Brags, swags, and other product images tell me how much confidence a manufacturer or publisher has in its products. They’re part of a social exchange that fulfills an implied social contract between a vendor and a potential client.
I’m looking forward to reviewing give aways at this year’s product promotion conferences and workshops, starting with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). I’ve been collecting promotional items for over 50 years at businesses and conferences. They’ve helped guide my teaching, administration, purchases and products to sell.
I’m writing this while a Tablet PC Guy watches from across the room. I light birthday candles with give away matches. I’m wearing an ASUS T-Shirt with an ECS pen in my pocket and an XACT carry bag next to my chair. My closet has maybe 50 ball caps and about the same number of business cards from electronic companies in my desk drawer.
I have some swags, e.g., books, software, calculators, sponge characters, rulers, paperweights, matchbooks, pens, pencils, cards, collected over 50 years. These swags remind me of companies with enough interest in me as a potential customer to give me that reminder.
Thanks for your confidence. I respect your efforts to promote your products. In exchange, I have used or sold many of your items, because they accomplished what I contracted with a third party to do.
I wonder what promotional items vendors will offer this year? What will they give me to promote their product for them? I wonder which companies will promote a Tablet PC? Which will take users for granted and not offer any reminders of their products? Of the thousands of square feet of product displays at CES, I know I’ll more likely remember products associated with a give away.