You might not know promotional products – but they know you. Look around your office. Scan your garage. Open your closet. Search the car. You have promotional products. There is an item with a company logo on it in your immediate vicinity. The Promotional Products Industry generates over $15 billion of annual revenue – more than the NFL and Major League Baseball combined. An industry of this size doesn’t happen on its own. We know you love free stuff.
Personally, I have a lot of stuff with logos on it. I have been attending tradeshows for over a decade – and the trade shows I attend are filled with products that companies use to give away at trade shows. It’s overload, especially for me because I love toys and gadgets. I have a stockpile of logoed Frisbees and footballs in every size and color, steak knives, hats, bags, yo-yo’s, beach chairs, slinkys, wine glasses, and really nice watches for my wife (thanks John). I give a lot of it away. People in my office are excited when I come home from a tradeshow with some kind of freebie. The favorites in the office are mugs, chapstick, and toys that can keep people in line – like nerf finger rockets and airhorns.
I love to see how people react to free stuff. I specialize in t-shirts, and pardon my French, but I can’t believe how people go bat-s**t nutty for a free t-shirt. Have you ever been to a sporting event or a concert where they throw or sling-shot or air-cannon a bunch of shirts into a crowd? People in crowds will literally elbow each other in the neck for free t-shirts.
My scientific target marketing research has determined that guys like hats, t-shirts, and toys, and girls like bags, soap, and compact mirrors. Books are a nice gift. My kids like puzzles, stuffed animals, and anything that lights up, bounces, or makes noise.
When you bring promotional products into your house, they always have a company logo – someone’s message is being sent into the world. You put it on, you play with it at the park, you drink from it in your office, it’s in your child’s crib, it’s on your coffee table, it’s on your desk or your wall. The logo of the company that gave you the item then becomes part of your life, and the lives of the people you contact.
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If you have a promotional product that you use and enjoy, I would love to hear about it.
