Featured Promotional Item Friday! Beer-flavored chapstick

I've seen a lot of bizarre promotional items during the almost 3 months I've been working in the industry: snuggle blankets, before-and-after holograms, jelly beans... people have found ways to put their logos on almost anything. And now, beer-flavored chapstick joins the list of "unique" promotional items.

Oskar Blues, the brewery that gave us Old Chub ale -- probably the best beer being served in a can -- has released Old Chub-flavored chapstick, which claims to be "the world's first beer-blessed lip balm." And it can be yours for only $3, about the same price as Burt's Bees. It's even SPF 15!

Taking stock of promotional items

As 2009 wraps up, you should be taking stock. Look around your office. What has changed in the past year? How have you gotten better at your job? How have you launched better marketing initiatives? How has your promotional items campaign changed? Has it become more sophisticated, or more targeted and simple? If your promotional items are the exact same as they were a year ago, is that because they are working? Or because you have been to complacent to adapt them? What are your hopes and goals for your company in the next year? And how will you implement those goals in every aspect of your company, including your promotional items?

Promotional items as rewards

Every month at Pinnacle we have sales goals accompanied by rewards if they are met. Usually the reward is a catered meal or party, but last month as a marketing department we decided to offer promotional items as rewards, custom blankets to be exact.

Promotional items act as great rewards because they are tangible and lasting. Who doesn't love getting a free gift? In the past we've also used promotional items to get people to engage with our brand. We sent out direct mailings announcing that customers could visit our website and enter a code to get a free gift. Products that are very inexpensive to our company act as significant motivators to customers and employees.

Use promotional items as incentives

When NPR was slugging through their quarterly fundraiser several weeks ago, they offered promotional items to entice would-be donors. Even though the promotional items were obviously worth less than the donation required to get them -- you got an NPR travel mug for donating something like $75, and an NPR iPod for giving $1000, I believe -- they were still effective incentives. I couldn't afford to give even $20, but the travel mug had me thinking maybe I could splurge. Of course it doesn't make sense to spend $75 on a mug I could easily find for $10, but if you've cultivated a desirable brand -- and NPR has -- your promotional items will make your brand champions follow their gut, not their head.

Promotional items lead to “pre-purchase transactions”

Seth Godin (sethgodin.typepad.com) had an interesting blog last weekend about “pre-purchase transactions.” Pre-purchase transactions, he says, are the first, second, and even third “dates” between your company and a consumer, before the relationship is consummated with a sale. For example, the customer gives you her time and attention to read an email blast. Transaction 1. She gives you the effort it takes to visit your website. Transaction 2. Then, finally, she purchases your product.

Promotional items do much of their work during this pre-purchase transaction period. Promotional items act as a gift from you to the consumer and give the customer a reason to give back… by visiting your website or signing up for your newsletter. How can you use promotional items in your marketing campaign to directly incite pre-purchase transactions?

Put the right logo on promotional items

What's the point of promotional items? To convey your brand. So you'd better make sure you have your brand figured out before you start slapping a logo on a thousand promotional items.

For starters, get a professional graphic designer to create your logo if you don't already have one. A good designer will talk with you about what you want your brand to communicate, then present to you a few different options as well as a visual explanation of his or her design process. The non-profit gallery I work with just finalized our logo, and we ended up having to change the name to suit the graphics. Be flexible.

Promotional items are a blank slate. You need the right visual message for them to work.

Keep it simple when it comes to promotional items

The great branders, designers, writers and chefs all have one thing in common: they keep it simple. Last week's episode of Glee showed us that hairography ("It's like cool epilepsy") is just lights and mirrors, and that sitting on stools and singing a pretty song is really where it's at.

So what does keeping it simple mean when it comes to promotional items? Well, sometimes people just want a free coozie, not a smorgasbord of kitschy promotional items in all the colors of the rainbow. You may love yellow and silver, but the simpler your color scheme and the simpler your logo, the more readable it will be on promotional items.

Promotional items on Facebook?

The New Oxford Dictionary recently declared "unfriend" to be the word of the year. Even as I am typing this, spell check is ironically underlining "unfriend" in red. Working in marketing, I hear a lot about how BIG and IMPORTANT Facebook is, and we as a company are trying to figure out how to make Facebook work in the promotional items business. Do we use Facebook to advertise deals on promotional items, throw contests, get contact information, or simply develop a community? Social media is uncharted territory for everyone, us included.

