Earth Day (April 22) is just around the corner – is your company participating in any eco-events this year? Do you need environmentally friendly giveaways? If you act fast, there is still time to order great promotional products for your employees, clients, tenants, or prospects!

Check out these 6 “green” promo products that everyone will use:

1. Foldable, BPA Free, 24oz bottle.

This nifty bottle folds flat when empty for easy travel and storage.

2. World’s first “100% Green Golf Ball! Green to the core environmentally friendly ball made of eco-friendly material. 100% recyclable and made from renewable material. Packaging also eco-friendly.

3.Sling tote bag. Folds into attached interior drawstring pouch for easy storage and travel.

4. Owl 51% Recycled Coaster Set: Case made from 51% post consumer recycled material (product label affirms claim). Six coasters made of recycled bound leather. Small Owl logo debossed on coasters.

5. Chipboard Cover Notebook. 100 sheets of lined paper. Made of 88% post-consumer recycled fiber.

6. Earth Day Skate Board With the title, “everyday earth day skateboard skateboard”, this particular skateboard is just a small sampling of the many brilliant skateboard designs created with all natural products.

Almost everyone with a brand to promote winds up ordering branded pens sooner or later. Because pens are so ubiquitous, it can be hard to find something unique that will really make your brand stand out from the crowded field of branded writing instruments. That’s why we love the new Cube Pen.

With 3 cubes holding a total of 12 imprintable panels, these pens offer a large advertising space for your message or brand identity. Whether they lie flat on a desk, or in a pen cup, your logo will always be visible. On top of that, the 3 cubes are really fun to twist!

The Cube Pen starts at $1.75 (price is dependent upon quantity), and pricing includes a four color process on all 12 pen panels. There are so many great ways you could use this pen to promote your brand:

• Design it like a puzzle, so a message is revealed when the correct cubes are lined up!
• Feature up to twelve different products on the panels.
• Include the logos of all the sponsors for your special event.

Contact us today for a quote on the Cube Pen and we’ll help you figure out a clever way to use it in your next promotional campaign!

The Advertising Specialty Institute today released a landmark study that proves advertising specialties beat out prime-time TV, radio and print advertising as the most cost-effective advertising medium available. The most significant findings of the 2010 Global Advertising Specialties Impressions Study show advertising specialties are less expensive per impression than most other media* and are very affordable and effective when compared to other forms of media.

Among key findings, results show:

• Cost per Impression: In the U.S., the cost per impression of a promotional product stayed virtually the same from 2008 to 2010, at .005 cents.
• Product Usage: Bags have the highest number of impressions in a month, over 1,000, and over one-third (36%) of those with incomes under $50,000 own bags.
• Gender Preferences: Males are more likely than females to own shirts and caps, while females are more likely to have bags, writing instruments, calendars and health and safety products.
• Ethnic Preferences: African Americans have more promotional products on average (11.3) than any other group.
• Positive Reinforcement: Seventy-five percent of independent voters prefer consumer-branded products; nearly 1.5 times more than Democrats or Republicans.
• Identifying the Advertiser: Eighty-three percent in the U.S. say they can identify the advertiser on a promotional item they own.
• Influencing User Opinions: Forty-one percent of U.S. respondents say their opinion of the advertiser is more favorable after receiving a promotional product.
• Global Reach: Nearly two-thirds (63%) of respondents from Great Britain have received and kept a pen in the last 12 months. In the U.S., writing instruments are used the most often, an average of 18.2 times per month.
• Popular Products: The most commonly owned promotional products among U.S. respondents are writing instruments (46%), followed by shirts (38%) and calendars (24%).
  Promo Product Capital: Los Angeles has the highest average number of items owned, at 12.7.

For a downloadable pdf of the study, a video and graphics, click here.

At $0.005, the average cost-per-impression (CPI) of an advertising specialty item is less than nearly any other media. According to data obtained by ASI, the CPI for a national magazine ad is $0.045; for a newspaper ad, $0.029; for a prime-time TV ad, $0.018; for a cable prime-time TV ad, $0.005; for a syndicated daytime TV ad, $0.005; and for a spot radio ad, $0.058.

These statistics show marketers get a more favorable return on investment from advertising specialties than almost any other popular media, with a very low cost per impression, high recall among those who receive ad specialty items, and increased intent among recipients to make purchases from the advertiser.

Ghirardelli Tower of Squares

Chocolate has always been amongst the most popular gifts at the holidays, and one of the most recognizable brand names in the chocolate world is Ghirardelli, America’s longest operating chocolate manufacturer (in business for over 155 years!). We just received Ghirardelli’s 2010 holiday gift guide and it is full of fantastic gift packages, many of which can be branded with your logo.

From the famous Ghirardelli Squares, to drinking chocolate, to cookies and brownies, there is something in the Ghirardelli catalog for every chocolate lover!

If you’re thinking of giving the gift of chocolate this holiday season, contact us and we’ll help you select the right package and get it decorated with your brand.

