Anti Smoking Promotion Hits Home

It's no secret that smoking is bad for your health, but there's always the need to remind people. That's why The Lung Association in Canada chose to do an amibient promotion that would send a powerful message. This promotional poster was placed on public ashtrays to remind people that the consequences of smoking are extremely serious. Anti-smoking promotions can be used all year round, not just during lung cancer awareness month in November. While anti-smoking promotions may not be the best thing to consider if you are looking to do trade show giveaways, they can be useful as health fair giveaways.

Powerful Promotional Messages

Often times, promotional products such as promotional keychains or trade show giveaways aren't needed to send a powerful message to recipients. In this case, a shelter for women suffering from domestic violence used a make-up kit to reach their target audience. It's not your typical promotional product, but its message is sent loud and clear.

Recession Promotions

While all the economic bigwigs in Washington may be avoiding the dreaded "r" word, the fact of the matter is that times are tough. Whether they'd like to admit it or not, if you shake the economic magic 8 ball and ask it "Are we in a recession?" it will most likely reveal the infamous, "All Signs Point To Yes" answer.

The Cleveland based ad agency, Brokaw, will admit that the advertising industry is being hit quite hard. Just look at what they used as their promotional holiday gift.



Promotional popcorn tins were just too pricey for the agency or so they'd have you believe. So instead, recipients on Brokaw's gift list were given promotional tins with just 3 pieces of popcorn inside. The card reads, "We're not going to let a little recession dampen our festive giving spirit."

This is just another way of showing that even cheap promotional items can make a significant impact for your business. With the right message, your promotional products and trade show giveaways can do a lot for your business, even if you've only spent a little.

Promotional Signs..Send the Right Message

When choosing promotional items, one of the most important things to consider is your imprint. While many companies simply choose to imprint their logo and contact information on their items, others choose to add a little more. Sometimes a catchy slogan is added, while other times funny messages are imprinted onto their product of choice. Things like the size of the imprint area should be considered. Obviously, when buying promotional pens, you won't have room for many characters. But you do have the room, it's always fun to consider what you could say. And while these are print ads, I would love to see these signs made up.

Happy Holidays From Our Family to Yours

Wishing you and yours a happy and healthy holiday season and all the best in 2009!

How Motivators Give Gifts...

In honor of today being the annual holiday party, I thought I would give our staff members a sneak peak of what to expect from our annual 8 Days of Chanukah raffle that will take place later on this afternoon. Each year Jen picks 8 of the best corporate gifts. I took it upon myself to sneak into her office and get the low down on the goodies that we can be expecting.



Wenger Air Traveler and Travel Lock Kit
A TSA approved Swiss Army knife and a travel lock are exactly what you need this holiday season if you plan to be braving any airports.

Organic Market Bag Set
Perfect for those who want to be eco-friendly, as well as those who want to avoid that pesky plastic bag charge that several supermarkets are now tacking on.

Promotional Blanket
It's big and cozy and plaid, really what more could you ask for?

Promotional Tote Bag
We have hundred of them available on our site, and I'll be honest, I didn't check the item number so I'm not sure exactly which one it is, but it's nice. More for the ladies...although guys can re-gift it. Or they can rock a man-purse.

Mets Golf Towel
Interesting thing about Motivators...it houses more Mets fans than most companies. Bill, Anthony, Tony, Keri, Laurie, Sarah E and the numerous others that love the pinstripes will all be pining for this one.

Promotional Spa Set
Heads up ladies..I saw a wicker basket with all sorts of bath goodies in it. Looks pretty nice.

Promotional Multi-Tool
Like I said, this was a sneak attack so I didn't get a good look. Not to mention the fact that I, the girl who hasn't weilded a screwdriver since my days in high school, certainly can't tell what it does.

Promotional Meat Thermometer
This one was easy to figure out and it's a good one too.

So there's your sneak peek into this afternoons raffle, and for all you loyal readers that are non-Motivators, it's a sneak peek inside what promotional specialists hand out as corporate gifts.

Bulemia Ambient Promotion Misses the Mark

Currently, millions of women throughout the world suffer from the eating disorder known as bulimia. The disease, in which a person induces vomitting after eating, prominently affects younger women. It's for this reason that a German organization called ProMaedchen wanted to draw attention to the prevelance of the disease.



The execution of the campaign centered around placing promotional stickers on the insides of toilet lids. The text translates to bulimia is curable. According to the ad agency's report, the promotion worked and website traffic did increase, but I personally feel like the ad falls short. First of all, the sticker looks more like the result of a paintball gun. And it seems almost offensive. Unique promotional items are often useful in creating buzz around causes, but this sticker doesn't seem to get it done.

Tom Tom Makes a Personal Promotion...

