Sneezing, runny nose, scratchy throat – yes many of us know all too well the symptoms that correspond with acute viral rhinopharyngitis, or a “cold.” In fact, the common cold is indeed so common that it is the number one cause of lost work time (about 150 million workdays), followed closely by diarrhea – but that’s a remedy for another day. Of course there are several ways to avoid being stricken with the cold virus, and if you do happen to catch it, ways to make yourself better. And surprise – there’s a whole bunch of promotional products out there that can help you feel and get better too!
So today’s blog is inspired by the upcoming new release, The Crazies.
If you know me, you know that I have a slight fascination with all things zombies. Now don’t get me wrong, there are many people that take this a little bit further than me… but I won’t name names here.
I’m not sure what causes this morbid interest in all things undead. Is it the staggered walk? The violent nature? Or the trigger that causes these bodies to rise from the grave? Whatever it is, it’s pretty darn intriguing to me.
So with that said, my colleague, Acree, politely addressed an issue that I have that intrigues her, not unlike my curiosity regarding the walking dead. The issue that arouse during conversation yesterday was my undying, love for promotional products.
The typical day here at Pinnacle naturally involves working with a large number of promotional products from a variety of product categories. Yesterday, Acree came across a tumbler during her daily duties that raised a question. Being relatively new to the industry, she wondered about one of the features of the Spirit Promotional Tumbler.
Being one of my favorite pieces of promotional drinkware (on my continuously growing list of favs), I have an intimate knowledge of this peppy little piece. I answered her question in a snap, followed with a chuckle-inspiring tale involving my husband, dancing, the term “lifesaver” and the Spirit Promotional Tumbler.
This story was followed by her question, “just how many promotional products do you have?!”
Ummm. This my friends, was an eye-opener.
I think I might just enjoy promotional products a teensy bit too much. But then, I’m not really ashamed. I have a case of the promotional product crazies. And I’m okay with it. I might never know why. I might never get over it. I just fancy some products, and I’ll keep on saying it!
With that said, if you ever need to know about a promotional product found on our site, I might just be able to help. And you might just get a little story along with it too :).
Every day when I arrive at work and turn on my computer, I am met with my desktop background of a sandy white beach, crystal clear ocean, and palm trees swaying in the breeze… Sadly, as soon as all of my icons and folders finish loading, I am reminded that I do, in fact, have a job to do and can’t afford to fantasize about an imaginary trip to the Bahamas all morning- the serene photo is as close as I am going to get to oceanfront R&R anytime soon!
For one lucky Pinnacle customer, the warm weather and peaceful lull of the waves await- congratulations to the winner of our Mexican Getaway Contest, Anna Glasa from Royse and Brinkmeyer!
Anna will enjoy 6 days/5 nights in beautiful Playa Del Carmen, Mexico, courtesy of Pinnacle Promotions. Her prize includes airfare for two & accommodations at a luxury condo in Playa Del Carmen, plus a Pinnacle Vacation Gift Pack full of beach-themed necessities.
I don’t know about you, but I am definitely jealous- hopefully Anna will take lots of pictures of her once-in-a-lifetime Mexican Getaway experience to share with us. Regardless, have an amazing trip, Anna, and to all of our customers/blog readers who are now green with envy: keep an eye out for more incredible contests from Pinnacle Promotions!
We talk a lot around here about the ubiquity of promotional products. Inevitably when someone outside work asks me what I do, I am able to point to some object in my hand or theirs — a coffee cup, branded pen, or t-shirt — and say, “I market those.” They are everywhere, including — as I discovered last night — in my podcasts.
Friends, marketers, raving fans: As of 6:00 pm today we’ll be on hiatus from blog writing as our friends in Tech launch our new promotional products website. They’ve told us we are not under any circumstances to make any changes to the site, so that means no blogging.
We’ll see you back here on Wednesday with our regularly scheduled programming. In the meantime, leave us love in the comments, on Twitter and Facebook. And have a great weekend!
It’s unavoidable today at Pinnacle Promotions. And I mean that in the best possible way.
Our mailboxes are overflowing with Valentine’s Day wishes, sweets and chocolaty goodies.
Oh, and I do mean mailboxes. Not our inboxes. But the good ol’ fashioned type. Our fabulous bringer of cheer, Deidre, fancied up mailboxes akin to those used in elementary schools across the nation every February. Just the perfect size to hold an abundance of happiness in candy and Valentine card form.
As you can probably tell from the Fun Stuff section of our website, as well as all of our Facebook shenanigans, we here at Pinnacle love to have a good time. No matter how big, or how small, we can make a party revolve around just about anything. While the immediate satisfaction you receive from a fun-size candy bar may only last a minute or two, the impact of this small gesture lasts.
