Apple Stickers - A 25 year promo gift

Apple macintosh are one of the worlds most recognisable brands. Although their products have significantly evolved over time, two things have maintained the same - their logo and the use of promotional stickers.

Apple Stickers - A 25 year promo gift

With every Apple product purchase two stickers are gifted. They use a simple and clean design by backing their famous apple logo. This is a great example for all brands displaying that that there is never a point to stop looking for ways to market your company.

Why Apple have continued to use promotional stickers:

• Further brand awareness. Promotional stickers are a superb way to get a brands name and logo out there to be seen.  
• Low cost. Stickers can be a great tool for all firms because of this reason.  
• Space. Particularly when offering an on-pack gift it is crucial for the product to not take up too much space. 
• Continue tradition. Apple consumers are now accustomed to receiving stickers with every purchase. If they decided to not include this free gift they could receive a negative reaction. 

Overall, promotional stickers can be a a great tool for brands of all sizes. If offering as a promo gift it can be a brilliant way to boost brand recognition and catalyst positive word-of-mouth..

Denver Broncos Free Giveaway: United in Orange Magnets

This January, the Denver Broncos – an American football team based in Denver, Colorado – has given away pleasant branded merchandise for their fans and supporters – car magnets with the United in Orange logo.

The Denver Broncos are members of the West division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League. They are famous for their annual promotional campaigns: in 2014 there were the highly collectible Time to Ride playoff window clings. Last year's playoff run saw the United in Orange yard sign. And, 2016 is officially the year of the magnet.

The giveaway was held in two parts: the first started on Monday, January 11, and continued through game day, Sunday, January 17, and the totally unexpected 2nd part, started on Thursday, January 21, and continued through Sunday, January 24. These days fans in the various cities across Colorado are able to line up at stores to get the car magnet that shows the world the true Bronco colors.

Denver Broncos Free Giveaway: United in Orange Magnets

The promotional campaign had a huge social media support: everyone who got a magnet was called to show "your personal magnetism" and post a photograph to Broncos' Facebook page or share it with the hashtag #WeAreBRONCOS.

The goals of promotional giveaways in the sports industry:

•  to strengthen support for the team - the main reason for this kind of giveaway is to connect all sports fans and citizens by increasing the common victorious spirit with the help of free and exclusive branded items;

• to increase perceived value – any sports brand tries to embolden its status with promotional sports merchandise and every big football club has a plethora of branded items to bring about brand exposure;

• to raise brand awareness – in the growing sports products industry, it can be hard to get your foot in the door and using promotional products for sports merchandise is a great way to expose those less known brands, ultimately driving sales.

Promo Gift with The Economist Magazine

The Economist is a weekly economics, politics, business, finance and technology magazine. It is available world-wide and has an enormous readership. Magazine promotions are commonly seen to use promo gifts within their marketing campaigns. With a purchase of 12 issues for £12, students are offered the choice of a free phone charger or bluetooth speaker.  

Promo Gift for The Economist Readers

This particular campaign does the magazine justice integrating promo gifts in the right way. Here's why it ticks the boxes:

• Useful. Tech promo gifts are brilliant as they are guaranteed to be needed at some point. Offering products that encourage use is essential when offering a free gift. 
• Relevant. Students are constantly on the search and in need for the latest tech. This is a great way to target them.  
• Branded. The Economist have cleverly integrated their logo on the two products. This can help with gaining brand awareness and further recognition. 
• Design. The colours align with overall brand themes and the products are cleanly designed. 

Offering a gift with purchase is a brilliant way to offer additional incentive and can help catalyst a stimulation of sales. When offering products such as these it can be assured that the campaign will be a successful one.

Cubic Promote: Story of success

One of the first promotional products ever was a leather school bag with a big 'Buy Cantwell Shoes' inscription written on it. American nation fathers also saw huge benefits promotional merchandise brings and launched set of commemorative buttons, for George Washington’s election. Since then the love between marketing departments and promotional products manufacturers continued to build up, until today when we receive dozens of promotional products every week.

