The Promotional Idea Showcase - Spring 2002 - Updated Quarterly

Why Looks Do Matter
All other things being equal (price point, quality, materials, heft, etc.), which promotional pen would you choose – a classic, basic blue ballpoint with a stock clip, or a sleek brushed aluminum number resembling a piece of modern sculpture with an Elroy Jetson-like squiggle on top?

While classics will always have a place, you’d likely go for the one that’s really cool looking; the unique over the ubiquitous. And so would most clients and employees. In an age when promotional products are as common as – well, logoed pens, one of the ways to stand out from the pack – to achieve that critical differentiation – is to be the product with that indefinable “something” that elicits equal parts envy and respect from recipients. The good news is that it’s never been more within your grasp.

Example: Architect/designer Michael Graves has an exclusive contract to provide cutting-edge, museum-quality merchandise to discount retailer Target – everything from chess sets to waste baskets to watches to spatulas – for newly design-conscious consumers. You can see it reflected everywhere: bicycles that look like a Calder sculpture; athletic shoes resembling miniature rubber sports cars; backpacks modeled after NASA space suits.

Another example: The promotional products industry is also a hotbed of design, as evidenced by the collection of cool stuff in this issue of Imprint. If you’re looking for sleek curves and sensuous silhouettes, translucents and silvers, recycled rubber and high-impact plastic – whatever you define as the height of haute – we’ve got it. After all, this business is built on the “Wow!” factor. We’ve always been kind of a proving ground for gadgets and gizmos of every description, and these days design is a big part of that critical “perceived value” equation.

And the great part is, it usually doesn’t cost any more to get a cutting-edge product – not with design now being democratized. The pace of change is accelerating as we speak. Want MOMA-caliber merchandise for your next campaign? All you have to do is sit down with your promotional products consultant and define your vision. What kind of statement do you want to make? Where are you looking to go? How will your logo or message best fit with what you select?

Take a look at our cover story and let your mind wander … do a little dreaming. Think about an item – one with your company’s name on it – that will make everyone who sees it say, “Wow, where did you get that?” But when you want traditional, proven design, we’ve got that, too.

Like a wise man once said: The medium is the message.

And speaking of design, we’ve got a few aesthetic alterations of our own we’d like to tout.

Beginning with this issue of Imprint, we’re debuting a new look – both inside and outside – and incorporating some new sections and departments we feel will make this a more broad-based and useful publication. Chief among these changes are two new Imprint columns, one on Incentives (a kindred market of promotional products and an essential part of any successful business) and the other covering Special Markets (things like licensing, meetings, co-op advertising, special events, etc.), that will help you think outside the box when it comes to the myriad possibilities imprinted merchandise and business gifts provide.

We’ve also added a section on wearables – the hands-down biggest category in promotional products, comprising nearly 30% of the industry’s $16 billion in sales – as well as retaining our recently introduced Collective Creativity department showing how themes can liven up a promotion and turn it into an award-winner. That, along with the same informative marketing and promotional expertise we’ve always prided ourselves in providing, should help keep you well versed in what is nowadays known as “alternative media” – the current buzzword in advertising circles – but what we’ve referred to all along as the Power of Promotional Products.

Thanks for reading.

Arn Bernstein
abernstein@asicentral.com