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Hot Products 2009

About Promotional Products

What Are Promotional Products?

Promotional products are tangible symbols. They are usually imprinted with a company's name, logo or message, and include useful or decorative articles of merchandise that are utilized in marketing and communication programs.

They include:

When promotional products are distributed free, they're referred to as advertising specialties. When the items are given in exchange for a purchase, deposit or financial contribution, they're called premiums. Other kinds of promotional products are business gifts, awards and commemoratives.

Ad Specialties

Ad specialties have these key elements: An advertising or promotional message Placed on (or with) a useful item Given with no obligation Take a look around your office. There's a good chance you'll find a wall or desk calendar; perhaps a coffee mug, a colorful mouse pad, a pen or a plaque that heralds your accomplishments. What about in your pocket or purse? Do you have an imprinted pen, key tag, pocket calendar, miniature flashlight, or nail file? What about your car? Is there a bumper sticker on your car, dealer decal or license plate frame? All of these items are examples of ad specialties if you were given them without obligation.

Business Gifts

Nearly half of corporate America gives business gifts. They are typically given by businesses to customers and employees, and occasionally are given to influential clients and suppliers. Gift-giving reasons cited by companies are:

Of those giving business gifts, 68 percent find the practice very effective or effective in achieving desired objectives and approximately 60 percent of business gifts are purchased through promotional products distributors.

Other Identification Applications

This catch-all category includes products used to symbolize organization membership, such as embroidered patches, plaques, jackets and caps; imprinted souvenirs, such as purchasable key tags, caps and glassware from tourist attractions; and promotional inflatables and balloons that serve as attention-getters at promotional events. These product examples are all promotional in nature, but don't fit neatly into the other categories.

Premiums

Give a useful item with some strings attached (example, buy this soap and get a free towel) and the item becomes a premium. A promotional product is considered a premium when it is offered as an incentive to produce a specific action. While generally advertising specialties are imprinted and premiums are not, the only real distinction between an ad specialty item and a premium item is whether or not it is given with past, present, or future obligation.

Recognition Awards

Plaques, service pins, trophies, award jewelry and other gifts that signify performance or honors can be categorized as recognition awards. When these awards are used as incentives, such as in sales contests, they are technically premiums. With recognition awards, the recognition is more important than the item itself. Yet it is the item which remains to symbolize and stimulate recall. Such awards, therefore, become vehicles for re-experiencing recognition events.

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Who Uses Promotional Products

Regardless of specific marketing objectives, the most effective use of promotional products is among those companies that can specifically identify and reach their predetermined target audience. This ability includes internal audiences, such as inside employees and sales reps, and external audiences, such as prospects and customers.

The Industry's Best Customers: (in rank order)

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Which Items to Select

The process for creatively selecting promotional products is more of an art than a science. With thousands of items available, the task is most easily accomplished with the help of a promotional products distributor/counselor--a professional who is well versed in creative applications of promotional items.

Product selection criteria vary greatly from situation to situation. Even so, some generalities emerge. The following findings from a national survey by PPA may shed some light on how recipients generally perceive receiving promotional products. Recipients report they look for the following characteristics in receiving a specialty:

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Imprinting Methods

When your logo, slogan, company name or advertising message is put on a promotional product, it's called an imprint. The product it's put on usually determines the imprinting method used. Let's look at the 13 most common processes:

Debossing: The image is depressed into a material such as paper, leather or suede, so the image sits below the product surface.

Decal transfer: The decal is printed on an offset or letterset press, submerged in water and placed on the product. Excess water and air is squeegeed off and the product is kiln-fired, a process that fuses the decal with the glaze. Most often seen on glass, china, porcelain and ceramic products.

Die-casting: Molten metal is injected into the cavity of a carved die (a mold).

Die-striking: A method of producing emblems and other flat promotional products. A blank, cut from a metal sheet, is struck with a hammer that holds the die.

Embedments: Materials such as a product replica, for example, are suspended in a clear substrate, usually Lucite(r).

Embossing: The raising of an image on a product, accomplished by pressing the material between concave and convex dies.

Embroidery: A design stitched into fabric through the use of high-speed, computer-controlled sewing machines.

Engraving: Cutting an image into metal, wood or glass by one of three methods - computerized engraving, (cutting or engraving) hand tracing or hand engraving.

Etched: An image is covered with a protective coating that resists acid. The image is then exposed, leaving bare metal and protected metal. The acid attacks only the exposed metal, leaving the image etched onto the surface.

Hot Stamping: A dry imprinting process in which a design or type is set on a relief die that is subsequently impressed with heat and pressure onto the printing surface.

Offset Lithography: A printing process in which the image is transferred to a rubber blanket, which in turn applies it to the surface to be printed.

Pad Printing: A recessed surface is covered with ink. When the plate is wiped clean, ink remains in the recessed areas. A silicone pad then presses against the plate, pulls the ink out of the recesses, and presses it directly onto the product.

Screenprinting: An image is transferred to the printed surface by ink squeegeed through a stenciled screen stretched over a frame. Screens are treated with a light-sensitive emulsion, then film positives are put in contact with the screens and exposed to light. The light hardens the emulsion not covered by the film, leaving a soft area on the screen for the squeegee to force ink through. Also called silkscreening.

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