Cubic Promote: Story of success

15 Million items in stock
Direct contact between corporate entities and product manufacturers, was always a very difficult way to obtain batches of promotional merchandise. Then several visionaries saw the opportunity and founded promotional product distributive companies. These companies directly sell promotional products to businesses and enable them to obtain their merchandise fast and for modest prices. Cubic Promote is one of these companies and it provides wide variety of different categories of promotional merchandise, which includes both standard products like: pens, umbrellas and bags, as well as large number of unique products like: vuvuzelas, cow bells and tattoo sleeves. Cubic Promote has more than 15 million individual promotional items in their stock.

Branding
All cool items from distributor’s stock need to be perfectly branded, to enhance products promotional capabilities. Distributors use different ways for branding products they sell. Cubic Promote uses wide variety of different methods for this purpose and some of these are:

• Pad Printing- placing images or text on solid and smooth surfaces. It is used for pens, mugs, toys, etc.
• Embroidery- patching stitches, it is mostly used for clothes and head gear.
• Screen printing- transferring ink through mash screen, it is used for T shirts, bottles, etc.
• Laser engraving- engraving products with power lasers, used for key rings, watches, trophies, etc.
• Digital printing- computer printing, used for stickers, notebooks, and many other paper products. 

Cubic Promote: Story of success

Social Conciseness
Finally we come to the most important criterion for choosing not only promotional merchandise distributor, but any other type of business partner. Socially conscious and responsible companies, tend to be more honest and dedicated in providing the best possible service.
Cubic Promote also follows these principles, and during their work, they collected more than $18,100 for the support of:

• Orangutan Project;
• Mental Health Associations of NSW and Western Australia; 
• Telstra Child Flights;
• Unicef;
• Multi Cap Queensland;
• Queensland Ambulance Service, and many other humanitarian and civic organizations and institutions.

Since good quality promotional material can increase both company sales and customer loyalty, it is advisable for all businesses to purchase their promotional products from respected distributors. Cubic Promote is one of the leaders in promotional merchandise distribution in Australia. They offer further support and long warranty for each product they sell, which is why many successful businesses use their wide selection of products in their marketing campaigns.

About the Author: 

 Lilly J. Adams is a marketing blogger at Bizzmarkblog, working with different marketing agencies across Australia and has recently started a career in blogging.

Cubic Promote is based in Australia and supplies products and merchandise that is customized with your logo or branding. They stock and brand products locally which means they can offer amazingly fast delivery times. Their products are used during occasions everyday all around Australia including items used for Fund Raising | Corporate Gifting | Marketing | Parties | Giveaways | Rewards and more.

Promotional Power of Watches

There is nothing more iconic than passing a long term employee an engraved watch for their many years of service, be it in the work place or military, this tradition has been going for decades. Watches are one of the most high quality gifts you can offer. With an air of sophistication that can come with such a gift, it's no surprise that it is one of the most popular gifts in the corporate world, as can be seen with the Original 90's Apple Watches.

Promotional Power of Watches

This is all not to say that promotional watches need to be Rolex, as we have discussed many times before promotional products can come in any value or style. It is how they are presented and their overall target:

• Are you aiming for quality or quantity? 
• Are you rewarding current clients or attracting new clients?
• Finally are you offering these limited edition or long term? 

Promotional Power of Watches

As can be seen in the example of Burger King, promotional watches can come in any form, offered for free with a meal. These watches carry the Rugrats branding, as part of the marketing campaign of the Rugrats Movie, and come in 4 different designs. These were the perfect product to be offered for targeting children, the main target audience of a Value meal and Rugrats film. 

Promotional Power of Watches

As can be seen with these Swiss Manchester United branded watches from Bulova,  you can blend promotion with high quality. What fan of Manchester United wouldn't want to be able to wear this fashionable accessory while being able to show their allegiance, but this isn't the only sports-centric watch on offer as can be seen with this branded silicone watch.