One of the main things that companies use promotional products for is self promotion. Adding your logo to a pen or a keychain and handing it out is an excellent way of advertising yourself. And the best way of getting yourself noticed is by using unique promotional items.



TomTom, makers of the popular GPS navigation system, have chosen to advertise their products via the use of a custom website. The site itself is designed so that users can upload personal pictures to tell a story of love and happiness to their significant other. When the final screen pops up with a heart shaped box, the recipient of the video may think that a wedding proposal is coming. But when the box pops open, a TomTom pops up and the question that will "drasticallt change both of their lives forever" is not "Will You Marry Me?" but instead, "Will you buy me a TomTom device?" It's clever, it might end a relationship or two but it works. Just goes to show that the internet can be one of the most unique promotional items ever.

The Beer Crate Bag

The right artwork on a promotional item can make all the difference in the world. Certain items, like promotional pens, are limited because of imprint area size, but when you have an item with the option of four color process digital printing and a large imprint area, the world is your oyster. Or in the case of these promotional bags, the world is your beer crate.



The amazing imagery on this bag truly makes it stand out and it makes everyone take notice. So as you can see promotional bags really can be turned into unique promotional items.

Blood Donor Awareness in Thailand

January is National Blood Donor Awareness Month, here in the US, but Thailand has already begun promoting this life saving cause. Every year during the monsoon season, Thailand is hit by outbreaks of Dengue fever, a disease carried by mosquitos.




SC Johnson, makers of "Off!" Bug spray, decided to co-promote their products with the Thailand Red Cross. Custom blood bags were created and inside recipients found a sampling of the bug spray. This is just one of great ways to highlight National Blood Donor Awreness Month.

For more great ideas, check out Jenn's article entitled Raising Awareness with Blood Donor Month Promotions.

World Wildlife Federation Ruins the Ending

The World Wildlife Federation has once again made a powerful point with a promotion. This time it's about climate change. Books served as the advertising medium, as cards imprinted with the word "Fin" were placed in the middle of them. The reader was met with the card. After their confusion caused them to turn it over, it read "The End May Be Closer Than You Think" and listed information about climate change.



It's a unique idea and it's effective. Promotional books are a great way to advertise, but to create this specific promotion inside a random book works well also.

Promotional Puzzle at the Grocery Store

Fatka, a popular retail/grocery store in Denmark recently ran a campaign based around the idea that it's easy to get what you need in a hurry. The campaigns main tag line: "It Only takes 5 minutes but we really wish you'd stay a little longer" was executed through the clever use of custom promotional products that were scatter throughout the store. For example this scrambler puzzle advertises the sale price of the broccoli. Of course, you have to figure it out for yourself.

Promotional Cappucino

Yesterday I blogged about custom stencils being used for graffiti. Luckily today I've found a much better use for them. Expedia created custom stencils that were distributed to coffee shops in Europe. Baristas used the stencils and the end result was a simple: an advertising message stenciled in cocoa on the foam of a cappucino.



In addition to the foamy message, promotional coasters (made from paper) were placed beneath the cups to further explain the details of the promotion that Expedia was executing. Fun idea and much better (less illegal) use of stencils.

Promotional Stencil

Here's an interesting promotion. When the Guarana Antarica Street Festival wanted to advertise, they didn't use typical promotional products. Instead they created custom stencils that were placed inside magazines. The stencils were accompanied by a print ad that showed how recipients could use their new stencils: graffitti.



I'm all for interesting promotional ideas, but graffitti? Who's cleaning that up after the fact?

WiFi Promotions

There's no substitute for quality promotional products. Items like promotional pens are tangible objects that can successfully brand a company's logo for the world to see. This isn't to say that other forms of advertising aren't effective, especially when they're as creative as this.

A coffee shop in the Netherlands wanted to attract more students, so they began offering free WiFi service. That's not the cool part though. They began advertising themselves by creatively naming the WiFi network.



When customers would ask baristas what the name of the WiFi network was, they would get a response like "Buy Another Cup You Cheapskate." The coffee shop used several different variations including:

HaveYouTriedTheCarrotCake?
TodaysSpecialEspresso1,60Euro
BuyCoffeeForCuteGirlOverThere?
Mmm...YummyMuffinOnly2Euro
BuyALargeLatteGetABrownieFree
OrderAnotherCoffeeAlready

While it's not tangible, it's hysterical and it works.

When All Else Fails...

Apparently promotional t-shirts are the way to go. With the declining economy, it's not surprising that more and more people are spending less and less on big purchases, like computers. So in age old fashion, Microsoft has jumped into the promotional apparel industry. You can now get some pretty schnazzy promotional t-shirts...







While I'm not sure I'll be rocking a Bill Gates mug shot, I enjoy the binary one. However, if you're not desperate to be a walking billboard for Microsoft, check this one out.

