Promotional Products of the Century

by  John Kirkpatrick 
The Dallas Morning News

JOHN KIRKPATRICK, Staff Writer

Status comes cheap these days. Heck, sometimes it comes free.

If you've ever snagged a cushy-foam can holder bearing a company name, don't dismiss it as a dumb freebie. Treasure it. The same goes for all those gratis polo shirts emblazoned with corporate logos.

Those giveaways are among a quintet just honored as "Products of the Century" by the Irving-based Promotional Products Association International, the trade group for the suppliers and distributors of all manner of brand-building doodads.

In toasting those honorees at a black-tie Las Vegas dinner, the group spotlighted how nail clippers, coasters and key chains can add up to a $16.5 billion-a-year industry.

Freebies may end up moldering in a junk drawer somewhere, but their power as a marketing tool is clear. Even as the industry celebrates past glories such as the squishy plastic coin purse, it plows new ground with logo-wear undergarments and condoms.

These products are "definitely not afterthoughts" when companies plan ad campaigns, said Nowell Upham, director of Beyond DDB, a promotional division of ad agency DDB Dallas.

The hall-of-fame handout roster is familiar to businesses that buy them and the people who get them: Logo-bearing polo shirts. The combination holder/insulator for aluminum cans known as a "Koozie." Vinyl calendars. The Quikoin coin purse. And Post-it Notes.

Of course, no recognition was bestowed upon the industry's great disasters.

If the promotional products industry had a slate of "Worst Products of the Century," there'd be plenty of nominees.

One front-runner could well be a promotional campaign by, of all things, Consumer Reports. Last year, the safety-obsessed magazine sent new subscribers a promotional gift: a glove-compartment kit that included a flashlight and a tire-pressure gauge.

Several Consumer Reports readers complained that the flashlight overheated. In a few instances, the flashlight cases melted, and a couple of readers said they burned their hands. Adding to the magazine's embarrassment, the tire gauges sometimes performed inaccurately and could lead to improperly inflated tires.

Oops!

After inspecting the products in its own labs, Consumer Reports declared them potentially hazardous. The magazine worked with federal agencies on a voluntary recall.

Another "worst" could be bestowed upon an all-time favorite giveaway-ballpoint pens with logos. Free pens that are dead on arrival or work for only a few weeks are infamous, and they certainly create no good will for the sponsoring company.

Rotten pens "are a big issue," said Kathy Burke, owner of Above & Beyond Incentives, a promotional products distributor in Irving. Sometimes the ink dries up before the pens are given away, she said.

Past and present

Today's flashlights, pens and coffee mugs are heirs to a marketing tradition that dates to the 19th century, according to the Promotional Products Association International. The first known product used to promote a business: "an imprinted burlap schoolbook bag, back in the 1870s."

Although reported spending fell about 7 percent in 2001 compared with 2000, the trade group says, the industry has enjoyed a remarkable roll. Sales increased at least 10 percent a year from 1993 through 2000.

When American Airlines Inc. relaunched its Web site last year, freebies were considered an essential tactic. A Volkswagen Beetle was customized with wings and driven around the country to concerts and other public events.

Anyone drawn to the car - and lots of people were, Mr. Upham said - got the chance to enter a sweepstakes for the vehicle. The takers also received an airplane-shaped stress ball carrying the airline's Web site address.

The promotional stunt was a hit, Mr. Upham said, and it cost a mere fraction of the campaign's total marketing budget.

The more traditional freebies were lauded as "Products of the Century" by the promotional industry.

Consider the Quikoin coin purse, which made the list. Made of pliable plastic, the oval coin holder pops open when squeezed. It's easy to carry and has been around for about 50 years.

Sales are down to about 2 million a year - a fraction of earlier decades, said Mike Burns, the president of Quikey Manufacturing Inc. in Akron, Ohio, whose grandfather invented the rubbery coin holder.

But promoters have found new uses for the Quikoin that Mr. Burns' grandfather probably never considered. "They're being used as condom holders," Mr. Burns said.

Which brings up a fast-growing promotional item unheralded among the "Products of the Century."

