Every day we have new and interesting promotional products come across our desk, many more than we can promote our to our client base. This is one reason why we so strongly promote the idea of customers working closely with us – this way we can gain a strong understanding of your business, and then use this understanding to select promotional product ideas that are relevant to their business, industry and target market – this way we can be of much greater value to your marketing.

While there are a lot of great ideas out there, every now and then we see something so strange that it boggles the mind as to who the target market for the product is, and even what would possibly make someone think of the product in the first place, let alone why someone else would agree it was a good idea and start producing it!

One such product arrived in my email today. Basically, it’s a manicure set (tweezers, nail clippers etc) hidden inside a plastic fold down flower vase type contraption. Not only is the idea strange to start with, but I can’t see any way that you could put water in this without it leaking out – I’m guessing artificial flowers would need to be used. I personally can’t think what type of client would appreciate a gift of a gaudy green metallic fake vase that holds no water but folds down to reveal a manicure set – it doesn’t even fold in a cool way, you will need to put it off the shelf just to have room to fit the bits that stick right out!

Which brings me to the point of this post (besides a bit of a laugh)…?Even if you DO like a product (maybe even this one), have a think about who you are giving the gift to – ie the target market. Is the promotional product one that will be genuinely useful to your client, or at the very least capture their attention and give them a positive experience of your company? Or to put it another way – does the item put a “deposit in your brand bank” – or a withdrawal? If it’s? the wrong product it can?just make you look cheap, or in this case a little strange!

If someone actually has a good idea for using these please let me know – I don’t mind being proved wrong , and I know exactly where to get these if you want some (5000 minimum)!

15c printed non-woven tote bags - WOW

One of the things we pride ourselves on at Global is our product quality – not just talking the talk, but walking the walk as well, which we back up with our 100% Quality & Service Guarantee.
Given that just about every promotional products distributor as well as most of our suppliers tend to claim this sort of thing, it can on the surface seem easy skip over quality when selecting where to purchase promotional products. It’s also easy presume everyone is basically the same in this area and is offering the same products at the same quality – until you see examples like the above to remind us to make sure you are comparing apples with apples, and that neither of the apples is rotton!

Recently we were at an industry trade show and were presented with some samples of non woven tote bags - at new amazingly low prices, with a minimum order of only 1000 units.

Looked a good basic bag on the surface – no depth to it (just two sheets of non woven fabric joined together), but the print was fairly good, and hey, for 15c each even as our wholesale price, how could you go wrong? Well … quite easily as it turns out!

I then noticed that the bag was starting to come apart at the top, and checked out the seams. Instead of being sewn together, they were heat welded down the side, something I had never seen before in a tote bag. Now with many products, plastic welding is fantastic, however in this case it simply served to put a series of micro holes down the seam, which gave no strength to the seam at all.

Hmmm this welded seam doesnt seem very sturdy!

I then gave a slight tug on the handles, to test the seam quality – something we do when testing all non woven bags. As suspected they ripped with no effort at all. I tried another one and applied about half the force my 6 month old neice would use when grabbing at something. It ripped again. I looked sideways at a third one, and it fell apart in front of me (well…. maybe thats not true but you get the point).

Ohhh so that's why it's so cheap!

The moral of the story: Be wary when looking for cheap promotional products, and always work with a quality promotional products distributor such as us at Global, because there are lots of nasty suprises out there for those who shop purely on price!