Retail Meets Promotional Products...In Action

Friday night, after the petty snowstorm that hit the Northeast, I headed to the mall to pick up rations (aka Arby's) for the family. Since my original intention was scrap booking supplies from Target I parked on the opposite side of the mall and had to carry the delicious calorie-infused feast quite a way back to the car. While hustling the sodas and food through Target, I happened across a retail product that looked oddly familiar. It was the Zippo Multi-Purpose Lighter (MPL) and I probably would have stopped to take a closer look, but two things stopped me. 1. We sell promotional Zippo Multi-Purpose Lighters so I've seen it before and 2. I was *this* close to dropping my handy little tray of sodas all over myself. So I continued on through the crowded store and hit a road block right by the express lane checkouts. As I excused and pardoned myself through the throngs of shoppers, I got stuck behind one woman who just refused to hear me. As I attempted to wait for her to move away from the extensive collection of baby onesies that she was taking forever to choose, I overheard a wife being frustrated by her husband with what she deemed "a unnecessary purchase." My eavesdropping got the best of me, especially since Onesie woman couldn't figure out that the options of baby attire were the exact same item just in different colors, and I listened in. The unnecessary purchase was the Sportline Hydracoach Sportbottle. Since we sell this item, I know what it does.




The man seemed extremely convinced that he needed the bottle, and argued with his wife for the purchase.

"It calculates how much water you need to drink a day," he argued.
"8 glasses, I just did the same thing. Put the bottle down Steve," his wife replied.
"But if I'm working out, I'll need more than 8 glasses, and what if I drink too much. Do you know what the effects of over hydration are? I could die!" he responded angrily.

Thank god that Onesie woman moved, because I nearly burst of laughing. Poor Steve. If he worked for a company or joined a gym that truly believed in the importance of hydration, they probably would have given out some promotional Hydracoach Sport Bottles and he wouldn't have to have had such a ridiculous argument with his wife in the middle of Target.