Lessons learned from bringing promotional sweets to a conference
shkspr.mobi
shkspr.mobi
> My friend Ken worked for what was then a first-tier Japanese hifi company. At the time -- it was the eighties -- companies exhibiting at CES gave shit away. Shirts, pens, calculators... you know: trade show crap. Rather than have his giveaway get lost in that sea of crap, my friend decided to give out pocket-sized mirrors, each encased in a blue silicon sleeve emblazoned with the company logo. His Japanese masters said "Ken-san, why you give away small mirror. We don't understand." And Ken-san said "trust me, they'll love it." And they did, because a) it was the eighties, and 2) while some preparatory activities are best done on a cardboard record jacket, others require an unyielding surface. I should add that the notion of including a single-edge razor blade in the package crossed his mind, but was rejected as being too on-the-nose.
But perhaps the swag that has had the most staying power is stuff I could bring home for my kids to play with. I've gotten company-branded balls, puzzles, figurines, and other toys, and not only do they make a good "Guess what I brought home for you" surprise, but they sit around the house for ages, so you get a lot of exposure to their logos.
One thing I've never gotten as swag, but could see being a good ROI, would be a children's picture book, with a "Compliments of [Brand Name]" on it. With my kids, they would request that I read the same book to them 50+ times, so that's 50+ exposures to the brand.
On top of that, some children's shows are clearly tailored to push toys and all kinds of things, hoping to create a feedback loop of demand for swag-adjacent gear.
Streetwear is weird
Nike? No, iPad? No, Lego? No, Not sure what the other things are.
Branded Lego is probably the most durable chotchki you’re going to find.
(Now it's kind of boring because they sell them online, before those were exceptionally rare as they were basically only sold directly to Maersk.)
2) Some of us in fact do avoid wearing logos. Nicer (and not even that nice, necessarily) clothes, bags, shoes, et c. tend not to have them, or at least make them very small. Logos for something other than the company that made the item would be even worse. Large logos and legible clothing more generally signal things I’d prefer not to signal, so… I don’t. Freebies in that category get worn around the house or as a base layer.
That's me
Years later, I was working as a nurse on a medical floor. I had a realization that I was filling out an IV med label for Avelox with an Avelox-branded pen.
Those slogans are now going to be stuck in my brain forever, so I've got to hand it to them (no one realised it did this before they got it).
Naturally, being who I am, I took it upon myself to swap the circuit boards around among the magnets. Apparently this caused some distress a couple days later when my nephew discovered that the frog now made horse noises.
We did not give our wedding guests the opportunity to object to our union.
TL;DR: it sounds like you have an opportunity on your hands!
1. other people may not feel the same way about the material
2. somebody else one or two sizes smaller might be able to make routine use of it with some other garment underneath
3. somebody else might feel it's fine for emergency use or painting and decorating or whatever
4. could come in handy for use with an animal
On the other hand, in a sense many of them are, except instead of gunpoint it's economics that mean their clothing choices have a hard dollar limit on them - and at the end of the day, it's better to have a subpar t-shirt than no t-shirt at all.
So I don't think anyone is being hurt here. At worst, the person you're replying to could have done better by donating the shirts to a charity that doesn't sell the clothing, but gives it away.
Anyway, I hope you made yourself feel good with your comment, even if you didn't do any good.
(Or "One man's trash is another man's treasure").
My favorite t-shirt to this day is a Chef t-shirt I got at a conference.
There are a variety of mid-level T-shirt brands (such as BELLA+CANVAS) that feel so much softer against the skin, no irritating seams, stand up to repeated washings, and are lighter-weight, meaning you can wear them as-is in the summer months, or under something else in the winter months, and it feels comfortable either way.
At the time, I thought BELLA+CANVAS only sold wholesale, but I now see a retail section on their website!
I really like the comfort colors heavyweight ones personally - this seems to be the one in my order history. They are plenty soft once you wash them especially if you run a few cycles with some fabric softener. The price isn't amazing right now (my history says $6.50-8 is more typical) but the site ships fast and doesn't care if you're commercial or don't want logos etc.
https://www.jiffyshirts.com/comfortcolors-C1717.html?ac=Whit...
I used to get others but most of them are too scratchy or bad in some other way. I used to still get them "because they're free" but what's the point if I never wear them? I do have some extra large but scratchy shirts that are tolerable to wear.
I have a really good Datadog shirt that's not Bella+Canvas.
We're all digital serfs anyway, enslaved by subscriptions and work for hire - might as well get something back for it.
I've also brought home so much garbage, that was fun to play with for a couple minutes but either broke or had no lasting interest. If you're in charge of choosing swag, please think about whether it has any lasting value. It does say something about your company's values and follow-through.
American Express had brought a limited supply of fidget spinners, and they were in extremely high demand. I was unable to secure one of my own.
PayPal had the best cache of stuff. They had this earphone holder that was designed like a fishbone. You were supposed to wrap the cord around the "ribs". Then I also picked up a shirt that said on the back "report phishing attempts to phishing@paypal.com".
