Candy is always a hit at trade shows. While delicious, standard store-bought, pre-wrapped candy giveaways do nothing to reinforce your brand.

That’s where these sweet treats come in.

The personalized Tasty Bites Gourmet Jelly Beans can be packaged with your logo AND in your logo colors.

That means if you have a green and red logo (as in the example shown above), your promotional candy packs can be filled with only green and red jelly beans.

If you are looking for a creative way to use these promotional products to grab even more attention, ask trade show attendees a trivia question. Or, invite attendees to an hourly demo, during which you take questions from the group. With each answer or question, toss a brightly colored package of candy. That’s a simple way to get people talking about your brand and your giveaway.

-Suzanne

Here’s a new product we’ve just recently rolled out, the Paws ‘n Claws Sportpack.

These animal-style drawstring backpacks are available in wide range of animal styles – pigs, ducks, penguins, lions, elephants, cats and more.

They complement our existing line of sports-themed drawstring backpacks, adding a fresh set of fur and feather faces to the product line.

There are so many different ways you can use these. Here are just a few ideas:

• If your middle or high school has an animal mascot, these backpacks would be a great way to build school pride. (Imagine a couple hundred kids walking down the street wearing one of these!)
• Likewise an orthodontist’s office could pack these with giveaways like toothpaste and toothbrushes and give them to tween and teen patients getting braces.
• Libraries could use these promotional products to launch a teen reading program.

What other ideas do you have?
-Suzanne

Valentine’s Day is considered one of the biggest gift-giving holidays of the year.  This romantic holiday doesn’t have to only be for lovers.  As a business, use this day as a unique way to show your customers and associates you care!  The following ideas will help create buzz about your company, put smiles on many faces, and won’t break the bank.  It’s time to take full advantage of the promotional possibilities Valentine’s Day offers!

• Let your customers think of you every time they cook!  Give out a Plant-A-Shape Herb Garden Bookmark in the shape of a heart to all prospective and current clients.  All they have to do is plant the heart and watch the herb varieties: basil, chive, & parsley, grow!  This giveaway is also a great way to communicate a positive environmental message.

• Get the conversation started with Conversation Hearts Holiday Value Lip Balm!  With a sweet and amusing background for your logo, this is a small and simple giveaway with several flavors and colors to choose from.

• Don’t forget your playful side!  Pull at the heart strings with the Heart-Shaped Spring Toy.  This playful item is perfect child care centers, schools, fundraising events.  This classic toy can also provide a healthy distraction at the office from stressful daily tasks.

• Think promotional longevity while satisfying a sweet tooth with Chocolate Hearts Tin!  A polished silver tone tin shimmers behind your logo.  While the tin comes full of delicious milk chocolate hearts, when the treats are gone, the recipient can use it for storage of desktop accessories, nuts and bolts, jewelry or other small items.  A win-win!

4imprint offers many Valentine’s Day items that will pull at the heart-strings this February.  Don’t miss this opportunity to tell your clients & associates how you feel.  They will be sure to take your message to heart!

The quintessentially British ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ phrase seems to be popping up everywhere: posters, plaques, home décor, tea tins, greeting cards and more.

The slogan has also attracted some variations, like 4imprint UK’s tongue-in-cheek ‘Keep Calm and Carry On … Shopping’ promotional totes and Keep Calm Drink Tea mugs.

The fact you can append it with a clever ending is just one reason it’s so popular. The heritage theme is also appealing because it is so clearly of a different era but and yet timeless in its message.

Thames & Hudson has unearthed more of these vintage gems in a new book called Fit Men Wanted. The volume draws its clever title from the ‘Every Fit Man Wanted’ recruitment poster. Among the other vintage posters highlighted in the book:

‘Beer – A Necessity to the Strength of Britain’
‘Victory is in the Kitchen’
‘Women Versus the Submarine’

The book draws its material from The Imperial War Museums’ repository of more than 30,000 posters developed during the first and second world wars. Now, you can browse some of these and learn the stories behind them with the Great British Posters from the Second World War, Volume 1 iPhone® or iPad® app, from The Imperial War Museums.

These posters are popular here in the US, as well. (Rosie the Riveter may well be the best-known image.) Design for Victory: World War II Posters on the American Home Front showcases 150 World War II-era posters from the US Office of War Information that called on Americans to step up and do their part at home, using colorful and includes classic slogans like:

‘Remember Pearl Harbor – purl harder!’
‘When You Ride Alone You Ride with Hitler’
‘This is American … Keep It Free’

Which one is your favorite?

- Suzanne

PS – Of course, if you’d like to adapt the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ message on your promotional products, we will happily create something for you.

I’m delighted to introduce the Malia Travel Tumbler, one of my favorite new promotional products.