Keeping the atmosphere of your office energized and positive can often be challenging. The hustle and bustle of the workweek can at times be stressful and even disheartening for your employees. Keeping the attitudes on the up and up your workplace should always be an “A” priority on your ever-growing list of to-dos.
Consider implementing an awards program or distributing promotional products to your team on a regular basis. Even the smallest gesture can make a difference. We all know that smiles are contagious. Whenever you get a chance to make someone’s day a little better – just a little bit more positive – you not only spread the positive energy, but your efforts can actually be life changing.
Now I’m not saying you have to exchange store bought Valentines to do this. A simple “thank you” for a job well done will often do the trick. Just remember to keep it up. Spread the love at Valentine’s Day and throughout the year. You’ll help make the world (or at least your office) a brighter place.
As a newcomer to the world of blogging and online marketing in general, yesterday’s exchange on our very own Pinnacle Promotions blog blew me away. Just to recap, a correspondence took place between my extremely talented, but also fairly new to the realm of blogging, coworker Acree Graham, and a blogger that I consider to be one of the most prolific social media thought leaders, Jay Baer of Convince and Convert. In my mind, this exchange exemplifies the phenomenon of blogs and their power to spark high level interactions between newbie marketers and established industry experts in a matter of hours. As a recent college graduate, I feel that my generation is extremely fortunate: the wealth of information available to us, faster than ever before, is one benefit that we have over generations past, but furthermore, it is the accessibility to people whom we admire and respect in our lines of work that is an even greater privilege, should we have the confidence and courage to reach out to them.
“What makes marketing the best career in the world is that is it ever evolving. There’s always a new insight, new tool or tactic. So if you want to be at the top of your game and really be someone your clients love and rely on — keep learning. Read, write, listen. Every day.”
-Drew McLellan, author of the blog Drew’s Marketing Minute.
Everyone is talking about the 2010 Edelman Trust Trends study. According to the findings, consumers trust the advice of their peers 20% less than they did in 2008.
The conclusions?
1. Social media is rendered pointless. AdAge posits that the information gleaned from the study “[flies] in the face of social-media wisdom” because businesses’ use of social media is based on the assumption that consumers turn to personal relationships to help them make buying decisions.
2. The digital age has destroyed friendships. Jay Baer of Convince and Convert, while maintaining social media is not to blame for the trust decline, nevertheless concedes, “The pervasive time crunch that blankets us all has forced us to curtail face-to-face relationships in exchange for digital interaction.”
I can’t believe that, in 2010, a blogger would say that digital interaction is the enemy of face-to-face relationships.
–Today I am texting my friend A. to make plans to grab dinner after work.
–I recently connected with a woman on Twitter whom I would never have the chance to meet in “real” life. She invited me to the SXSW Interactive Atlanta meetup, which I attended Monday night in the flesh.
–At the meetup I met a man from One World Connects, a start-up that is integrating social media and face-to-face exchanges to build a worldwide modern-day chain letter that you can track online.
Show me someone who is using social media to avoid talking to other humans, and I’ll show you a hundred more who are doing the opposite.
But back to study, Baer deduces:
3. Institutions have made us paranoid. He writes:
In the last year, I’ve been lied to at various times by the President, Congress, my family, clients, Tiger Woods, Toyota, the Catholic Church, the local school board, and at least one Olson twin (but I can’t remember which). What this Edelman research demonstrates is that we’ve become a bunch of cynics, and who could blame us?
Baer’s conclusion, that companies should embrace veracity and come clean with their customers, is both right and necessary. However, I think truth-telling is an argument for a different day and doesn’t have much to do with the study at hand.
My interpretation of the study?
As other bloggers have pointed out, trust has not only dropped in the peer category, but in every category — television news, radio news, and print news — by the same amount, 20%. When I look at this data I see the inevitable results of a broadening world with ever-increasing access to information. I don’t believe paid online subscriptions to the New York Times or Atlanta Journal-Constitution will ever work — not because people aren’t willing to pay for information, but because people aren’t willing to limit their information to a single source.
I’ve been mocked for using Twitter as my main source for news, but actually I think it is one of the best ways to be informed. I have 200 friends working all day long to filter relevant information to me. Throughout the day in real time I ingest an assemblage of personal anecdotes, news articles, opinion pieces, photojournalism and videos — all of which contribute in various ways to my being an informed and critically thinking person.
When I read about the Edelman study, for example, I didn’t limit my knowledge of it to Convince and Convert. I also checked out AdAge and Going Social Now, to see what other bloggers’ takes on it were.
I’m all for hard journalism, but I do not believe that NPR or CNN can ever be completely objective and comprehensive. I would rather receive information from a thousand subjective, specialized sources.
