Spring is here and everyone is getting excited to head outdoors. Celebrate the excitement of “spring fever” (and upcoming Earth Day on April 22) with garden inspired promotional products. There’s plenty to choose from, so let’s get right to the greens!

Plantable promotional giveaways can be as simple as customized seed packets for flowers or herbs! Use them like business cards for cost-effective and out-of-the-ordinary garden giveaways. A distinctive way to get your name out for Earth Day promotions!

Check out that generous imprint area!

Looking to show them the complete package? Green thumbs can start tender plants from seed or grow lovely windowsill flowers in logo’d plant pots — seeds, pot and soil are included!

No digging, measuring or hassle!

Get their mouths watering with edible plant promotions like beautiful, 3-piece imprinted herb kits (below) and Grow Your Own recipe kits! These attractive kits yield a harvest for their kitchen with common cooking herbs, lettuces, salads and salsas!

Elegant packaging adds real value to your gift!

Whether recipients grow their seeds to look at or have for dinner, plantable promotions draw them into the excitement of nature, engage them with your brand and offer plenty of time for leads to germinate into sales!

Now let’s get growing!

Is your organization planning an event or promotion around Earth Day? Check out our special collection of Earth Day promotional giveaways featuring more plantable promos and giveaway items made from recycled, biodegradable, alternative and organic materials!

A big hello and welcome to the 4imprint Merchandising Blog! I’m Moriah, 4imprint’s web merchandiser, and I’m thrilled to be here to share ideas, new products and noteworthy news in the ad specialty industry!

For my blogging debut, I wanted to highlight a topic that’s near and dear to my heart, as you can see from my latest Halloween costume:

Rock, Roll and Everything In Between!

It’s a perfect tie-in with an all-new item we just released this week: promotional guitar picks!

You don’t need to be a rock star to promote with custom guitar picks, but you just might become one with giveaways this unique!

What concert goer or music fan doesn’t get a rush after catching a drumstick or pick thrown from the stage by a favorite musician? Capture that same intensity with promotional guitar picks!

Use this low-cost, high-impact giveaway to promote outdoor festivals or community events that feature live music. They’re also memorable promotional products for concert promotion, band merch, open mic nights, music shops, music teachers and radio stations!

Custom guitar picks are available in a handful of rockin’ colors at an affordable price that won’t have you singing the blues!

Now all we’re missing is the pyrotechnics….

As soon as you open this clever little journal, you’ll see why it’s called the Half-n-Half Color Duo Notebook.

The cover is clear polypropylene, imprinted with a bright color (black, green, blue or red) on only the bottom half. Inside the notebook pages are cut in half. (The notebook’s overall size is 7-9/16″ x 4-5/16″ x 11/16″, so even half sheets are large enough for taking notes.)

The Half-n-Half Color Duo Notebook from 4imprint comes in four color duos.

Colored sheets on the top half mirror the color printed on the cover. Paper on the bottom half is white.

The Half-n-Half Color Duo Notebook from 4imprint.

This would be a great notebook to use at conferences, seminars or classes. Attendees could jot down presentation points on the top pad. On the bottom, they can add ideas for how to apply those concepts in their own organizations. On-the-go families may think of other uses – like jotting notes and responses. Workers who need to trade information at the start and end of a shift may also find a notebook like this useful.

And, that makes it a useful giveaway for many different markets.
-Suzanne

Have you ever noticed that most hand sanitizer bottle designs seem to be very straightforward?

That’s one reason these hand sanitizers will really stand out.

The Goofy Head Hand Sanitizer is something families will love. The faces take on three different looks: Beach Lady, Goofy Guy and Snorkel Guy.

Or, check out our new Body Shape Hand Sanitizer.

It’s available in a range of uniforms, including sports team, chef, doctor, military, scrubs and tie.

What are you seeing?  Have you seen hand sanitizers in other shapes or styles?  If so, point me in that direction.  I’d love to see them.

-Suzanne

If you resolved to get healthy or wealthy in 2010, you’re not alone.  Two of the top New Year’s resolutions this year (and quite possibly every year) involve getting fit and saving money.  If you’re looking for a way to do both stylishly, you might want to check out this modern twist on the lunch box.

Lunch Box from www.Target.com

Lunch boxes like this are popping up all over the place, from Target to Pottery Barn Kids.  They remind me of the Japanese Bento Box, which features a series of stackable containers with a band wrapped ‘round to hold them together.  Each separate container holds a different part of the meal.

Bento Boxes from www.CubeEgg.com

Lunch boxes like this make great gifts for staff appreciation weeks (like Nurses’ Week or Teacher Appreciation Week).  They also work well for kicking off a new employee wellness initiative or fitness team.

4imprint Salad to Go Imprinted Lunch Box

Our versions are high-quality Soup to Go, Salad to Go and Lunch to Go containers.

However you use them, these containers make keeping your New Year’s resolutions just a little more fun.
-Suzanne

I think we all know someone who would be the perfect recipient of this mug!

For me it would be Dave, our 4imprint guru of all things mail-, paper- and logistics-related. He’s the person who uses those cells to the bottom right of the spreadsheets that most of us never see.

'I Heart Spreadsheets' Ceramic Mugs, courtesy Urban Outfitters

Seeing this design made me think of some of the design opportunities available on ceramic mugs.

Many have front and back imprint areas.

What about adding your company logo on one side and something more fun (maybe even team- or department-related) on the other?

-Suzanne

If you’re looking for effective giveaways, the best advice is to offer something that’s going to get used – something that has real practical value.  If your target audience is involved in cooking at home (which in this economy is something that’s grown in popularity) these new palm peelers/graters are the perfect example of a promotional item that does exactly that.

While attending an industry trade show earlier this year, I saw something cool at Urban Outfitters: a do-it-yourself screen-printing kit.

It was very cleverly packaged and perfect for one-off t-shirts or posters.  The kit is available online and includes everything from the paints to screen, squeegee and instructions.

So…is a one-of-a-kind screen-printed t-shirt in your future?  If so, what would it say?
–Suzanne

The number of products we have made from this material has increased dramatically over the last year.  One common question: What, exactly, is it?

Non-woven polypropylene is one of the most common new fabrics we see in bags.

This is actually a plastic product, which makes it lightweight and sturdy.  Making non-woven polypropylene is somewhat like making paper.  It starts out as a thick liquid, is extruded into sheets and then cut apart and sewn into products such as bags.

What does all this mean for you?  Well, simple production methods keep costs low.  So, if you’re buying for your organization, you’ll notice these bags cost less.  And, because they’re lightweight, you save on shipping, too!  Compact design makes them a snap to store.  And, trade show attendees love these bags – because, let’s face it, when you’re at a convention picking up catalogs, sell sheets and the like, it helps to have a lightweight bag.

–Suzanne

If you’ve been shopping in the last year, you’ve no doubt noticed the omnipresence of reusable shopping totes.

So, it probably comes as no surprise that this has become one of the most popular promotional products available.  In the US, sales of these bags started to rise a few years ago when environmentally focused retailers like Trader Joe’s® and Whole Foods Market® and trend-spotting mass marketers like Target® began offering branded reusable bags.  By the end of 2007, it was difficult to find a supermarket not selling them.

In fact, all sorts of organizations have begun snapping them up.  A quick flick through the projects we’ve worked on recently shows them being used by community organizations, town and city councils, credit unions and financial advisors.  Some are being used to promote ‘green initiatives’ while others are just a useful giveaway to promote businesses and events.  A quick read through some customers’ reviews tells some interesting stories.

Check them out: http://www.4imprint.com/exec/all_reviews/~CA101326-1513.htm
–Suzanne