So how can Facebook work in the promotional items industry?

Promotional items for Animal Collective

We've been talking here about bands and record companies that use promotional items to sell albums. In this case, it's not the band selling promotional items but the graphic designers who created the album artwork. The A.V. Club reports that Seen Studio of Brooklyn is selling silkscreens of the artwork they did for Animal Collective's latest album, Animal Crack Box. The silkscreens are selling at top dollar -- $130 -- and are being promoted as collectors' items. The studio also designed a cassette tape for the Dirty Projectors' 2009 album, Bitte Orca. It remains to be seen whether the long-outdated cassette tape will be considered a promotional item.

Listen with promotional items

Last week my favorite culture blog, the A.V. Club, published a list of “Music to work by.” Tasha Robinson recommends non-English singing bands like Sigur Ros, so the lyrics don’t interfere with whatever emails you’re reading or the text you’re editing. Leonard Pierce recommends post-war jazz to listen to while writing, and for more repetitive tasks Claire Zulkey recommends podcasts. A large portion of the workforce uses music to enliven their cubicles and zone them in on the tasks at hand. Promotional items that help out with cubicle listening make great gifts to employees, whether during the holidays, on their starting date, or during recruitment. Noise-canceling headphones and iPod docks are useful promotional items with a high-perceived value at a low cost. Is it time for your promotional items to get a tune-up?

Promotional items should always communicate

Today I noticed a new sign in the women’s bathroom at my workplace. Written on a paper towel and taped to the side of a large trashcan was written in permanent ink: “Ladies, paper towels go here!” It was even positioned on the trashcan in such a way that it was in direct sight of someone sitting on the toilet. We’ve been having problems with the smaller trashcan overflowing for weeks, so I was glad we now had a solution. And I admired the clarity of whoever created the sign. Promotional items should communicate just as clearly about your brand. It’s not enough to buy promotional items, give them away, and hope people use your business. You need to decide the exact message you want your promotional items to convey.

Promotional items tell stories

A friend of mine who does a lot of shopping on Craigslist mentioned that he likes to buy items that have a story behind them. He wants to hear why something is for sale… is the person moving in with someone? Did their daughter just leave for college? It’s important to tell stories around the promotional items we’re selling. Stories endow objects with meaning and place them in context. When using promotional items to market your business, spend some time brainstorming about what story those promotional items tell. Do your travel mugs say your company helps the busy person on the move?

Promotional items for the Less Than Jake fan

As you can see, I’m on a roll talking about how the entertainment industry is using promotional items to increase revenue from CD and DVD sales. For our third case study, let’s look at Less Than Jake cereal boxes. Themusicproduct.net -- a blog that appears sadly defunct -- directed me to these promotional items. In 2002 the band used these “cereal boxes” to package re-releases of their first four 7” records, along with promotional items like t-shirts and bobble-heads. As we’re beginning to see, Less Than Jake was ahead of its time. I wonder if, in those first few years of digital downloads, Less Than Jake could already see the future of music consumption.

Twilight promotional items

My coworker Kim blogged about Twilight promotional items today, and I can’t help but put in my two cents. As we’ve seen with Weezer and Where the Wild Things Are (below), music and film producers are desperate to sell promotional items to market the albums or films themselves, but also to collect additional revenue. It’s so hard these days to make money from box office tickets and DVD sales alone, and the higher the budget of the film, the more money the studios have to glean. From “Team Edgar” and “Team Jacob” stainless steel water bottles to “I Heart Sparkly Vampires” t-shirts, Twilight and its sponsors are going all-out with promotional items for the release of New Moon.

Promotional items go viral: the Wuggie

Weezer’s latest stunt with the Weezer Snuggie is proving that promotional items can go viral as well as videos. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Weezer recently introduced the Wuggie, or promotional Snuggie with the Weezer logo on it, to promote their new album. If you buy the Wuggie (it’s something like $50), you get the album Raditude for free. I.e., they are bundling the CD with a promotional item to give customers an incentive to pay money for something they could download for less, or for free. The promotion has been picked up by news sources everywhere, and in my opinion it won’t be long until almost every album release comes packaged with novelty promotional items.