This beautiful new promotional travel tumbler is as functional as it is eye-catching. The non-slip silicone band surrounding the mug provides a great location for an imprint. And, it comes in a variety of colors, each matching the thumb-slide closure on the top.

If you like coffee in the morning and iced tea in the afternoon, the Malia Travel Tumbler will be your go-to. You can use the double-walled plastic beverage mug for both hot and cold beverages. The double-walled insulation keeps cold beverages cold and hot beverages hot.

And, the construction also helps prevent condensation from forming on the tumbler and making a ring on desks and conference tables. That means this travel mug will be as popular with your office manager or operations crew as it with you.

- Suzanne

PS – This is a 4imprint exclusive.

This is a great example of how a nonprofit organization can raise awareness and funds at the same time.

The Day by Day Warming Shelter is using promotional banks to collect donations to support the organization, which provides emergency shelter to adults during the cold winter months here in Oshkosh.

The banks are a perfect marketing tool because they connect the idea that each contribution helps put a roof over someone’s head for the night. (We provided the banks through our onebyone® charitable program, which made it especially exciting to see this one – because it was full.)

Promotional banks come in a wide variety of styles, so this could work for other nonprofit organizations doing fund-raising, too. Any conservation organization would get noticed if they used Froggy the Bank to spread the word of their organization and raise funds.

Kids’ sports teams could collect donations using sports-themed banks, like this Sports Bank-Baseball , which also comes in Soccer, Football and Basketball styles.

And, a global organization or a scholarship that helps students pursue their education could use the Globe Bank to raise awareness and funds.

If you are looking for a simple way to raise funds and get the message out about your organization, these little banks can help you do just that.

-Suzanne

Over the year and a half, we’ve introduced a few brands with a strong heritage to 4imprint, including Igloo® and Carhartt®.

Recently, we’ve added another heritage brand to our line of business apparel: Eddie Bauer®, a name that is legend in outdoor gear. And, there’s a reason.

According to the company’s website, Eddie Bauer (the man, not the company) invented the first down jacket ever patented in the United States, the first down flight suit for World War II flight crews and outfitted the first Americans to summit Mount Everest.

That impressive list of ‘firsts’ translates into a level of quality and performance also appreciated today by those who enjoy the outdoors whether that be as part of their work or for fun and recreation.

If you’re looking for promotional apparel for outdoor employees or for end-of-year business gifts, the authentic Eddie Bauer fleece pullovers, vests and jackets are worth taking a look at.

- Suzanne

Here’s a new promotional product I think you’ll really like.

We’ve paired one of our hottest tumblers with a new palette for fall. The Spirit Tumbler is now available in eggplant, aqua, merlot, fuchsia and indigo.

This is the first time we’ve paired these eye-catching jewel tones with this type of plastic cup. (And, the colors are a 4imprint exclusive.) The jewel tones transform this popular travel cup, giving it a completely different, updated look.

The combination provides a dramatic background for this double-walled, acrylic cup that prevents messy condensation on your desktop.

Try a tone-on-tone logo with these mugs for a sophisticated look. Or, make your logo imprint pop in white or bright.

What do you think?
-Suzanne

Have you noticed this fun, interesting trend? I’ve been seeing glass water bottles and travel tumblers around stores and coffee shops as a new, eco-friendly alternative to reusable plastic. We’ve trusted glass to be a safe and recyclable material for holding everything from spaghetti sauce to soda, so it’s only natural that it would find its way to sport bottles and travel mugs.

Glass Water Bottles
Glass bottles with silicone wraps are especially useful to keep a solid grip on the bottle while adding a stylish design element and a pop of color, like our fun and playful Veranda bottle.

Glass Travel Tumblers
Insulated glass travel mugs have dual-wall construction to keep liquids hot without transferring that heat to your hands. These are available in the popular “to go cup” style. Or offer something special: sit guests down to a soothing cup of tea with the specially-designed Tea Time Glass Bottle— a dual-wall glass bottle with an included mesh infuser for loose tea!

Imprinted glass water bottles and travel mugs have a high-class feel with a satisfying weight — sounds like the perfect recipe for your next upscale executive gift or special occasion!

See all our Glass Water Bottles and Travel Tumblers at www.4imprint.com/GlassWithClass!

The more popular touch interfaces become, the more popular stylus pens become. That’s no coincidence.

A stylus pen is one of the most practical and useful tech tools available. A stylus pen gives you the ability to have that feeling and control over your writing whether you’re using a tablet of paper or a tablet device.

What makes this tech tool such a perfect gift? The fact that it’s both a stylus and a pen. The stylus makes it perfect for the person who loves technology and always has the latest gadgets. Then pen makes it useful for the person who prefers to put pen to paper.

Prices on these useful promotional products are beginning to drop. And, that makes it likely they’re going to get even more popular.

-Suzanne