Encourage Vacations with Summer Promotional Products!

Ok, so what kind of boss would you be if you were encouraging people to take vacations? A good one! And that's not just according to me, who really enjoys vacations and never takes them. A recent article on yahoo, who borrowed some info from expedia.com, states that people who take vacations from work are better employees in the long run. They're more rested, which allows for more productivity. This makes sense. Apparently productivity can increase by up to 60% the month following a vacation! So why not encourage employees to take some time off by handing out summer themed items all year round? Imprinted beach balls are always a fun office giveaway, unless you're coworker is using the back of your head as a target. Promotional beach towels are not only great giveaways that make your logo stand out but you can drape them over yourselves, if the AC is cranked up too high. Of course this is only really appropriate if you have a casual work environment. We're a little bit more upscale, so we sport an office appropriate blanket featuring Spongebob Squarepants.

The Next level of The Wii: The Human!

So according to Advertising Age movie theaters now have a new way of keeping people occupied before the movie actually start, beside 8 hours of previews of commercials for Fandango. Using a program called Newsbreaker, sensors track the movement of the audience as they swing and sway in their seats. They become a collective human joystick and control an onscreen ball and a paddle, like the old Atari game, "Breakout." The goal is to break the wall of news.

As interesting as this is and although I'm sure it's a great way to keep people occupied before the 19 billion previews and commercials, if a move theater wants to keep me happy, all they have to do is give me a free popcorn. Promotional popcorn would make lots of people happy since they're not spending a ton of money for popped corn.

This gym knows how to Keep in Shape!

I love the design of this custom plastic bag. It's a great way to remind people to get in shape, and the summer months are here! So that means everyone should be stressing about getting to the gym and worrying about how they look in that bathing suit! Speaking of which...I should probably put down the frappuchino and switch to celery or something.

Catching up on 57 Years of Giveaways!

Congratulations to Heinz ketchup on their 5,700th giveaway! Check out this adorable promotion adrants is doing! They're giving out imprinted porcelain bells and hosts, and capitalizing on the "57" theme. They will select one couple who has been married for 57 years and throw them and 57 of their friends a party that costs $5,700. That is definitely good brand consistancy! And even if you're not lucky enough to be one of the lucky couples in the running, who doesn't love a promotional noisemaker?

Going Green: Mushroom Houses???

Clearly, Papa Smurf would be proud of the latest invention of two Rensselaer Polytechnic students. As a kid I was always jealous of the infamous "Mushroom Home" that the smurfs lived in, and now it appears that having a mushroom home of my very own is not that far away. Ok so the design isn't the same but the materials are close.



Een Bayer and Gavin McIntyre, 2 RPI students have developed an eco-friendly insulation for homes using water, flour, oyster mushroom spores and perlite, a mineral blend found in potting soil. The insulation is not only organic, but fire-retardant and it is competitive with other! Eco-friendly housing supplies are on the market already, but this is the first environmentally friendly insulation ever invented. It's called "Greensulate".

With the growing population and limitation of natural resources ahead of us, everyone is Going Green. And Motivators is definitely on board. Be sure to check out our Environmentally Friendly section, which includes great products like fly swatters and frisbees.

As for the mushroom house, well I think I'm on board. Although, I'm sure these guys can't wait to get an actual grant for their business, seeing as how they're currently growing the materials under their bed. Seeing as how they are college students I wouldn't be surprised if this whole thing started with an uneaten, misplaced slice of mushroom pizza!

Link to Yahoo Article:

Space Shuttle Landing: Stressball Celebration!

So the Space Shuttle is supposed to land today, after being pushed back from yesterday due to unclear skies. I can't say that I've ever piloted a space craft but I'm figuring that weather has got to be an important factor in landing. It will definitely be landing today, the only question is whether it will be landing in Florida or in California. I can't imagine how ticked off people will be if they go to watch the landing in Florida and it ends up being redirected to California. Maybe some custom printed space shuttle stressballs would be a good idea. They're also great for space camps!

Celebrate Sosa's Record with Baseball Promotional Products!

I adore baseball! It's really the only sport that I enjoy watching and even though I'm up in the air about who I'm supporting right now, it's still great to celebrate the sport, especially when records are broken!