Promotional items that talk: Wonderfalls

Ever seen the show Wonderfalls? It’s about a bunch of promotional items at a tourist shop in Niagara Falls -- a lion statuette, stuffed iguana, etc. -- that start talking to a 24-year-old clerk, telling her to do things. She can’t help but listen to these animate promotional items. Sometimes she does what they say; usually she argues with them. But they always seem to know something she doesn’t, and even though they may take her down stray paths, their directions usually lead to something good. The show oddly demonstrates the power of promotional products. What are your promotional items saying?

Promotional items for new branding

Promotional items can be enormously helpful during a branding process. If you are introducing a new brand, a great way to make customers aware of your brand is by holding a launch event. While passing out giveaways offers future customers a piece of your brand they can take with them, the most important promotional items are signs and banners, which communicate your brand to everyone who passes by. A new restaurant opened near my house recently. They strung a banner up announcing their arrival, and a week before the restaurant opened I was already craving tacos. Signs have been around a long time, but don’t underestimate them as one of the most powerful kinds of promotional items.

Promotional items to celebrate Thanksgiving

How will your office use promotional items to celebrate Thanksgiving this month? My workplace is having a potluck Thanksgiving lunch early next week. It should be a fun way to come together as a community and celebrate over food, and it won’t cost the company anything. Potlucks have a bit more character than catered meals, too, since everyone in the office gets to show off their culinary skills and share their family traditions. How will we use promotional items at this event? Glassware, picnic items and bucket coolers are a few promotional items that facilitate a potluck. How will your workplace observe the holiday?

Promotional items for Friday the 13th

Tradition has it that Friday the 13th is a day of luck, whether bad or good. Have a celebration tonight where you use promotional items to test your luck. Gambling games like poker sets and mini roulette tables are some risky promotional items. Hand your choices for the evening to fate by using decision dice -- “Go for it, No way, Ask later.” After exhausting your promotional items, hunker down indoors and get duly creeped by watching Friday the 13th movies. If you watch all twelve I’ll give you a dollar. If you watch thirteen, well, this really will be a supernatural event.

Where the Wild Things Are promotional items

Have you seen all the Wild Things promotional items in Urban Outfitters the past few months? The store has everything from t-shirts to pillows with Max and the wild things imprinted/embroidered on them. I know the movie was targeted to hipsters in some part (it is a Dave Eggers screenplay after all), but the promotional items are really over the top. I’ve been reading lately about how Disney and Universal both sacked their top guys for marketing people who could expand the reach of movies by selling promotional items for profit alongside box office and DVD revenue. Harry Potter and Twilight are no-brainers for developing swag lines, but I wonder if this trend means we’ll never again see a non-franchised movie.

My favorite a.m. promotional items

Mornings at the office are an interesting time, because they’re a blank slate. The moment you walk through the door nothing has happened yet; the day could go either way, and those first defining moments will have a big impact on your mood for the rest of the workday. Here are two promotional items that make my day more positive:

- coffee mugs. Sipping coffee at my desk in the morning as I check my email and RSS makes me feel both relaxed and invincible.
- Sharpie markers. Every morning I tally new leads with my promotional Sharpie, a tool that makes everything I write seem important.

More of my favorite promotional items to follow this week. What promotional items put you in a good mood?

Promotional items make you want to dance

Whether jazz, ballet, hip hop, modern or club, dance is a great avenue for both exercise and self-expression. Consider giving promotional items like athletic pants and bags as gifts to dancers. Or, sponsor a dance performance and give away promotional items to market the event. Throw a company get-together and invite a professional to teach square dancing or contra -- something fun and unintimidating that will get even stuffy Tom in accounts to move his two left feet. Dance has a remarkable power to make people laugh and bring them together. So take advantage of dance by working it into your promotional items.

Tear down the wall with promotional items

Use promotional items to celebrate a free society. Today marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. On November 9, 1989, the East German government finally allowed citizens of the Soviet-occupied German Democratic Republic to visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of people crossed over the Berlin Wall in celebration and began chipping away at it. Celebrate the destruction of the wall with promotional items like tools. Today Berlin is a unified, democratic city. Show support for our neighbors to the east as John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan did, and celebrate today with promotional items that say, “Ich bin ein Berliner!”

