ve picked the products, locked in the branding, and placed the order. Then the email lands: “Your file isn’t print-ready.” Suddenly your timeline is at risk, and nobody…

Read more

Do Promotional Products Really Work? (We Asked Top Marketing Managers)

We conducted an online survey of 74 Australian marketing managers from our client base of Australian B2B buyers, including teams from small businesses, government departments, universities, and large…

Read more

Why Sales Reps Feel Unprepared Before an Important Pitch

Ask a sales rep why a pitch went sideways and they’ll usually blame nerves. Ask a few more questions, and it’s rarely nerves at all. It’s five smaller…

Read more

Keep reading

More from the Cubic Promote blog

To explore more articles by different authors, click on their names. For related topics, please browse through our blog categories.

Browse all authors Browse blog categories