One of the effects of the economic crisis has been the growth in popularity of pens as a promotional product. The recent research by PPAI has revealed that pens top the list of promotional products with the greatest advertiser/message recall due to usefulness or uniqueness:

The relatively low cost and the usefulness of the product itself make the pens the promotional product of choice especially when budget is the most important consideration. No wonder that many promotional products suppliers see the return of the pens to the top of their best seller list.

Looks like it is back to basics, back to pens …

Photo: promogifts

The promotional products are sometimes funny and also well received by the public . Here is a video with advertisement for vitamins for children. The green man from Mars is the character that represents the brand.

The gift that came with purchase (and features at the end of the clip) is a voice changer that changes the voice into some kind of voice from Mars . Simple but effective.

I received few photos from a friend the other day.  Here is one of them. The sight of the porcini makes me hungry . But look at the knife just next to it. There are places in the world, especially in Europe, where wild mushrooms picking is a popular outdoor activity.  A special knife may be a practical and appreciated gift especially ahead of or during mushroom season.

Mushroom Knife

The knife comes with a slightly curved blade (to help cut the mushrooms easy from the ground) and a brush for brushing away the soil and dirt. And of course there is a safety lock to prevent injury by accidental closing of the blade.There is enough room for branding too. It can be laser engraved either on the blade or on the metal part of the handle.

Here are more images – click.

The green fever spreads in our industry. Here is one product marketed as green – the water calculator. Well I am not sure if I would call it green. It does not use any recycled material, it is not even packed in a box made of recycled paper. The only thing that can be considered green is the fact that it does not have to use a battery. How is this going to save the environment .

But while I think the “green product” label attached to this product is just a misleading marketing trick it still is a fun item. Kind of cool promotional product for a drink company.

You run promo for soda – print “Runs on Soda” on the box, you run promo for coffee – print “Runs on Coffee” on the box, you run promo for water – print “Runs on Water” on the box.

The best product to promote with this calculator would however be some energy drink

I was doing small research on evolution of some big brand logos. OK, not really a research. I needed to see how some big guys polish and revive their brands so I spent about 15 minutes on Google and looked around. I found this article on the Starbucks logo. I had no idea they recently started to use some retro logo design. Over here all we get is still the “classic” green one. But after reading the article I thought this is exactly what I was looking for – some example of return to the roots. And I thought this is quite well done.

The article I mentioned says that the marketing objective in bringing back this version of the original logo was to compliment the campaign slogan “Roasting coffee since 1971. The best cup then. The best cup now”. I think the logo does it nicely. It also gives a different feeling to the Starbucks merchandise – including the mugs.

But then I checked few other links pointing to the new Starbucks logo articles and I realized that some people actually have some issues with it. Serious issues. The problem seems to be the way the siren (mermaid) in the logo is pictured – “naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute”.

Here is one nice article on this. I am quite sure that making people calling them “Slutbucks” was not the idea behind the old logo revival . But it got people talking and gave the retro image quite some publicity. At the end the very people who find the the logo slutty are doing the new old logo the best service. Marketing by controversy in its best .

Time for some coffee . Slutbucks perhaps .

A while ago I wrote about how I discovered lanyards. When after several years the only lanyard innovations come in a guise of different widths, printing technologies or all sorts of fancy clips and attachments I began to think the lanyard evolution is over. Well, I was wrong. Here is something new:

It looks like this is a lanyard designed to carry something heavy on the neck. At least that is what the padding would suggest. While that may be one of the unintentional benefits of this product, it does not seem to be the point. When you look closer, you see a zipper. When you open the zipper, you can pull out a hood … Who’s idea was this I would like to know .

As a gimmick, this is quite funny. As a promotional product – well, it may not be that bad for the advertiser. The large hood provides quite some area for imprint. But, how often will that large imprint area actually get some exposure ? I would say only if it rains. But now, frankly, will anyone pack this thing as a precaution in case of rain into the back, or carry it on the neck when going out ? I very much doubt so … I would say unless it rains at some outdoor event where these hood lanyards are distributed, the hoods will never be exposed to the public. So all the printable area that actually matters is what is seen on the first picture in this post. Even less than what an ordinary lanyard provides for much lower cost.

So what is wrong with this lanyard ?