Promotional items for a sunny fall weekend

Now that Daylight Savings Time has ended, use promotional items to enjoy the sunlight while you can. Wake early on Saturday to an alarm clock, don your cap and sunglasses, and head out for walk or picnic. If you’re feeling lazy, set up a chair outdoors and read under the sun. Or do like I do, and open the porch door to let a breeze in while you lay about on the couch. Promotional items like neon sunglasses are super trendy, and can almost convince you that summer’s still hanging around. What other promotional items keep the approaching winter at the back of your mind?

Promotional items for the voting booths

As local elections around the country today face runoffs between candidates, look back upon the history of promotional items in political campaigns. The first promotional items were used in the United States’ 1789 presidential election of George Washington, when commemorative buttons marked his inauguration. Candidates continue to use buttons, stickers, yard signs and all manner of promotional items to develop their brand. And yes -- a candidate is more than the individual running for election. A candidate is a strategic, created brand, as David Plouffe, campaign manager for Barack Obama’s presidential election and author of The Audacity To Win, must know well. His book came out this week.

Go car-free with promotional items

You can use promotional items to stage a green event at your company. It’s been exactly 36 years since the Netherlands held the first Car-Free Sunday during the 1973 oil crisis, a day when the highways saw only bicycles and roller skates. In order to promote sustainable energy and market your brand as environmentally conscious, consider holding a company-wide car-free day. Help employees prepare for the day by giving them promotional items to ease their commute like backpacks and water bottles. Use recycled and reusable promotional items to promote the event publicly. Educate employees about alternative commuting options such as public transit, bicycling and walking, and help them choose the most convenient option.

Promotional items that prevent swine flu

The nation’s current vaccination campaign against H1N1 is the largest against flu in history, but the government announced Saturday that there wouldn’t be as many doses available as they predicted. If you are one of the millions holding off on vaccination, whether because of availability or personal choice, make sure to take preventative measures against the flu this season by offering hygienic promotional items to your employees, like hand sanitizer and antibacterial wet wipes. Supplement your promotional items with information about Vitamin C and building a healthy immune system, and stock the bathrooms with soap to encourage frequent hand washing.

Monday Morning Promotional Items

Nobody likes Monday morning, but certain small pleasantries can alleviate back-to-the-grindstone malaise. Use your company’s promotional items to encourage employees. Returning to the office after the weekend to find a new coffee mug waiting may get someone through the morning, smiling instead of sighing. If employees have the tools they need to get their work done -- calculators, pens, notebooks and staplers -- they are more likely to stay happy and positive, spared the minor irritation of having to run around the office looking for a pair of scissors. Promotional items are the little things that can improve someone’s day.

Promotional Items Celebrate Radio

Use promotional items to celebrate the history of radio. On October 30th, 1938, Orson Welles famously broadcast his radio adaptation of H. G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds. The story about Martians invading the earth was presented without commercials as a series of live news bulletins and terrified audiences. The public was outraged the next day at what they deemed cruel deception. The Radio Project, a social research project founded to investigate the effects of mass media, estimated that 25% of people who heard the original broadcast of The War of the Worlds had believed it was real. Radio spawned the mass media that we know today. Recall the glory days of radio with FM promotional items, and display the ongoing technology of radio with promotional items that play FM stations in the shower or count your steps as you run in the morning.

Mile-High Promotional Items

Promotional items help you fly more smoothly. Today marks the one-year anniversary since Delta Airlines merged with Northwest Airlines, creating the world’s largest airline. Delta’s largest hub is at Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta, Georgia, the world’s busiest airport both in terms of flights (over 900,000) and passengers (90,000,000). In 2008 Delta flew over half of all Hartsfield-Jackson passengers. Businesspeople travel by plane every week, month or year for their jobs, and many promotional items are designed for the comfort and convenience of air travel. Luggage tags, power adapters, ear plugs and blindfolds are some promotional items that help make your clients’ and employees’ flights anxiety-free.

Promotional Items for Recession Living

A time of economic recession doesn’t mean you can’t afford promotional items; it just means you have to look at them a bit differently. Today is the anniversary of Black Monday -- October 29th, 1929 -- the third day of the Wall Street crash that precipitated the Great Depression. Eighty years later, our country is once again experiencing depressed consumer spending and high unemployment. Many companies are taking the opportunity to turn the negative into a positive. JWT and other ad agencies have identified “thrifty living” as 2009’s trend. Businesses are staying relevant to consumers by branding themselves as practical money-savers, and promotional items have joined the movement. Promotional items made of recycled materials, reusable tote bags, and discounted holiday gifts echo this year’s rallying cry of “Less is more.”