One of our favorite suppliers, Leeds, has introduced a great way to tie charitable giving in with your next promotion. They will do this by donating 10% of the sales revenue from all items in their new “Hope Collection” to Habitat for Humanity, and all Hope Collection products will include tags containing information about how the sale of the item helped to fund the mission of Habitat for Humanity. There are a range of items to choose from in this collection, including journal books, ceramic tumblers, aluminum bottles, bookmarks, and totes.

Habitat for Humanity International seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world, and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience action. Habitat invites people from all walks of life to work together in partnership to help build houses with families in need. Since 1976, Habitat has built more than 350,000 houses around the world, providing 1.75 million people in more than 3,000 communities with safe, decent, affordable shelter.

This year, send clients, prospects or employees a meaningful message about giving back by putting your brand on an item from the Leeds Hope Collection!

Contact us today for pricing, lead times and design options for items in the Hope Collection!

The weather is still warm and golf season is in full swing (pun intended!) – there is no better time than the present to order golf related promotions, but finding something unique can be a challenge. One of our favorites is the branded golf glove, a completely custom item available in both premium cabretta leather and superior grade Japanese synthetic leather. These are perfect for golf tournament giveaways, company stores, and co-branding or gift with purchase opportunities.

This item is new to the promotional industry, so you can be amongst the first to give them out at your event. Best of all, they have a quick lead time, low minimum order quantities, and factory-direct pricing. A variety of size ranges are available, and we can even include lefties with your order!

Contact us for more information on ordering your own custom branded golf gloves.

We love products that are unique and beautiful, but also functional. The Around Clock from Lexon is an analog cylinder with numbers and markings that rotates to show the time as identified by the red wire. Simple, eye catching, and different … and you can put your brand on it!

This is a great promotion for associations working on membership campaigns (“time to renew your membership”), companies looking to lure potential customers away from the competition (“is it time for a change?”), or cause-related marketing campaigns (“it’s time to make a difference!”).

Contact us for more information on using the Lexon Around Clock in your promotional program.

Did you know that 79% of people hold onto old t-shirts for sentimental reasons? PPB Magazine recently ran a great article reporting on the results of a survey on this subject by BlueCotton. The survey provided evidence to back up what we’ve know all along (and blogged about not too long ago!) – people are very attached to their t-shirts, and this attachment cuts across age groups and demographics.

According to PPB, the BlueCotton study found that:

• Four out of five people hold onto at least one sentimental old shirt, and some keep two or three.
  Vacation t-shirts are the most kept of any category.
• Survey respondents aged 18 to 24 are the most likely to keep old t-shirts, and they are also more likely to keep a t-shirt from a concert or a political election.
• Post-grad degree holders are twice as likely as those with only a bachelor’s degree to have a t-shirt from a sorority or fraternity.
• People are more likely to keep a shirt they got as a sports spectator than as a participant.
• Employer or work t-shirts are most often kept by those in the highest income brackets.
• Shirts from church events are most cherished by women, non-whites and residents of the Southern United States.

So what does all this mean? T-shirts are a great promotion for anyone. Whether you are targeting highly-educated, high net worth professionals, GenX or Y voters, or middle-aged sports enthusiasts, the love of t-shirts cuts across all generations, ethnic groups, and income levels.

And, like we’ve said before, the perceived value of t-shirts (and SWAG in general) is often significantly higher than the actual cost, making them one of the best promotions when evaluated in terms of value for money. Every time someone pulls your t-shirt out of their drawer, they are reminded of your brand – and every time they wear your t-shirt, your brand gets exposed to new audiences. What other advertising medium provides that kind of long-term value?

With the economy seeming to go from bad to worse, I know many of our customers are looking to optimize their advertising and promotion budgets. The Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI) recently came out with new research that addresses just this point. Their study found that among businesspeople over age 21, advertising specialties beat out all forms of TV, radio and print advertising as the most cost-effective advertising medium available.

The average cost-per-impression (CPI) of an advertising specialty item is $0.004, making it less expensive (per impression) than nearly any other form of media. For example, according to Nielsen Media data (the folks behind the Nielson TV ratings system), the CPI of a national magazine ad is $0.033; a newspaper ad is $0.0129; a prime time TV ad is $0.019; a cable TV ad is $0.007; a syndicated TV ad is $0.006; and a spot radio ad is $0.005.

Among key findings, results indicate that:

• 84% of people remember the advertiser of a product they receive;
• 42% have a more favorable impression of an advertiser after receiving an advertising specialty;
• 24% indicate that they are more likely to do business with the advertiser of a product they receive; and
• 62% of respondents have done business with the advertiser on a product after receiving it.

Writing instruments are the most commonly-owned advertising specialty, followed by shirts, caps and bags. In most cases where people kept the items they received, it was because they were useful to them in their day-to-day lives, and nearly three-quarters of respondents had their items for about seven months.

At a time when every dollar counts, this research demonstrates that you can get more bang for your buck by making smart choices about the marketing mix you employ on your projects. Call us today to discuss how to incorporate advertising specialties as a significant part of your promotional strategies and programs.