It costs more than usual lanyards without any hoods, most of the printable area it offers will never be seen. It offers pretty much zero rain protection. Unfortunately as it is the case with many promotional products and BizGifts these days, this is just a gimmick, and a useless one. If you want to produce a gift item that protects people from wet weather, you better stay with umbrella or if on lower budget with cheap rain poncho.

If on the other hand you want to get peoples’ attention by giving them something silly they will ridicule and talk about, this may be one of those things .

Merchandising is a serious money maker for popular sport teams (and not only for them). The merchandise itself is not always perfect and almost always overpriced. But it is nice to see when the overpriced stuff is actually designed well and truly represents the feel of the brand and the team. Here is one example – The Vodafone McLaren Mercedes coffee tumbler.

I am not a favourite of the bright reflex colours but as their sponsors pay for that it is part of the image of the car as is the mirror silver metal finish:

The cup has been branded by 3D PVC badge. This is the same technology used for all those cartoon keychains or zipper pullers on garments or bags. Once the PVC sleeve is molded it is simply fixed on the common stainless steel tumbler and the product is almost ready. Well almost. At this stage it only represents the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes F1 racing team. They clearly wanted to incorporate the McLaren group logo into the design too.

Here is the logo:

And here is how the logo appears on the product without disturbing the overall design:

I love the thinking behind this simple design, the attention to details. At the same time I hate the thinking behind pricing this product .

Offering people something for free in return for buying your products – that is probably the most common use of promotional products. There are many criteria for selecting the right free gift, here is the list of those I consider most important:

• practical and useful

• relevant to product you are selling

• high perceived value

• tasteful design and good quality look

• and all the above within the limits of your budget

There is usually not much you can do about the budget. If you are selling your product for 20 dollars you probably will not be looking at free gift for your customers that costs you 30 dollars . Once you have your budget set you can go on searching for the perfect gift.

Few days ago I found in a department store a booth running promo on Huggies diapers. The gift they have chosen – mini size terry bathrobe – is a good example of careful free gift selection:

• It is practical, bathrobe always comes handy, even for a kid. At the same time it is not exactly a product many people would think of buying. But once you see it is coming free with a product you need anyway you happily take it even if it means switching to a different brand .

• It is relevant. The size of the bathrobe suggests it is intended for the same size of people as the diapers it comes with .

• It has a decent perceived value, definitely much higher than its cost especially if produced in serious quantity.

• It looks fine, fabric is very OK, there are no obvious quality defects and the branding is such that mums and dads probably would not mind their kids running around the beach with it.

To get this free bathrobe people had to purchase 3 packs of Huggies and from what I could see they definitely made Pampers sales suffer on that day in that store .

Being on the road and travelling around for a while makes it quite difficult to keep up posting regularly. On the other hand one can see things.

When some company sponsors an event, their name, brand and colours are usually all over the place.

So the same could be expected from ING, when they became the title sponsor of Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix race in Melbourne. And of course the branding was all over the track,

as well as on the event merchandise:

No event would be an event without the girls in the sponsor colours. And when it gets way too hot, the custom made umbrellas in the colors of the sponsor are on hand to protect the girls from sunstroke. Well, that probably was the plan. Unfortunately not all the corporate umbrellas are made perfect …

Kind of embarassing situation in front of huge crowd that at that moment had nowhere else to look but in the direction of the girls .

It all ended up well, the umbrella man proved to be more skilled than the workers in the factory that assembled that umbrella for ING.

The more serious topics will return once I return from this trip.

I admit I never thought highly about luggage straps as an advertising medium. But after recently spending more than healthy amount of time on the planes and in the airports I realized, these straps are great.

First of all, people would appreciate them because they are useful:

• they help to keep your luggage closed in case the zipper breaks or the buckle on the suitcase snaps open

• if colorful enough, they help you to recognize your bag

• and if colorful enough, they make it clear to others, that your bag is not theirs

When looking at them as an advertising medium:

• they have large area for branding – the logo or the message can be big

• they are very visible and move around the world with the owner of the luggage

• they are inexpensive

• they can be produced fully customized in relatively small quantities

Just recall those long minutes at airports standing by the carousel waiting for your luggage to appear, looking at hundreds of others…

Everybody’s attention is firmly focused on the bags going round and round and round. Which ones attract your attention ? Usually the colourful ones or those with loads of stickers on them, or those with something that makes them different. A well designed luggage strap may do the job. And it comes cheaper than branded travel bag or suitcase …