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)!

With the last post being on drink bottles which are classic summer product (but popular all year round), I thought I would continue the Drinkware theme, and being Winter now here in Australia, Coffee Mugs would be a good product to focus on.

Printed coffee mugs are an ever popular promotional item for the reason that they are genuinely useful, have a large branding area, are kept for a long period of time, and used every day in the workplace. In some ways they are almost the ideal promotional product.

Coffee mugs are also a bit of a danger product for the purchaser of promotional products. There is a lot of price disparity out there, and we can guarantee you will find printed coffee mugs available online for at least 50% less than our prices. An unusual admission, but it’s true, and seems unusual especially if you are aware we print coffee mugs at our own production facility. There is however a very important reason for this, and it’s well worth noting if you don’t want to end up with a product that lets down your marketing efforts!

Lets start with how to do things properly: A quality promotional mug starts with an A-Grade ceramic, porcelain or bone china coffee mugs. Mugs come in two grades, A or B, with A-Grade giving a smoother bump free surface and standards required for high firing and long life print technology.

Secondly, and most importantly is the print. The correct way to print a coffee mug is via a transfer which is applied to the coffee mug using a carrier. The mug is then heat fired in a kiln (also known as high fired or hi-fired) at 650+ degrees celsius – in most cases at 850 degrees. The inks used are also a specialist product, which starts as a powder containing colour pigments specifically designed for ceramics and is then mixed to become a printable ink. This combination of quality mug, quality ink and high temperature kiln firing will ensure the print on your coffee mug is there to last.

Now, the wrong way: Some “budget” and “less than reputable” suppliers of printed coffee mugs use a technique known as “pad printing” to print coffee mugs, and then run them through a small heat tunnel. This is the same way products such as pens and golf balls are printed, and a great printing technique – for the right product! For coffee mugs it’s completely ineffective; not only do genuine ceramic inks not exist for pad printing; and not only is pad printing a technique that doesn’t deliver a thick enough layer of ink for a coffee mug, but the lack of proper firing means that the print will scratch off and wear badly over time, if it even lasts that long – many pad printed coffee mugs lose their ink in the first couple washes.

Global prints coffee mugs in-house at our own printing facility, with all coffee mugs being kiln fired to ensure your print will last. All our coffee mugs are A-Grade quality and confirm to the very high standards required for our high firing and long life print technology. Pad printing or lower temperate firing may look ok, but the will scratch off and wear – there are no shortcuts to a quality job when printing on glassware, coffee mugs and other ceramics.

Only a professional and reputable glass and ceramic printer like Global can give you the print quality and longevity you expect. And with lower minimums than most (from 36 units) and great pricing we are the coffee mug printer of choice.

One product we print in the thousands is the humble t-shirt. We do a really good job on these (see below sample pics), but also have to make sure that we can always provide custom printed promotional t-shirts at good prices, so that our clients can maximise their marketing dollar.

A lot of new t-shirt brands have entered the market lately, importers prices have put prices up and down, and there have been a lot of changes overall. Because of all these changes we have recently compared and tested a wide range of options in order to ensure we are giving our clients the best value possible, and have new favorite standard basic t-shirts from a little known brand called QUOZ. These t-shirts are very well priced and very nice quality – the variation in quality between brands is amazing when you take the time to look carefully, and price isn’t the only guide – the worst two we found (I won’t name them) were the cheapest one available and one mid-high priced model!

We currently have a special on the QUOZ Premiere T-Shirts, prices start from as little as $4.50+gst for coloured t-shirts including 1 colour print, and $3.90+gst for white t-shirts including 1 colour print (price will vary based on the quantity).

If you could like to chat with us about your t-shirt requirements please call us on 1800 060 305.

5 Colour T-Shirt Print Sample

4 Spot Colour Print on a Green T-Shirt

4 Spot Colour T-shirt Print sample

One Colour Print on a Charcoal T-Shirt

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!

The new Saturn drink bottle is a premium quality promotional drink bottle at a budget price.

Over the last few years there has been a rise and rise of bottled water usage, to the extent that over half a billion dollars was spent on the product in Australia last year. Obviously this increase in drinking of water rather than softdrinks ties in with people’s desire for healthy living – a major focus as people become more and more aware of the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.

We find this bottled water phenomonon a little strange in one respect (despite the fact we sell a very high quality custom bottled water),  given the international focus on environmental awareness and eco friendly products. Obviously this increase in purchasing bottled water brings with it millions of discarded plastic bottles which can be recycled but are just as often simply discarded. While recycling is great, reducing the use of disposbale items and replacing them with reusable ones has a lot more benefit.

Which brings us to custom printed drink bottles – a product that is looking to be the absolute hit promotional item this summer. They an ideal promotional product in the sense that they will be kept and used a huge number of times, as well as reducing waste compared with buying bottled water. And they help your hip pocket as well!

Custom printed drink bottles have always been a good value promotional item, but there has always been two levels of product – those made of LDPE (Low density Poly ethylene – the soft squishy stuff) and those made from either HDPE (High Density Poly ethylene – the more ridid plastic) or a mix of the two. The better quality LDPE ones are generally nicer, but are usually much more expensive – but not any more!

We have just released a new drink bottle called the Saturn Premium Soft Squeeze Bottle. This new style is made of the good stuff (LDPE), has a clear view strip, high quality lid, attractive design, large 800ml capacity, an amazing 28 stock colours including fluoros and metallics, is printed with a very high quality all around wrap print, AND to top it all off is at a better price than most so called “budget” drink bottles! Clients who have purchased this product already are raving around it, and for under $2 each including print on a 1000 unit order it’s pretty much unbeatable. If you would like more info view the product on our website or give us a call on 1800 060 305.

Global Advertising Products is a promotional products company with a head office  in Albury, NSW.  We work with clients Australia wide on projects involving  corporate gifts, merchandise, corporate clothing, point of sale and much more. With our own in-house production facility (here in Australia) in addition to our product sourcing office in Beijing, China we are well placed to assist in all your promotional product requirements.

Our main website features a plethora of products available for your promotional requiments and we invite you to have a look around at what we offer.

The purposes of our blog is to provide news and reviews about the happenings and latest news in the promotional product sphere, with the aim to be interesting, amusing and always informative.