Herb Pease, Sr. established a small private label brokerage firm in his one-car garage in 1966, but by the time of his death in 2006, Marketing Management, Inc. (MMI) had grown to become an international, multi-channel marketing firm with 34 locations and seven active entities. Pease had viewed the private label industry of his day and grasped that his continuing support and marketing could lead to an evolution of the industry. He was an important member of the Private Label Manufacturers Association for years, and his commitment to the quality of store brand products led to his founding of the Quality Assurance Association in 1989. "Our core business is store-brand marketing," Pease explained in a 1998 interview: “MMI provides the funds to support good quality assurance, information technology and design. Those monies we pump back into our departments help the industry to grow." Pease realized many smaller manufacturers they were not able to afford the cost, or the time, to focus on marketing efforts. He also felt retailers were not seeing the full opportunity store brands presented for themselves as well as suppliers. Without marketing and a focus on design, quality, and shelf placement, he stressed private label products would not be taken seriously by consumers and seen only as a cheap, low price alternative.

He worked with manufacturers to improve relationships with their retail partners, while helping retailers create more flexible programs and incorporate them into their business strategies: "What we do economically is, we take the resources created by store-brand suppliers and pool those together and we help design a marketing plan that supports the strategy of the retailer. The funds that we collect go toward developing that strategy.” The retailers then used those funds to promote their store brands.

The same resources supported systematic testing of store-brand products and funded product development and package design based on panel research and focus group data. As many private label manufacturers of the day lacked these resources, Pease helped them to be more competitive and see the possibilities of focusing on product quality and design. At the same time, he helped retailers move beyond generic products, demonstrating that high quality, innovative products and marketing could lead to a more profitable private label and better relationships for all concerned.