So how old is this BizGift business ?

All this schwag, promotional products, business gifts and all that I call here BizGifts have been around for quite some time, but for how long exactly ? Here is little bit of the early history.

The different sources do not seem to agree on when the first BizGift appeared and what it was, but widely accepted version dates back to 1789, the days of George Washington and the commemorative buttons celebrating his election as president. The next hundred years brought some calendars and wooden products but nothing significant happened until Mr. Wrigley showed up.

Mr. William Wrigley was originally a soap manufacturer and at his humble beginnings selling Wrigley’s Scouring Soap. As an extra incentive to merchants, Mr. Wrigley offered - here we go - premiums. He expected that the something little extra for free would make his customers more likely to carry his soap. One of these premiums was baking powder. The baking powder proved to be more popular than the soap itself and so he switched to the baking powder business.

Then came 1892. Mr. Wrigley decided to offer two packages of chewing gum with each can of baking powder. And guess what happened ? The premium - chewing gum - is what Wrigley’s has been famous for ever since.

The BizGift “historians” however give the honours of being the “Founder of the Modern Promotional Product Industry” to certain newspaperman Jasper Freemont Meek, owner of a small newspaper and a printing shop from Coshocton, Ohio. After seeing a child drop schoolbooks on the street the idea came. Meek bought some burlap fabric and had his printers set the names of several local stores in large type. Printing on burlap fabric instead of newsprint proved to be a challenge, but after some effort and several tweaks the fabric ran through the machine. Then Meek hired a lady to cut up the burlap and sew it into 12″ x15″ school bags.

With sample ready Meek approached his friend, Mr. Cantwell of Cantwell Shoes, with a marketing idea. Let’s imprint a burlap book bag with a simple advertising message - “Buy Cantwell Shoes.” Cantwell would give every child who came into his store a bag for free. The children would carry the bags to and from school and promoting Cantwell’s name all over town. Mr. Meek manufactured the book bags that benefited both Meek and Cantwell. The schoolbags with advertising messages proved to be huge success. Business operators in the surrounding areas jumped on the wagon and the orders poured in. Meek realized he hit the jackpot and separated his BizGift operation from the newspaper business. Soon he started officially the first promotional products company - the Tuscarora Advertising Co. This was year 1886…

He had no idea that his schoolbook bags just started a multi-billion-dollar industry.

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