Likewise, it’s not that I trust my coworker Sarah less than I did in 2008. It’s just that when she tells me I should take advantage of Dance 101’s half-off sale, I’m also listening to my friend Vanessa, who is texting me an invitation to tonight’s class at Dance 411. From there it only takes one search in Twitter to see what people around the city are saying about both studios.
With ever-increasing access to information, it only makes sense that you or I would consult several sources before making a purchasing decision.
The takeaway?
Instead of using this study to justify dropping off the face of the digital planet, use it as a jumping-off point for a discussion about integrated marketing. As Malcolm Gladwell told us ten years ago, consumers need to come into contact with a brand at multiple touchpoints before the brand sticks with them. (Remember Lester Wunderman’s Columbia Record Club?)
How does the knowledge that people trust every information source less than they did two years ago affect your strategies for social media, direct marketing, promotional products, and other brand touchpoints?
In yesterday’s blog post, Jaime broke down the average cost per impression of a 30 second Super Bowl commercial versus that of a promotional product giveaway. This analysis contains undeniably valuable information regarding return on investment, yet some companies might not have to choose between promotional products and television advertising after all, thanks to increasingly popular product placements in film.
Product placement is nothing new. In the 1950s, prominent soap manufacturers such as Proctor & Gamble and Unilever sponsored the dramatic television shows that we now refer to as soap operas. However, as traditional television advertising has lost effectiveness over the past decade, more and more companies are utilizing “branded entertainment” by placing their name in both television shows and movies.
In Cast Away, Tom Hanks plays a FedEx manager who utilizes the contents of his packages to survive after becoming stranded on a deserted island. During an episode of FRIENDS, two of the main characters spend an entire day trying to recreate the beloved Nestle Tollhouse cookie recipe. And, most loyal viewers of The Office know that Staples is Dunder Mifflin’s biggest competitor. The point is that product placement is often hard to miss.
Promotional product placement, on the other hand, has a much less intrusive nature. I was watching the 2009 blockbuster He’s Just Not that Into You for the umpteenth time last week when my industry-trained eye noticed something new. As an attempt to run into a boy she likes, the main character Gigi cites the need to return the boy’s pen. She shows up at his friend’s bar and pulls out- not just any old pen- but a promotional pen… and so a new love story begins.
I won’t give away the rest of the story, but let’s just say that things turn out well for “the girl with the dentist pen,” as Gigi refers to herself later in the film. Due to the movie’s success, I’m guessing it was a happy ending for the showcased brands as well.
My Daddy is about to be really impressed because this is the second blog posting of mine whose topic stems from his favorite game of football (See previous post from last year: Football, Promotional Products, and the Stories They Tell). And even if I may never fully enjoy watching a game on television at least I can appreciate its contribution to the world of marketing – and my job. But I digress…
So last night the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts to become the 44th Super Bowl champions. But enough about the actual game (maybe Daddy won’t be so impressed after all). Though more than 90 million viewers watch the game annually, recent reports say that half of these viewers may be tuning in to watch the ads during the commercial breaks rather than the Bowl itself. In fact, a survey of more than 25,000 households by the Nielsen Company – a major marketing and media information company that produces the Nielsen ratings, the main source of audience measurement information in the television industry worldwide – showed that 51% of those surveyed said they enjoy the commercials aired throughout the game, more than the game.
The Super Bowl has become known almost as much for its high-profile advertisements as for the sport competition. The high number of viewers promised has led to high price tags – this year, the cost for 30-seconds of air time averages to $3.01 million – and the high price tag has led to ads that are generally innovative, humorous, and in some way highly memorable as the purchasers try to get the most out of the expensive cost for that brief air time.
Here is a secret for all the companies out there that cannot quite afford the $3+ million dollar price tag for a Super Bowl commercial: the average cost per impression (CPI) for promotional products, that is the cost of an item based on the number of times it is used per month and the average number of people with whom the user comes in contact, is cheaper than the cost per impression of a 30-second Super Bowl ad. $3.01 million divided by 90 million viewers equals $0.033. The CPI for a promotional product – $0.004 (as determined by the Advertising Specialties Impressions Study published in November 2008).
I am in no way, however, trying to discourage companies from paying the extreme price tags for Super Bowl ads if they can afford it, because they certainly do provide my entertainment throughout the game.
Sneezing, runny nose, scratchy throat – yes many of us know all too well the symptoms that correspond with acute viral rhinopharyngitis, or a “cold.” In fact, the common cold is indeed so common that it is the number one cause of lost work time (about 150 million workdays), followed closely by diarrhea – but that’s a remedy for another day. Of course there are several ways to avoid being stricken with the cold virus, and if you do happen to catch it, ways to make yourself better. And surprise – there’s a whole bunch of promotional products out there that can help you feel and get better too!
