Among key findings, results indicate that:
Ad Specialty Items Owned (% of Respondents) | |
Specialty Item | % Ownership |
Writing instruments | 54% |
Shirts | 45 |
Caps | 31 |
Bags | 29 |
Glassware/ceramics | 23 |
Desk/office/business accessories | 17 |
Calendars | 17 |
Wearables | 4 |
Recognition jewelry | 3 |
Recognition awards | 3 |
Source: Advertising Specialty Institute, January 2009 |
81% of all promotional products were kept because they were considered useful.
Reason For Keeping Ad Specialty Item (% of Respondents, Multiple Response OK) | ||||
Ad Specialty | Useful | Attractive | Information Reference | Other |
Bags | 91% | 34% | 0% | 20% |
Writing instruments | 91 | 12 | 5 | 18 |
Wearables | 89 | 39 | 0 | 17 |
Glasswear/ceramics | 86 | 26 | 6 | 24 |
Desk/office/business accessories | 83 | 14 | 3 | 16 |
Calendars | 77 | 31 | 6 | 16 |
Caps | 76 | 37 | 1 | 32 |
Shirts | 74 | 39 | 1 | 33 |
Recognition jewelry | 31 | 38 | 0 | 54 |
Recognition awards | 23 | 15 | 0 | 69 |
Source: Advertising Specialty Institute, January 2009 |
Additional findings included:
Number of Impressions Per Month | |
Ad Specialty Item | Impressions/Month |
Bags | 1083 |
Caps | 476 |
Shirts | 365 |
Writing instruments | 363 |
Desk/office/business accessories | 294 |
Glassware/ceramics | 251 |
Calendars | 227 |
Recognition awards | 221 |
Other wearables | 64 |
Source: Advertising Specialty Institute, January 2009 |
Timothy M. Andrews, president and chief executive officer of the Advertising Specialty Institute, concludes that "... this research advises marketers and business owners to invest in advertising specialties now more than ever... Ad specialties provide measurable results for a... reasonable investment... (and) are gifts that break through the information clutter, reach consumers on a personal level, and provide real impact in a creative way."
Please visit ASI here for additional information and a link to the PDF file.
As a salesperson in the promotional marketing industry, I am thrilled to see the results of this most recent survey. Promotional merchandise continues to be the least expensive and most effective way to advertise. Please contact me for your promotional merchandise needs: www.boundlesscollection.com .
Everything does communicate. What makes this medium very efficient is its functionality.
Premiums just make sense. You are exposed to the brand or company time and time again. The key is giving away something practical that you are guaranteed the end user will care to keep. You'd be surprised how far you can take $1 or less; no need to spend much. With experienced advise you can create excellent campaigns with a creative giveaway guaranteed to make people smile and be greatful. www.topofmindpromotions.net
Promotional products are the quickest, easiest and least expensive way to put your brand out there. All business is dependent upon brand recognition, and personalized products with your corporate logo reaches a much wider audience than just the customer it is originally marketed to. Your product can be in circulation for years to come.
This is a very interesting study but the methodology looks extremely flawed.
For example, in working out the CPI for a cap, the total impressions are worked out as: worn 6 times per month, for on average 7.1 months and each time it is worn, an average of 79 people come into contact with it = 3360 inpressions for a single cap.
Using claimed recall for complex analysis like "on average how many people do you come into contact with each time you wear a cap" is going to have a huge error margin and from gut feel, I find it hard to believe that the average promotional cap is seen by 80 people every time it is worn.
Furthermore, the comparison of a single brand logo with a full commercial, especially audio-visual is very difficult as the impressions certainly aren't equal in terms of how powerful they are to evoke shift in behaviour. Your study is interesting in questioning respondents favor towards the companies providing promotional items, but they are only the single owner, not all of the exposed people you are measuring.
This is very interesting and good food for thought.