Last night Sammy Sosa became the 5th member of the 600 Home Runs Club! Of course it had to sting a little since the team that pitched the the winning hit was his former team, the Chicago Cubs! Sometime the drama in baseball is better than the drama on the Young and The Restless! (Although, sometimes they join forces, like the recent appearance that a few Milwakee Brewers made on Y&R last week!)

But it's things like this, and the summer weather that really make me enjoy baseball! The major league teams do! For example, Anthony in the art department provided me with the list of Mets giveaway days. They've got everything from imprinted calendars, to imprinted seat cushions! There's a even a custom travel mug day! Anthony always consults his list of Met's Days when he's deciding what game to go to (on top of the season tickets that he already has) because he loves free stuff!

Promotional Baseball Products

iPhone: Will it get a Custom Water Bottle?

So with the launch of the iPhone to AT&T/Cingular Wireless Customers only 9 days away, I have to wonder the vast impact that it's going to have on the promotional products world. With plenty of iPod accessories and cell phone accessories out there, I'm wondering if the backlash will be just as powerful when the official combination of iPod and cell phone occurs. The one thing that I'm really wondering about is whether or not a new custom water bottles will be created. I'm not just talking about an imprinted sports bottles that's handed out at Cingular stores or on the street to promote the release. I'm talking about an actual custom water bottles that will hold the iPhone. For example, we have this promotional water bottles, The Nook Active Sport Bottles. Apple used it once already to promote it's iPod mini.



This promotional sport bottles actually has a nook inside it to keep things like car keys, or a mini iPod. It makes me wonder if Apple will promote their iPhone the way they promoted the iPod mini with this promo sports bottles. It's a good concept, and there certainly are plenty of promotional sport bottles out there. Whether they want a high end polycarb bottles, or a simple promotional sports bottles, it's definitely a possibility.

Promotional tissues!

Considering the fact that I have a cold right now, I figured that promotional tissues were really the best thing to blog about this morning. I've gone through a box of Kleenex at home and I've got a box sitting on my desk right now (a special thank you to Keri, the art director for those). But in related news, check out this promotional bathroom done by Kleenex.



The intent of the design is to make you feel more at home, which ties in that kleenex is homely. Homely, sure but right now they're just what I need.That and some promotional hand sanitizer.

Custom Conference Giveaways: The Smart Way!

So press conferences can be fun, especially when you walk in and you get handed a goody bag of free stuff. But for certain individuals, it's not fun. You're too focused on taking proper notes, speaking to the right people, and getting a good seat to really enjoy that free goody bag you've been given. So check out what H&O, a retail fashion chain did at their latest press conference in Tel Aviv. Instead of hoisting the handouts at people who are more preoccupied, they left a bottled water, a snack bar and their catalog in a custom seat vest on the back of every seat. So not only did everyone get a conference kit, but there was no way they were going to dump them in the garbage because they had more important things to do. It's definitely a useful wa to do a custom tradeshow giveaway.

Custom Baseball Pillow Ball

With July 3rd, 2007 quickly approaching, all of the techy geeks like myself are in anticipation for what is easily one of the most highly anticipated movies this summer – Transformers! The battle is rapidly approaching from Seibertron, so the media wants to use this to their full advantage. All sorts of promotions are underway, from toys to video games and whatever else they can find. One example of this was found on gizmodo.com where they seem to be showing off these Autobot and Decepticon pillows which look totally cool. I would be on the band wagon for one of these any day of the week. They seem to be about $22.00 a piece, which seems relatively affordable. Now this got me thinking… If they are able to promote for the upcoming Transformers movie with Autobot and Decepticon pillows, why can’t I promote the 2007 baseball season with these custom baseball pillow balls. These are about 3 ¼ inches in diameter and cost about $1.17 each with a minimum quantity of one hundred and fifty.

A Strapping Watch Promotion

Yet another cool promotional advertisement of seeing the way something looks on you. This transit hand strap not only keeps you safe on the airplane shuttle bus, but it lets you see how you'd look with a watch on! Somehow, I think my height would hinder me in seeing how this looks on me as well. Oh well, it's an interesting for a watch promotion!

Interesting Promotion...

So keeping in line with the Charmin bathroom promotion that I posted about back in December, check out this ad for infojobs.net. They created a cardboard cutout to cover over the roll of pink toilet paper. Pink toilet paper=pink slip. Interesting concept, and definitely attention grabbing, but a little strange. They should team it up with a custom imprinted soap dispenser that dispenses pink soap, or maybe some imprinted hand sanitizer. Clearly, the newest promotional wave is the bathroom.