Promotional Items for Your Commute

Messenger bags aren’t the only promotional items that are designed to make your commute less stressful. Travel mugs, briefcases and keychains help organize your daily travel. On this day in 1904, the first underground New York City subway opened, launching an underground transit system that would become the biggest in the United States. In 2008, the New York City subway delivered over 1.6 billion rides, with an average of over five million on weekdays. What does your commute look like in the morning, and how can promotional items help? How can you endear your company to commuters by making your promotional items part of their morning routine?

Promotional Items for Your Pony Express

Promotional items are designed for the professional on the go. On this day in 1861, the Pony Express officially ceased operations. Before the telegraph, the Pony Express was the fastest and most direct means of communication between east and west in the United States. Now all we have to do is pick up a phone to communicate across the country, but business professionals continue to travel every day, whether it be to Hong Kong or the subway, with their promotional items in tow. The messenger bag is one of many promotional items that teachers, graphic designers, and CEOs all need. As you hop on your horse and rear up to cross the plains, strap on your messenger bag with everything you’ll need for the journey.

Promotional Items from Old Eire

Make your office a little greener with potted plant promotional items. Today marks the 368th anniversary of the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641. What began as a coup d’etat developed into the Irish Confederate Wars, which consisted of ongoing civilian violence at the local level between Irish Catholics and Scottish and English Protestant settlers. Although the Irish Catholic upper class gained temporary control over the country, the conflict -- embodying social, religious, and economic differences -- continues today. Promotional items like Office Dirt and Turf ‘n Tin bring the beautiful Irish countryside into your office. Green grass promotional items take employees out of their doldrums and remind them of a time and place beyond the cubicle.

Escape the Digital with Promotional Items

Today marks the 134th anniversary of the first telegraphic connection in Argentina. 14 years earlier in Rochester, New York, Western Union was founded as a telegraph company. Western Union dominated the telegraph industry until 2006, when it announced that due to competition from email, the company would discontinue its telegram service. In an age of digitized communication, take a day to lay off the Blackberry and pick up a pen and paper. I’m sure you can find some promotional items for the written word at your workplace: daily planners, journals, padfolios, and pens. As technology improves at an exponential rate and electronic communications fill our lives, sometimes you just need a break with old-fashioned promotional items STOP

Promotional Items Help You Write It Down

Promotional items enable your staff’s light bulb moments. What would any company be without its big ideas? Southwest Airlines, “Louie, Louie,” Harry Potter and The Gettysburg address all originated on scratch paper. Think of how many ideas go through the washing machine or never get written down at all. Make sure the brilliant minds at your company aren’t inhibited by circumstance; give them every opportunity to plant their bright ideas in pocket-sized notebooks, post-its and other office promotional items. Overwhelm them with pens so that they have one on them at all times. Promotional items are the little things that enable the big ideas.

What Role do Promotional Items Play in a Brand?

There’s no question that promotional items are key to establishing a brand, but what is their precise influence? “Brand” is a hot-button word right now, but it’s easier to use the term than it is to define it. Brandtags.net is helping to elucidate the problem by collecting an inventory of consumers’ gut feelings about companies. The site presents you with a name -- State Farm, Nivea, etc. -- and asks you to type the first word that comes to mind. The site then shows you what tags other users have provided, and with what frequency. Check it out and see if you can pinpoint how and where promotional items have influenced these automatic responses, or, if the brand seems to be suffering -- “History Channel: boring,” for example -- how promotional items can redirect a company’s identity.

Promotional Items for College Football

On October 19th, 1873 Yale, Princeton, Rutgers and Columbia Universities drafted the first code of rules for American football, a sport that currently generates millions of dollars in sales for promotional items each year. Intercollegiate games were beginning around that time, and schools discovered that they needed established rules when they played against other teams. Tufts defeated Harvard 1-0 in a historic game in 1874, and Harvard and Yale began their rivalry in 1875. In Fall 2009, college football is an enormous buyer of promotional items. Pennant flags, apparel, blankets, and anything else you can think of are sold as promotional items to the fans who love to come out on a cold day and go crazy for their team.