Promotional Power of Watches

These are perfect for actually undertaking sports, the fantastic branding potential on offer with silicone is especially highlighted here. With a small screen, the whole structure can be customized to fit your choice in colour and room for a logo on the top. This is fantastically highlighted in the Manchester United colour scheme of red and black.

In summary, what we can take away from this is that in any form, quality or price watches have a great degree of promotional potential, and we at PromoGift Blog are always on the look out for exciting products that can boost brand awareness such as these. 

Promo Products Case Study: Pantone Inc, Masters of Color

If you are in any way involved in promotional products, you would have definitely heard about the Pantone Matching System, and most likely, could face difficulties in matching the accuracy of colour when manufacturing a new product, coloured fabric, plastics, or printing a logo on them. As many of us know, what you see on your monitor and expect the item to be is never what will appear on a printed sheet, so to avoid this designers need a standardized colour key.

What is Pantone?

Pantone is a standardized colour-matching system, utilizing the Pantone numbering system for identifying colours. By standardizing the colours, different manufacturers in different locations can all reference a Pantone-numbered colour, making sure colours match without direct contact with one another. The Pantone palette consists of 1,114 colours, identified by three or four-digit numbers, followed by a C, U, Or M suffix. Originally designed for the graphics industry, the Pantone solids palette is now used by a wide range of businesses. It is the most commonly used palette in the promotional products industry.

Promotional Products Masterclass by Pantone

Pantone Inc. itself is a corporation headquartered in New Jersey, the USA. Though the company is best known for its Pantone Matching System, it also has a remarkable portfolio of branded promotional items, all created in their easily recognisable minimalistic style.

Mugs, thermo cups, USB flash drives, watches, iPhone cases and stationery: this brand, for sure, manages to make printings 100% Pantone matched!

The new thumb drives are worth paying attention to. A sure-grip soft plastic case styled after the iconic Pantone colour chip holds a powerful, dependable drive - the perfect way to store a portfolio, to bring comps to client meetings or back up important files. A pop-chain ring makes it handy to take along.
Use this idea and develop USBs pantone-matched to your company logo.

Pantone offers a wide choice of porcelain mugs and cups with coloured silicone grips. Learn from the masters how to manufacture promotional homeware items, and make your customers enjoy their favourite hot beverages in the hottest new trend colours.


Moreover, annually, Pantone declares a particular "Color of the Year". In 2016, for the first time ever the blending of two shades -  Rose Quartz and Serenity - was chosen for this. The combination demonstrates an inherent balance between a warmer embracing rose tone and a cooler tranquil blue.

Look through the 2006-2016 history of "Colors of the Year" by Pantone and find some ideas for your corporate style design and future promotional campaigns.

PPAIExpo 2016 Overview

Wow! From Fifty Cent performance to an appearance of the Back to the Future DeLorean, think this years #PPAIExpo can certainly be considered a success.   Creativity and strong networking always combine at events like this to get new products launched.

As a promotional gift giver, this years expedition provided some great ideas that can be cleverly integrated into every brands 2016 marketing plans.

Here are a few that we liked below, but we encourage readers to submit their new products and we will be happy to also cover them in our blog.. 

PPAIExpo 2016 Overview

These rechargeable heated hand warmers are a great product to kick off the early stages of the new year.

Modern technology are of course moving away from the environment damaging batteries. No surprise then, that heated hand warmers are seemingly shifting that way also.

Including a belt strap, what better way to keep your hands warm?

PPAIExpo 2016 Overview

These light-up glow sticks were provided at the well-coveraged retro party held at the expo.

Cleverly ingrained brand logos is a great way to gaining brand awareness, and getting your brand in those social media posted photos.

PPAIExpo 2016 Overview

Our personal favourite, this clever phone attachment by Love Handle allows the user to use one hand in order to function the phone without worrying the phone will slip.

