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.