You know, pens, clocks, paperweights, coffee mugs, letter openers, coasters, mouse pads…anything that can be branded with our company logo, purchased in bulk, and given away to prospective clients. Customizable and cheap are the words of the day.
If anyone has any ideas where I could purchase such things – or can think of more creative/interesting tchotchkes than the one’s I’ve listed – please advise. Thanks!
Google up “promotional items” and you’ll find no end to the variety of things you can have your name put on.
I’ve had good luck with National Pen Company.
Oriental Trading Comapny is the king of bulk crap for the office. A lot of their stuff is customizable and cheap cheap cheap.
Buy online or order a free catalog.
I’ve had good success with Plus 2 Promotions though for somewhat higher end stuff - like $30 each. They have an incredible amount of stuff - I was looking at portfolios a few weeks ago, and they have over 100 pages of them.
My daughter, when she was little, got stuff in bulk from Oriental Trading and sold it door to door to her friends. It was cheap junk, the Plus 2 stuff was much better, but I think they are targeted at different markets.
Great, that’ll about cover what I need. Thanks everyone!
(Also, because it’s one of my pet peeves, a big :smack: to myself for the “one’s” in the OP.)
Oriental Trading is more of a party goods company that has a few decent “corporate” things here and there.
But, if you want personalized keyrings or backscratchers, they’re hard to beat.
You could try Corporate Express. (The company I work for has a personalised giveaways webpage with them) but they do the stuff you are talking about
I have had excellent experiences with this company – it is more of a “broker,” I guess, for this kind of promotional item. For example, I’ve seen something I want, but it didn’t come in the color I need. I can pick up the phone and ask them to shop around with their vendors to see who makes similar things in different colors. It’s not always an exact match, but it provides a lot of options. Their web site is ho-hum, but their strength is that you can email or call and get very personal service from them.
(feel free to email me if you would like more info)
Ye gods, there’s a lot of this crap out there. Is there really any difference between one BigAssCo-branded fabric mousepad and the next? Does the $4 square glass four-inch paperweight hold down paper any worse than the $20 version of the same? Will our clients be “wowed” if we present them with only the finest keyrings the internet has to offer?
Why my company put the systems analyst (me) in charge of this thing instead of some marketing guy, I shall never know.
Remeber that 99% of this crap just gets tossed or given to the kids, so try to get something remotely useful if you can. In northern climes, ice scrapers are always welcome, for example. I always get samples sent to me and the only ones I still have around are a large calculator, a few pens, and the carabiner/flashlights. The huge magnet collection I’ve acquired is covering the loudspeaker grate in my ceiling. The rest have been given out as freebies to the kids.
Yep, so much of this crap goes to the kids, or thrown in a drawer and forgotten about. Once in a while we hit on something that seems to go over very big – umbrellas are on the more expensive side for this kind of stuff, but they have the advantage of, by definition, being large and putting your name/logo out in the public instead of some drawer. Most people will be happy to use any available umbrella when it’s raining and they need an umbrella. When we did umbrellas a few years ago, people just went nuts for them, I still get asked about them.
Another strange hit was chapstick, although I suppose it wasn’t actually chapstick brand but you know what I mean. You can get the tubes printed up with your name and slogan, and when I first heard about this, I thought it was the dumbest thing ever but it was very popular. I can sort of see how it works now in hindsight, you give someone a chapstick, they toss it in their briefcase, and a few weeks later they are stuck on a plane and the air is very dry and it’s very exciting when they remember the chapstick.
Believe it or not, there is a difference in quality in a lot of these things – it’s not always reflected in the price, but that’s a good initial guideline. Some of it depends on your goal – are you trying to impress to create a personal relationship (spend more per item, buy fewer items and give strategically), or are you trying to “push” your logo as much as possible (spend less, buy more, give them away willy-nilly)? My personal rule of thumb is that I go with the higher end, strategic things for the company (actually it’s an institution but whatever) “brand”, and the cheaper, high volume stuff for launching new services or concepts.
Check your local Yellow Pages under “Advertising Specialities”.