Don’t get… anything to do with CDsĬars are coming without CD players. Everyone loves to show off their case and when asked where they got that fabulous, stylish case, they can proudly say, “I got it from. To make these even more appealing to your customers, make the design pretty. Cases provide protection.Ĭases also provide a nice big open area for your logo. These expensive devices can be very fragile and we want to keep these expensive devices as pretty as possible. How many adults have smartphones? At least 64% of adults in the United States.Īnd what does everyone need for their smartphones? Cases. And, even better, a lot of emails are answered via smartphones. Then they can double as desk toys, and what did we learn about desk toys?Īll of our communication is done through email nowadays, and while that has its share of problems (spam, spam, spam, spam), it is a lot more convenient than the mail. Which means letter openers are as useless as the paperweights. Those all go straight into recycling, unopened. (The previous tenant in my place was a jewelry-making golf-enthusiast.) The only letters I get nowadays are from AT&T trying to get me to switch from Comcast, Comcast trying to get me to buy cable, and catalogs based on things the previous tenants bought. When’s the last time you actually got a letter you wanted? The moral of this story is: Everyone loves mechanical pencils. We ran out after three hours and had to run to the CVS to grab more. We gave it to her and after that, every single student asked us for a mechanical pencil (at small schools, word gets around). Until the day one student discovered our personal stash of mechanical pencils and begged us to let her have a mechanical pencil as a reward instead. These students got a reward for completing the survey: A pretty, unsharpened pencil. (I know there are teachers in the audience or people who know teachers who are nodding in sympathy right now and I thank you.) I got hundreds of 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th graders to take surveys about bullying and friendships. (Or, if you’re feeling really adventurous, get this pen/pencil/stylus combo!)Īt my old job, I used to work as a researcher. And don’t even get me started on that eraser… Get this instead: A mechanical pencil! Once you finally get it to that perfect point, that perfect point doesn’t last. Who has those these days? Once you track it down, you hope it’s electric, otherwise you’ll be cranking a handle or spinning the pencil and that’s just a lot of time that could be spent on Twitter. With pencils: You have to first track down a pencil sharpener. Pens at least work from the get-go: Click them and they write! Ingenious. The only thing worse than getting a plain old pen is getting a plain old pencil.
Instead of using your fingers and getting those gross smudges all over your nice phone screen, use the stylus: It gets you into your apps and helps you dominate Candy Crush with the greatest of ease! Uh, your boss is reading this? I mean… helps you dominate that backlog of emails with the greatest of ease! A pen alone is unhelpful with touchscreens (I’m sure writing on your touchscreen device violates your warranty), but this pen comes with a stylus! It’s all about laptops and tablets and phones. Less and less people are carrying notebooks with them to conferences. Promotional items are really popular at conferences, right? Can you imagine how popular your booth would be if you started handing these babies out? It’s a similar issue to the paperweights: In an increasingly digital world, do you really want to give your customers a unitasker? Get this instead: A pen/stylus combo! Pens, while great for signing receipts for things you paid with your credit card, are less and less useful.
If they don’t have paper? They have something to idly play with while they’re on the phone and it looks awesome on their sweet desk. If they have paper? They have a paperweight and something to idly play with while they’re on the phone. However, if you make the item a desk toy, there is suddenly 100% chance of your product being awesome. It’s a 50-50 shot that your customer doesn’t have paper and if you give them a plain old paperweight, they’ll get rid of your promotional item and there go your impressions. It can serve the exact same purpose as a paperweight, but it has an awesome extra feature: It’s a toy. I guess you could build a fort out of them…? Get this instead: A desk toy!