Over the years we’ve been asked to provide advice on what makes a good show give-away.
The “give-away” provides the opportunity to present your brand. If the item has longevity after the event, then your brand remains in front of your prospect for many months to come.
There are factors to keep in mind of course.
- Be budget-aware – don’t spend all your budget on packets of branded mints.
- Something useful – we find something like a pen, or bottled water is far better received than a branded torch!
- Remember quality – this item reflects your brand, so if it is something tacky people can create a negative impression of you!
- Add a URL – amazing how many people put their logo onto product, and forget their URL
Let’s have a look at the most popular items and why!
- Breath Mints
Exhibitions are generally about communicating with people, and there is nothing worse than worrying whether you have fresh breath! Additionally a lot of shows are long and that requirement for a blast of sugar can often draw people to your stand! The packets usually have a good amount of space for logo and URL and, in some cases, a strap line.
*** Breath mint giveaways are cool.
- Phone Chargers
At exhibitions, wifi will be under stress from so many people tapping in to it, especially taking photos and sending tweets, it’s not unusual for a phone’s battery to be rinsed very quickly! A phone charger giveaway can be a life saver, but beware that despite this amazing positive, the negative is that they are likely to be much more expensive. Good position for the logo and URL on the plug itself and thus a long period of your brand being seen.
*** Phone chargers save lives.
- Headphones
Headphones – these aren’t a favourite give away for us, although they fall into the top 10 category. They have limited space for logos and contact information unless on the case (but this will be discarded soon after collection). They will carry a premium cost for a branded item and are easily lost (as we all know!).
*Headphones only score 1 star
- Tote Bags
We love a tote! Plenty of space for branding, plenty of choice of colours, fabrics and handles, always useful at a trade show even if just to put all the give aways in! Particularly useful in the current trend of paying for supermarket bags, so worth spending a bit more to create something really stylish and sturdy that will be kept and used long after the show!
***** We love a tote!
- Hand Sanitiser
A nice little give away as can be fragrant and good area for branding. Due to the dust in large exhibition halls, these little bottles always create a good impression. It says, we care about your health and the environment, and we care about you feeling comfortable. Whatever your product, that is a nice subliminal message to give someone.
**** Can’t fault a hand sanitiser
- Juice shots
We aren’t a fan of juice shots typically because unless very high quality they can lead to sticky sugary deposits being the only thing that is remembered by the prospect! Due to the requirement for pasteurisation, sugar content will be high and that isn’t always a good thing. You will need to print nutritional information onto the bottle as well as your logo. We’d steer clear.
*Juices aren’t a winner for us.
- Product Giveaways
What can you give away from your own product range. Obviously this is harder if a service organisation but perhaps you can give away a hints and tips guide, download a pdf onto a USB stick. If a product based company what can you give away that makes people remember you? A car company – perhaps could have miniature cars created with branding, or a key ring? A Marketing company could give away a beautiful branded soapstone messaged “only a stones throw from a new client”! Be clever and think creatively and this can be a great way of showing your wares!
**** We love Freemium Product give aways
- Reusable Water Bottle
Exhibition halls are dusty and people are talking a lot – therefore you can’t beat a good branded bottle of water. Plenty of space for a message on the label. They come in a number of funky styles depending on budget and with the catering companies, at the halls, charging a fortune for water, your stand will be very popular! We’d suggest going one further and having a clear drum that is also branded (and chilled) to have a ‘grab and go’ for visitors!
***** Top ranking by us for bottled water!
- Sweets/snacks
Similar to above, you can be at a show all day and feel really peckish. Often having bowl of sweets, or little packets of biscuits can be a winner. Due to the legislation on food for labelling there isn’t a lot of space for logos on the biscuits and of course sweets don’t give you the opportunity to brand. So much as we all love to see a bowl of sweets on the stands, don’t rely on this for embedding your brand and thinking the visitor will remember you.
*Sweets and biscuits aren’t for us.
- Lip Balm
Of course this is a lesser used product and small tubes of lip balm can certainly be well received. However we feel this is more aimed at females and predominantly could lead to people asking more about the lip balm than your product.
** Two stars for originality is the Lip Balm
Hope that you have found these comments useful and of course we are open to other suggestions as to what has worked for you as a give away! Our main advice is to stick within budget but be as creative as you can, remember always you are looking to keep your brand in front of them for as long as possible!