As phones are progressively getting larger, this is a great innovative accessory that can provide aid to those on-board with the trend.

Big name brands were included on the phone attachment and this can help inspire potential brands to take the plunge and go for it!

Kudos to Love Handle.

We decided to keep an eye on this via the use of our twitter tracking system. Here were the top tweeters for the day of the PPAIExpo. Can you see yourself? 

PPAIExpo 2016 Overview

Overall this years #PPAIExpo proved to be a successful one. With keynotes fluttering, tweeters twittering and promotional products being given the stage it deserves. 

This year is going to be a big one, join us for the journey 

The Consumer Electronic Show 2016 #CES2016

The VCR and CD-rom were both famously introduced at CES. As such year after year hundreds of thousands of people make way to the location of event, Las Vegas hosting this years event.

2016 technology has been viewed to centre on three main areas; drones, virtual reality and wearables.

Drones are now considered a central part to having fun, creating cinematic shots, aiding with healthcare and even are employed in the military. It is no surprise then, that innovative geniuses were further focussing on this component within this years trade show. From unmanned vehicles that can transport humans to a selfie-snapping camera drone, drones were on show and utilised in every possible way. 

The Consumer Electronic Show 2016 #CES2016 

Virtual reality has been around since the early 90's, though since the integration on our smart phones (via cardboard holders), they are now becoming more accessible and available to mainstream-type consumer. Oculus Rift are at the forefront of this notion, and theres no surprise that they featured heavily at this years event. 

The Consumer Electronic Show 2016 #CES2016 

Wearable technology was also pivotal this year with Apple and Samsung introducing smart watch accessories to their product portfolio. At CES concepts such as L'Oreals UV patch, made to measure your exposure to sun light, a long with Wisewears attack alarm system, a piece of design jewellery built to keep people safe, proved wearable technology is advancing beyond the ageing fit bit. Though, this years event was shadowed by one thing, and that of Smart Shoes. 

The Consumer Electronic Show 2016 #CES2016 

An idea inspired by Back to the Future creators now becomes a reality, only 30 years after initial release. Automated tightening systems means laces will no longer be needed, whilst including some neat features; an integrated speaker system, step counter to name a few. 

The entire CES encouraged over 1.2 million tweets worldwide. We decided to keep an eye on this via the use of our twitter tracking system. Here were the top tweeters fo #CES2016. Can you see yourself? 

The Consumer Electronic Show 2016 #CES2016 

Everything you need to know about Power Banks

Scott George of Propel Promotions explains Everything you need to know about Power Banks.

Everything you need to know about Power Banks 

Power Banks or portable chargers are a hot new trend in the promotional products industry.

They make the perfect corporate gift or a great addition to a sales incentive program. With all the buzz around chargers, their safety and compliance, you need to feel confident in the products you’re buying.

Everything you need to know about Power Banks

Did you know that…?

- The average person checks his/her phone 110 times a day!

- The average smartphone battery lasts less than 8 hours!

- The average person spends 2.7 hours a day on their phone just for FUN!

Here is a quick primer on the key attributes of power banks and how our product range can offer peace of mind.

What are Milliamps? Mili Ampere hour (aka Milliamps, aka mAh) measures the energy charge that a battery will hold and how long a battery will run before the battery needs recharging. Most smartphone batteries range from 1400 to 2800mAh, while tablets range anywhere from 4000mAh up to 12000mAh.

Everything you need to know about Power Banks

What is “output”? Output defines the total amount of amperes (A) that the device can release. For most smartphones, 1.0A is sufficient and will charge at the fastest possible rate. For tablets, you need a minimum of 2.0A to charge at the maximum rate.

Everything you need to know about Power Banks

Power Banks are a very popular technology promotional product with a high-perceived value and a practical use item. Ideal for charging mobile phones, tablets, cameras, GPS, Bluetooth speakers and headphones etc… In addition solar charges are also now available with rechargeable lithium batteries that will charge a smart phone and other small electronic device. Solar charges are an ideal product for technology savvy people constantly on the go!

