What is a promotional product? if you had to define it it might be practical products that are branded with a logo, mascot slogan, or company, information and often given with no implied action, reaction intended from the end user.

So what does that mean? Say you go into a restaurant and at that host or hostess stand, you see a wicker basket and in the basket or matches. You can take those matches without having to have a reservation to eat there, eating there or drinking at the bar there. And quite frankly that restaurant really doesn’t care because what you’ve done is you’ve taken their advertising and you’ve put it in your pocket.

So every time you pull those matches out to use them, it is brand penetration for that restaurant. You’ll see their advertising and maybe want to eat there.

So our industry umbrella is large and there’s some other industries that overlapped that we’d like to count under that umbrella.

1. Premiums.

Now premiums are different than promotional products in several ways. One a premium is earned that means unlike those matches you just can’t take them, you need to do something. And it might be sending box tops of cereal in for an item. It might be winning a sales contest.

Generally they’re not decorated. Sometimes they are but generally they’re not decorated. And they’re usually more expensive. These are higher end products that you would see in the consumer marketplace.

2. Souvenirs.

Now souvenir is something you would go to a gift shop and purchase like this ashtray that ashtray welcome to Las Vegas. What is that ashtray? Does it promotes that destination and though you pay for it? It’s still promotional in nature.

3. Gifts with purchase.

You’ll see this around mother’s day. You’ll see this around the holidays. Maybe ads and newspapers that say come into this store, buy this perfume, buy this makeup kit andget this umbrella or toiletry kit, or this tote bag. Now those locations do not increase the price of the perfume, or the makeup.

That gift is the incentive to come in and purchase the perfume and the makeup.

And then we have all or impact giveaways this smeared off bottle is an example of an unpacked giveaway.

4. On- or in-pack giveaways

You see an led light up bracelet on the top of that bottle, and that brace is going to pulsate with sound. And it incents you to buy the smear off, because without buying it you can’t get the bracelet

The impact example on this slide is the jameson bottle that’s in a box that has a window so you actually can see the whiskey. and you can see the whiskey glasses that you’re going to get for buying the jameson.

Now, just like the perfume and the makeup the price of the alcohol here is not increased because it has products on it, or in it. It’s actually those products or incentives for the consumers to buy the bottle of smirnoff or the bottle of jameson.

So we talk about premiums and giveaways what else do we call promotional products.

Sometimes to refer to a swag and that stands for stuff we all get. Now there’s advertising we’re Ad specialties, freebies, advertising gifts, giveaways or event giveaways.

Then we add this word here chotsky and we note that it’s a bad word and some people might use chotsuki because that’s what they hear. But what that word does it kind of belittles the effectiveness of what promotional products can offer an advertiser.

So we like to tell people don’t use tchotchkes. And if you got clients to start calling promotional products tchotchkes, you might want to correct them.

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So a few years ago we launched a study global ad impression study and over that time we’ve talked to nearly quarter million consumers across the united states all 50 states, including cities suburbans areas, rural areas.

Okay we were up into canada, down into mexico over in europe we actually had someone doing interviews in sydney australia. What we found is that advertising specialties are one of the most high impact, cost effective advertising meetings around.

I want to show you some statistics we hope that will bear that. So let’s look at some stats this first graphic says that 850 is the number of impressions that an advertising calendar will get.

That ad message, company logo will be seen 850 times. It really goes a long way to brand penetration. 80% of consumers own promotional t-shirts for years and it has been the top promotional item that buyers buy. It’s a great product we actually call it a walk-in bill board. What that means is as the wearer, the brand, the message is on there.

But every time I encounter someone during the day they see it as well. they’re used for sporting events, for corporate events, clubs use them. There’s so many opportunities nonprofits use them as well.

This stat says that 3,300 is the number of impressions a promotional bag is going to generate through its lifetime. Think about that eight ten years ago they started banning, single-use plastic bags at grocery stores. That’s been great for our industry because now there’s an opportunity to sell more non-woven polypropylene bags and those reusable grocery bags.

Grocery stores either selling them for like five cents or giving them to their customers for free. Then hey’re being repurposed for a lot of things. The gym pack up one of those bags going to the pool for the day well some are insulated. So you can take your lunch and your beverages.
But bags have many other uses too. Especially for trade shoes.

This graphic says that promo drinkware is kept an average of 12 months. Why? It might be a mug and you drop it you break that handle. There might be a piece of bar where you drop it and it breaks.

It’s really a good advertising vehicle because with bar where people like to take it and they like to use it in their own homes. the bars don’t care because they’re usually not paying for it. they get that from their beer distributor.

You buy two kegs of guinness you get a case of guinness pint glasses. If you need more the bar just asked for them, the guinness doesn’t care if you steal those glasses either and you have them in your home. That’s their advertising and brand that you’re drinking out of.

89% of consumers own promotional writing instruments – a very popular promotional product. Most people have some type of branded writing instrument. And as the industry goes the writing experience the pen. So back at the turn of the century, it was a fountain pen which was brandable, as was the inkwell, the blotter, and the bladder paper.

Then the ballpoint pen is invented in the 60s and this game changer now. There’s new evolution for branding pens. And now today you look at them there are paired with a variety of different things. They could have usb flash drive embedded in there. There could be a flashlight on one end. Many of them come with a stylus. So that you can operate your cell phone or a touchscreen on tablet.

You might even get one that has a highlighter on the other end makes it great for college students.

Then this graph says that a promo jacket that costs 20 cents will have a cpi of only 3/10 of a cent. Less than half a penny. That’s really good return on investment because if it’s a nice jacket. It could be a windbreaker or a full zip up hoodie.

That’s a long time you know people will wear it and the cpi that’s why it’s so low. The research found out how long people keep things and on average nice pc out was kept for 16 months; and as you go down here t-shirts for 14 months; and keep going down it’s a long time to have an ad message out in the public eye.