"Promotional products feel pinch as firms cut back on freebies" by Dave Copeland, Globe Correspondent | September 24, 2008
There were, of course, the pens and coffee mugs emblazoned with company logos that are standard take-home fare for anyone who has attended an industry trade show or conference.
But the more than 300 exhibitors who set up booths at yesterday's New England Promotional Products Association client show at the Royal Plaza Trade Center in Marlborough didn't stop with the signature products. Manufacturers for the $20 billion US industry took it further, offering giveaway golf shoes monogrammed with company logos, $300 attaché cases (also with logos), engraved wine glasses, and breath mints, among a numbing array of items.
Promotional products, unlike other forms of advertising that may get chucked in a recycling bin or clicked past with the remote during a commercial break, stay with the user, Monahan said. Someone might wear a golf shirt several times, and a pen gets used until the ink runs out, he said, and that makes an impression on the user.
Yeah, a negative one in these quarters!
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