Proof Read, Proof Read, Proof Read

Especially before placing a full page ad in a newspaper. On December 1st (World AIDS Day), an AIDS awareness campaign was executed in Brazil using newspaper ads as the advertising medium. Two version of the ad were created,a black ad and a white ad. The black ad was printed and ran in only 6,800 copies of the paper, while the white ad ran in the rest of them. Why only 6,800? Because that is the amount of people that are infected with HIV every day. The ads are shown below.



Very effective concept, except for one major problem. The black ad has a typo! The only major line of copy should read:

Today Only 6,800 copies of this newspaper have an ad like this one.

I don't know how much this ad cost, but if it were running in the NY Times and this happened, there's a pretty decent probability that someone would be fired. Since we're so involved in the printing process, our Art team pays close attention to the text that is going on every order. The last thing we would want is for our customers to spend money on promotional pens and end up with thousands of them that are misprinted, but we can only do so much.

Sometimes you need orders to be rushed and we're pleased to provide rush service for these times. But never rush through the proof reading process. It's not worth it.

Plastic Bag Soccer Balls

Not sure if this one is a goal or not, but this plastic bag was inserted into local newspapers as a way of garnering financial support for South African townships. The copy on the bag is lengthy, but here's the point: in some South African townships, kids bundle plastic bags together to make soccer balls. While the promotion needed to use the plastic bag to make the point, it's not the most eco-friendly promotion I've ever seen. Although, attempting the same message with any other types of promotional products would have failed miserably.

Corporate Gift of the Week: Foldout USB Flash Drive

Item Name:
Leeds Foldout USB Flash Drive

Item Number (s):
64MB- 25751
128MB- 25753
256MB- 25755
512MB- 25757
1GB- 25761

Why It's Hot

Portable memory is a necessity for busy executives, but everyone can enjoy the benefits of a promotional USB flash drive. These simple devices are available in a variety of sizes and can be pre-loaded with data. Upload a message of good cheer or important information about your company. In addition to holding work documents, users can back up digital music and video files, pictures and more. These custom USB flash drives are packaged in a 2 piece gift box, so presentation will be made simple. Even better, these promotional USB flash drives are available for free 1 day rush service, so you can be sure that you'll get the items in time for the holidays.

Prison Break File Cake

Very cool promotion done by Fox to promote their hit series Prison Break. Sure, it just looks like a plain old ordinary carrot cake, at first glance.



But you cut into it and feel something hard. Strange...



And voila. A custom imprinted file (perfect for escaping from jail) advertising that Prison Break Returns November 13. It's always the awesome TV shows with fabulous advertising budgets that make all the cool promotional products. First there was the Dexter Saran Wrap and then the Weeds Hemp Bouquet, and now the Prison Break File.



Kinda makes me wonder, does anyone ever use plain old promotional pens anymore?

A Different Take on Business Cards

As the world keeps up with technology, it's not an entirely implausible idea that business cards may one day be extinct. A Belguim bus company put it's own spin on company contact information by presenting its employees with personalized bus tickets that they could give out to colleagues. The tag line read: "With this ticket, you will always know how to reach me."



It's a simple and effective message that gives recipients something they can use. It's similar to the promotion that Dr. Pepper just did by offering everyone in the world (well, everyone who signed up for a coupon) a free can of Dr. Pepper when Gun's & Roses long awaited Chinese Democracy was officially released. With the economy struggling and budgets being cut left and right, it's still nice to see companies using promotions and promotional products to get their message across.

Happy Cyber Monday...

The holiday shopping season officially began on Black Friday, with crazy deals happening all over the place. Hopefully, for those that braved the crowds, you all found all the bargains that you wished for. And in honor of Cyber Monday, I thought I'd highlight a few of our best bargains...



Ice Scraper Hand Mit
Originally As Low As: $2.30
Now As Low As: $2.14
Bonus: Free 1 Day Rush Production

Let's face it, unless you live in Hawaii, chances are you'll need it. It's got a large imprint area and it comes in three different colors. Everyone who receives these will be thanking you later.



Cross Roads Pencil Cube
Originally As Low As: $16.00
Now As Low As: $14.74
Bonus: Free 1 Day Rush Service, Orders $500 or More Receive Free Set-Up

It's the perfect gift for hard-working employees and valued clients. Every time they see this gift, they'll think of you. In addition to being extremely useful, it contains two picture frame slots for holding cherished pictures of family and friends. Personal and practical!



Contemporary Tote Bag
Originally As Low As: $4.98
Now As Low As: $4.39
Bonus: Free 1 Day Rush Service

This 4 Star rated bag makes the perfect holiday gift. It's as stylish as it is useful. According to a 2008 survey done by the Advertising Specialties Institute (ASI), bags deliver the most logo exposure with approximately 1,038 impressions per month on average.

These deals won't last forever (in fact they're only on sale til this Friday!) so hurry and don't miss out!