About Promotional Products
Promotional items or promotional products refers to articles of merchandise that are used in marketing and communication programs. The items are usually imprinted or decorated with a company's name, logo or message, using techniques such as Embroidery, Silkscreen, or Embossing. Premiums, incentives, advertising specialties, business gifts, awards and commemoratives are also considered promotional products. Promotional products are often distributed at trade shows, used in direct mail and as part of guerilla marketing campaigns. Their use grew from the use of promotional products as give-aways and not as a part of an integrated marketing effort. Today, many more promotional products are distributed by businesses and organizations, sometimes with the assistance of a Promotional Consultant, to specific target markets to generate specific and measurable results.
Promotional items are also used by schools and other organizations, often as a part of fund raising and awareness-raising campaigns. A prominent example was the livestrong wristband, used to promote cancer awareness and raise funds to support cancer survivorship programs and research. Another popular use are in politics to promote candidates and their causes.
Examples of promotional items include logo-branded t-shirts, caps, keychains, bumper stickers, pens, badges and many other useful items.
Promotional items are widely appreciated and often requested because they appeal to all ages and effect all five senses. The use of these items is gaining popularity because they are able to be targeted to specific markets.
The largest product category for promotional items are wearables which include t-shirts, golf shirts, jackets, caps, hats, footwear and the like which make up more than 30% of the total. Other popular categories include writing instruments, calendars, desk and office accessories, bags, drinkware, recognition awards, leisure products, travel accessories, tools, stickers and decals, games and playing cards, automotive accessories, computer products, buttons, magnets, textiles, food gifts and time pieces.
Promotional items are used to activate several types of motivation, recognition and commemorative programs. Business gifts used to foster customer goodwill and retention are the most common program use at 18.5%. Other objectives that marketers use promotional items to facilitate include tradeshow traffic-building, brand awareness, public relations, employee relations and events, dealer and distributor programs, new customer generation, not-for-profit programs, employee service awards, new product introductions, internal incentive programs, safety education, customer referrals and marketing research. Distributors buy from the supplier companies and sell them to the marketers who are termed "end buyers."
Around 1904, twelve manufacturers of promotional items got together to found the first trade association for the budding industry. Over a century of change later, the Promotional Products Association International traces its roots to that beginning. Today the association supports more thousands of global members.
In the UK the industry is very similar, the most popular products are pens and pencils. There are many types of promotional giveaways including personalised water, aqua keyrings, as well as your traditional pads, pens, tax disc holders, car window stickers and so on. In the UK many large companies use promotional goods to advertise and promote their services. Promotional gifts and giveaways offer a very unique advertising platform for a company to promote themselves on.