Inspire Terror with Bloodthirsty Promotional Items

On this date in 1793, Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, was beheaded (four years after the first known promotional items were introduced in the United States) by the Reign of Terror. During la Terreur, Robespierre and others had as many as 40,000 “enemies of the revolution” executed in an effort to purge France of political dissent and establish a virtuous, secular state, free from the oppression of royalty. Of course, their paranoia led to even greater bloodshed and tyranny than under monarchy. Robespierre was eventually overthrown by a conspiracy and held in the same containment center as Marie Antoinette before meeting his fate at the guillotine. What does the French Revolution have to do with promotional items? Not much. But razored letter slitters look an awful lot like mini guillotines if you’re looking for a promotional item that appeals to your morbid side:

Promotional Items to Ally with the Red Cross

First aid promotional items empower office workers to become heroes. On October 15th, 1914, the International Committee of the Red Cross established its Prisoners-of-War Agency to provide relief to POWs during the First World War. Due to the agency’s international correspondence and intervention, 200,000 POWs were released to their home countries. Today the American Red Cross partners with companies and advocates preparedness. Workplaces can ally with the Red Cross and join its efforts by offering incentives to employees to get trained in first aid and by keeping on hand promotional items like bandages and first aid kits. Who says promotional items can’t save lives?

Promotional Items for Winnie-the Pooh’s-Birthday

A fun way to introduce promotional items is by organizing them around a holiday, even if that holiday is minor and perhaps a bit silly. Today, try celebrating Winnie-the-Pooh’s birthday with promotional items. On this date in 1926, A. A. Milne’s children’s book Winnie-the-Pooh was published by the English publisher Methuen. Winnie-the-Pooh had made his debut on Christmas Eve the previous year, when the London newspaper The Evening News published Milne’s first chapter. Since Milne named Winnie-the-Pooh after his son’s teddy bear, stuffed bears would make great promotional items for this special holiday.

Every College Student’s Favorite Promotional Item

This morning as I stepped out my front door for an early-morning jog, I thought of the quintessential promotional item that almost everyone I know has shoved somewhere in their closet or bureau: the college sweatshirt. During my four years of undergraduate education, I passed dozens of students every day wearing the college uniform of jeans and school sweatshirt, and this at a school with no football team. Even students who bought no other promotional items threw down fifty bucks or more for the hooded sweatshirt with embroidered lettering. As soon as temperatures dropped below 70 the sweatshirts went on, and stayed on until May. After graduation, students will continue to wear this promotional item for years, and even decades. Tomorrow morning I’ll don mine.

Discover Promotional Items for Federal Employees

Did you know the United States government is among the top-ten buyers of promotional items? As government employees enjoy the day off work today, tomorrow would be a good time to welcome them back with a small promotional item for their desk, like a letter opener or calculator. Columbus Day celebrates Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas, which occurred on October 12th, 1492, and has been a federal holiday since 1934, under the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Oddly enough, Thanksgiving in Canada also falls on the second Monday in October, making this week an even better opportunity to show gratitude to government employees with promotional items.

Promotional Items for the Fall Season

The days are getting shorter, the air is growing crisper, and all the outdoor promotional items you bought for the summer months are being stored away in the garage. Now is a good time to reevaluate your promotional items and update them for the new season.

If you bought outdoor promotional items for the summer like lawn chairs and stadium seats, consider accompanying them with customized blankets to get cozy at football games or outdoor fall concerts.

For wearable promotional items, you may want to opt for warm caps, turtlenecks, sweater vests and cardigans rather than short sleeved polos and t-shirts.

Your customers and employees will be spending more time indoors with the weather changing, so consider promotional items for the home, like candles and drinkware.

With classes underway and football season starting, promotional items for schools and universities are in the limelight: Pennants, flags, rally towels, apparel -- anything you could possibly put a school logo on is piling onto the shelves of campus bookstores, not to mention academic-related promotional items like folders, notebooks, and even padfolios for students to bring to career fairs and interviews. Incoming freshmen are excited to be at college for the first time, and eager to shell out hard-earned money for that hooded sweatshirt with their new school logo that will become their daily uniform for college classes.

These are just a few ideas for your fall-related promotional needs, whether corporate, collegiate, or of some other industry altogether. Good luck getting creative and adapting your promotional products to the new season.