Name-brand protection

Businesses are turning more and more to condoms with logos on the label. For the especially discreet audience, some condoms are tucked into what looks like a matchbook cover.

Last year, Global Protection Corp. produced about 5 million promotional condoms. Most were for corporations hunting for an inexpensive way to reach the young masses.

Computer companies are among the big condom customers. Along with a logo, those companies sometimes add a double entendre like "Stay virus-free," said Steve Mare, vice president of sales for Boston-based Global Protection.

In the late 1980s, condoms were a favorite giveaway for bars and radio stations.

Now they've been embraced by companies of wide renown, said Mr. Mare. One customer is Sweden's Volvo Car Corp.

As a tie-in to Volvo's reputation for protecting its passengers, the company bought and distributed condom matchbooks. "Open for safety," a small-print label urges. Inside are a condom and a big Volvo insignia.

"It was a funny spin on safety," said James Hope, a spokesman for Volvo Cars of North America. He said he wasn't sure if the condoms were given out in the United States, but they were distributed at a big German auto show a couple of years ago.

A condom with the bunny logo of Playboy Enterprises Inc. probably needs no explanation among its recipients. Less obvious is a link between prophylactics and, say, the regional airline American Eagle, which also turned to freebie condoms as a marketing device.

Time and again

Calendars are among the older promotional products, dating back to the 1800s. The promotional products industry knighted a somewhat contemporary version - the vinyl-backed press-and-stick calendar - as one of the century's best creations.

Easily affixed to a dashboard, a fridge or just about anything, the little calendars carry an ad with 12 pull-off months. They're functional, cheap and frequently seen - the triple-crown virtues of promotional products.

Still, they lack the staying power of some of their predecessors. Consider the racy Marilyn Monroe calendars that flew off the presses in the 1950s, arguably the best known of a genre of giveaway pinups once common on the walls of bait shops and service stations. Companies that affixed their names to those posters often got years of brand recognition.

The calendars' value now: "Several hundred dollars - minimum - for a good one from the early years," said Marilyn maven Gerri Cook. She owns Remember Marilyn, an online retailer in La Mesa, Calif.

Wearable publicity

For walking billboards, it's difficult to beat knit polo shirts with a corporate emblem, industry experts said. Classier than T-shirts, they're more likely to be worn in public than while cleaning an attic. Such qualities put them among the five "Products of the Century."

A large following, however, has developed for freebie apparel that covers another anatomical region.

Boxer shorts are hot. Even the most staid industries are handing them out, which explains why BP PLC, for example, would promote itself via men's underwear.

"When I first went into this business 15 years ago, I thought it would just be college groups," said Steve Danzig, owner of Image Boxers in Bloomington, Ind. He now sells to banks and insurance companies, and one investment firm purchased 100,000. "These are companies that I never thought would do boxer shorts."

Logos cover the boxer shorts, and the fanny side, predictably, sometimes carries a sophomoric slogan. Banks favor the likes of "Cover Your Assets," Mr. Danzig said. And a client that sells natural gas found an opportunity for crude humor.

Leaving a mark

On the low-cost side of promotional products, little sticky notes - formally known as Post-it Notes - are beloved. Ad-imprinted sticky notes have been showered upon the public, and they also made the promotional products list of classics.

Sticky notes can leave a commercial message anywhere the customer puts one - well, almost anywhere.

They don't stick to dirt or sand.

No problem. This industry seems to find a way to fill every void.

Enter Neet Feet, sandals with custom soles that leave an advertising imprint when worn on sand and other soft terrain. They come in a single size for women and another size for men. Neet Feet owner John Amsterdam counts among his clients Coca-Cola Co., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Minolta Co.

Since operations began in the early 1990s, sales at the company, based in Oceanside, Calif., have grown steadily, Mr. Amsterdam said.

When asked if he was miffed by not making the industry's "Products of the Century," Mr. Amsterdam replied: "No. Not at all."

After all, there's always the next time. A hundred years from now, the Promotional Products Association International is scheduled to issue a new list of "Products of the Century."

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