I wore the shirt in public and a woman accosted me at a bus stop. She asked me if I worked for PayPal, which I denied. Then she told me anyway about some dispute she had. I decided to stop wearing the shirt and other swag that wasn't directly related to me.
I got a Datadog t-shirt in 2016. Amazing quality. I have never worn it; it is my wife's favorite pajama shirt. She says the dog is cute.
...Dang maybe this is actually the master plan, though. I've seen datadog's logo like 50% of nights for the last 8 years.
I did get some funny looks asking for a (women's) small instead of large, but gotta bring home the goods.
more on topic though. You know the there are branded children's book right?
Example: https://www.amazon.com/Ms-Brand-Counting-Book/dp/0881068543
I get that others like them, it's just not for me.
I don't know the story behind this or how many were actually printed, but Microsoft seems to have tried it:
Anyway: for the first two weeks it starts with eating only potatoes. No butter, no sour cream, no fat. Then other foods get added in.
Here's the giveaway part: he would go to show business parties and say to people, "Would you like a potato?" He claims a lot of people would say, "A potato? Sure!"
https://www.amazon.com/Presto-Pounds-Disappear-Other-Magical...
I'm in the southern hemisphere and in general I love summer, but those potatoes are a thing of joy.
2. Calorie counting is pretty dangerous if you have any binge eating background. It tends to make you go into binge eating episodes more often.
3. Their advice basically boils down to "eat less" - I mean no shit, thats been pretty uncontested by any sane person for a long time now! The question is how! How does one overcome their mental barriers and actually achieve it? There's literally no single good advice - different diets work for different people and for some none work. the only bet is to try as many diets as possible to see what suits your mind and schedule.
4. Justifying yourself into any amount of alcohol is in general a bad idea for dieting, and this dude didnt even give up on beer at that!
If this diet worked for him, good for him. I wish him the best to keep it off. But doesnt mean this works for everyone or even most people.
To reiterate, its almost always your own mind that keeps you from your goal weight, because there's an internal set point weight your body has decided for you and it will always try to move you to this goal weight. This is why most people go back to their original size after a year or so of losing massive amounts of weight (including me).
This is where ozempic and these new class of drugs seem to play some magic. I'm not on it and don't plan on going on it, but thats because I'm only marginally overweight and don't need to complicate with its potential side effects yet. Hopefully I can will myself with my current diet plan and get to my goal (current diet is basically also just try and eat less, but also cut out all sugar; seems to work well for me). But if you're clinically obese, and can afford it, ozempic seems to be a great way to go about this. Our perception of why we gain weight has changed drastically and there's no shame in looking for a pharmaceutical out from this issue.
This is not my experience, or that of my friends. While exercise is great for many reasons, some people's bodies react to exercise differently. For example, if I go running then I end up eating much more, which negates the calories expended. I have lost weight quite successfully (and not looked ghastly in the least) by IF and reducing caloric intake generally. During that time I did exercise (mostly long walks), but I did not increase my exercise over my prior baseline.
Really anything that is handy for business travelers is going to land well with a lot of people at conferences.
Otherwise, stress balls and bouncy balls are always a hit to bring home and give to the kids.
I used to take these but no longer do, since I don’t want to risk any shenanigans anywhere in the supply chain.
It was by far the oddest giveaway at that conference. The 13th pen just doesn't yield any reaction at all. The tongues were a bit of a conversation starter.
Unfortunately no manufacturer information other than Sony on it. :(
Thinking about the use of sweets at conferences, I'd assume they are most effective at the end of a conversation.
Eating a sugary sweet might just trigger a small release of dopamine, creating a psychological association that paints the interaction – and by extension, the person involved – in a positive light.
No idea if there is any truth to this, but could be the reason some services leave sweets in a bowl at reception sometimes?
Last year our creative pick was hot sauce [1]. We bring hot sauces into there office to share with coworkers and I got the idea into my head to bring that same thing to conferences.
Typical tech-guy reaction! xD
I think the obvious lesson is: Just grab any bag of sweets and go for a chat.
You say it yourself:
It can be a bit intimidating to go up to strangers and say "TALK TO ME". But saying "Hello! Would you care for a sweet?" is a socially acceptable ice-breaker.
The printing didn't matter.
I kind of still wish I could get more. I searched everything I could find on the bottle to figure out who actually made it. No luck.
My favorite swag was an Intel spaceman/clean suit guy doll - but he's stuffed in a box in the shed somewhere.
I had a really nice Timbuk2 laptop backpack with some big corp's logo on it. Super functional and well made bag but I never used it because I don't like wearing/displaying logos in general.
I admit I have so much merchandise from over the years from my company and others. I've dumped a lot but some I really like and use regularly.
I have a roll of gaffer tape - covers the logos. It is unironically almost a brand of its own now
I also had a zip-up sweater I really liked, but wasn't in to the brand, so I sewed another embroidered patch over the branding.
If you are organizing a booth, consider salty or savory options (popcorn!).
Plus, if you've got a popcorn maker, the smell will draw people to your booth.