Everything you need to know about Power Banks

Power Banks make a great promotional item in this technology dependent world.

To view our range of Power Banks click here; United States, Australia and New Zealand.

About The Author: Scott George is the Managing Director of Propel Promotions, a focused entrepreneur with 10 years experience in the marketing and promotional products industry. Propel Promotions is a specialist and innovative marketing and promotional products company providing effective, individual and personalized promotional and marketing solutions for North American businesses and organizations. "We’re a marketing and promotional products company; with a passion for innovation, strategy and problem solving we deliver promotional marketing solutions companies love." Scott and his team has worked with such companies and organizations as; Shell, MasterCard, Coca-Cola, World Vision, National Geographic and BNI (Business Network International) to name only a few. Scott has been featured in a number of promotional product and business publications.

Marketing Budget 2016: Plan your successful financial year

The heart of any business's success lies in its marketing. There are a number of advertising options available in the market however, merchandise marketing still rules the chart. With the help of promotional products, any business can advertise its product, service or idea to potential customers. But what should be your budget for promotional items and corporate apparel?

Let's have an insight back to 2015. According to Forrester Research, 

• for B2B firms, marketing budgets in 2015 as a percentage of firm revenue kept within the 7-9% range;
• for B2C firms, marketing budgets as a percentage of firm revenue were hovering around the 9-11% mark;

What percentage of the overall budget should you allocate to marketing in 2016?

The first step is to set your annual budget for marketing. According to the VGM Group Member Service Organisation, small businesses with revenue lower than $5 million allocate 7 to 8 per cent of their total revenue to marketing. For businesses with revenues over $5 million should allocate between 10 and 15 percent.

Marketing spending should also take into account your business goals. Budget on the lower end of that range if yours is a well-established business with a goal of maintaining current awareness. But if yours is a new or established business planning for growth, you’ll need to allocate more to marketing. 

Below on the graphic you can see suggestions by Forrester Research for the most successful ways to allocate the marketing budget: 

There is always space for raising expenditures for digital advertising - in 2016 digital marketing should be your primary tool in promoting business. Note that on graphics overall online marketing budget includes not only 10 per cent of digital advertising, but content marketing, website, and digital events as well, representing 32%. According to our forecasts, the average firm's online marketing budget is expected to grow up to 40% by 2019.

Remember to be consistent with corporate social responsibility - spend at least 2% of the budget for self-regulation and participation in initiatives that benefit society.

What budget should you allocate to promotional products?

The budget for promotional products is not such a key factor, as an overall budget per line item - trade show or event, - yet, it is highly important. Evaluate past performance on your efforts. Eliminate or reduce the budget on efforts that didn’t show an ROI the previous year due to low attendance or incorrect target market, and then move the funding to those with more untapped potential. Note that the spending on trade shows and events should include giveaway items and promotional merchandise costs.

The budget for marketing items can be distributed through various categories, not only events and conferences. A huge part of the budget - 7% - can be spent on other purposes, such as promotional gifts - and don't forget about 4% of traditional advertising.

How to plan a successful marketing budget?

1. Set your annual goals — quantitative such as total revenue, profit, number of customers, and strategic — new markets, new distribution channels, or brand renewal.

2. Outline your major marketing campaigns. Your plans should include the top 3 campaigns you will run to generate leads, the main promotions and giveaways through the year, the media you will use (email, social, print, telemarketing, trade shows, publicity), tools, technologies or resources you’ll need (a new website, an email service provider, or new software).

3. Develop a marketing budget. Refer to the budget on last year’s spend to estimate your expenditures, and use the data provided by PromoGift to improve your strategy.

4. Revisit your marketing plan regularly to measure your progress. If you don’t review the plan regularly, it’s easy to lose focus.

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