An Ad that needs to be a promotional product!

With over 32,000 promotional products on our website, you really do have a plenty of options. Although sometimes, you have the perfect idea and we don't have what you're looking for! Give us a call! We'd be glad to find you exactly what you're looking for and if we can't find it, we'll make it! Custom promotional products are expensive and usually only available in extremely high quantities, but if that's what you're looking for, we're happy to help! For example, the creators of this campaign for Brandt refrigerators could definitely benefit from turning this ad into a promotional product. I'm definitely seeing a custom stress ball!

And of course, it would be imprinted, with the tagline from the ad: "Don't let smells mix." Granted, this is a French ad, which explains why a rabbit would be in the fridge so it might not work as well in the US. This one might work better in the States, but the Swiss cheese rabbit is funnier than the pear fish. But that's just my humble opinion.

Upcoming Transformers Promotion!

So, it's not being given away for free, but it's a great promotion for the upcoming Transformers movie. In fact when I walked into our marketing director's office this morning, there were about 5 Motivators staff members in there already enjoying this little guy. He joins Darth Tater on Jen's shelf, so without further adieu, I'm pleased to present to you...

Optimash Prime!


He's awesome. He transforms from the regular Mr. Potato Head to the Transformer Mr. Potato head! It's definitely amusing!

Promotional Toys are great giveaways especially during the summer. Even though, they're not as fun as a Mr. Potato Head, they're still amusing!

Proof your Artwork!

One of my favorite classes in college was copy editting because because our professor enjoyed starting out every class with a hysterical typo found somewhere in the world. Whether it was in a magazine or in an ad, it was always a good one. So I recently found this ad and had to laugh. Knowing how many times ads get proofed from art directors, clients and print shops, I have to laugh that this one got so messed up.



It's just another lesson to always carefully proof your artwork! For more information about artwork for promotional products, please check this out!

Why waste time trying it on?

I'm in love with this campaign done by Satchi and Satchi for a jewelry shop. Instead of waiting for customers to come to them to try things on, they let the customers see how it looks! This promotional decal has an image of necklace and is stuck onto a bathroom mirror. The customer stands in front of it and can see exactly how they look with the jewelry on! Of course, since it's a decal it's repositionable because not everyone is the same height. I'd probably walk in after the model, and the necklace would look like a mustache or headband. There I said it...I'm verticallty challenged! But regardless of height, this is a great example of how promotional decals can make excellent branding opportunities!

MP3's are taking over your breakfast!

So let's face it, everyone knows what an iPod is. MP3 players have come to the front lines as the key items for listening to music. Long gone are days of records, and gone are the days of cassette players. Soon enough, CDs will be on there way out. Companies are aware of this and are using it to their promotional advantage. Take for example this fun ad from Pop Tarts.



With every box you buy, you receive a free music download. It just goes to show how popular MP3 players and MP3 accessories are in the world of advertising. But will this promotion get people to buy pop-tarts? I think it might. Granted pop-tarts and twinkies are the only two foods that could probably survive a nuclear holocaust, but they are tasty!

Globe Beach Balls...Are we on one?

One of our best selling beach balls is the globe beach ball. While beach balls are typically a summer item, they're great all year round. For instance, I just found out that my dogs really enjoy the mini 6" beach balls. Of course, I'm waiting for them to pop them. But back to the globe beach. Apparently science camps and schools aren't the only ones who think that globe beach balls are a great idea. This campaign was constructed in Europe. It's a huge replica of a beach ball nozzle, which gives the impression that we're all on a giant beach ball.



Although, I think the best reaction to this campaign was from Anthony, in our art department who said, "I think if I ever saw a giant beach ball nozzle, I'd try and push it into the ground." Good luck Anthony, you're going to have to scale it first.

Promotional Apparel Gets A Makeover

The owners of this salon choose an interesting take. These aprons were imprinted backwards so that when clients sit in the chairs in front of the mirrors, the words are perfectly legible. It's an interesting take on promotional apparel and definitely an eye catching way to promote your business. It works perfectly for a salon where you have to sit in front of a mirror all day, but if you know recipients aren't going to be doing that you may choose to imprint t-shirts, jackets, sweatshirts and other apparel with the letters going in a normal direction. Otherwise, you might seem crazy.