I was just recently browsing on the website and what did I find?? A unique blog site, called Creativing Writing 101, which was having a contest, and the winner gets - a free ALUMINUM BOTTLE. Yes, you heard me right, those neat eco-friendly aluminum bottles that we sells tons of. I found the blog as well as the prize most intriguing. It hit all of the major points - it was narrative, it was informative, and it was giving away something for free - I love it - it certainly grabbed my attention. Though I was disappointed to find out that the contest had ended already, though I will definitely keep this site in mind for future online reading.

 

 

This just in. The items I work with everyday like cool promotional keychains and cozy custom mugs have improved my social life. I spent my last weekend mingling with strangers and promotional products. Almost everywhere, I see custom imprinted items and feel like, "Hey that's my brother over there. The most handsome promotional trade show giveaway I've ever seen." Other times I say, "Oh look at my sweet customized water bottles. They've grown sooooo much." Either way, you understand that a very real and empowering relationship exists between us. Because of this, I feel that whenever I see promotional products it is my job, like a proud grandmother, to brag, brag, brag.
                                     
Thursday night I went to my spot on the Nautical Mile. It's the sleaziest hole in the wall you'll find down there on the Freeport Canal, but it's mine. Bras hang from the ceiling, drinking games are always encouraged, and weirdoes flourish there. See- I fit right in. One conversation began when I read the familiar, "Tapout" on a guy’s shirt. My siblings and I get together to watch (UFC) people kick each others butts every week. Because of his promotional apparel I had my first conversation about the UFC and actually knew what I was talking about. But my favorite bar patrons that night we're an unlikely pair. A 60 something year old grump with long grey hair and motorcycle equipment and a round, tattoo covered jolly 40-something guy. After friendly conversation and many jokes, the taller of the two began mumbling, "Aaah you don't know meee. Ahh you don't know." He eventually came out and said it. "You know Lynard Skynard, you know us. I'm Riiickey. I'm Rickey Medlocke." I had to question him, "Well then what are you doing here with that guy?" "He's my body guard!" he slurred. I unfortunately couldn't believe him. If he had promotional keychains autographed by the band maybe I wouldn't have dismissed his lies so quickly.
                                         (He actually did look like him.)

Friday night I spent with a best friend in NYC at a concert. The show was amazing. The Ours and Blue October gave moving and musically blissful performances. There were of course, annoying fans screaming at all the wrong parts and bouncing into me, I called them Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumb. Though I didn't buy any of Blue Octobers promotional products, I did manage to have a charades conversation with the band's lead guitarist as he stood on the balcony looking down to me by the stage after the show. How romantic- I'm not a groupie.

On Saturday I celebrated my cousin’s engagement with an awesome cocktail party in her backyard. My uncle was excited about showing off his custom automatic wine opener and I was more excited to tell him that we sell them at Motivators. The promotional appliance got a ton of use that night and the bottles piled up one and the other, until I was sent away happily holding an awesome custom imprinted wedding favors. What a wonderful weekend.

                                     

This Saturday was Bill's fantasy football draft hosted in our apartment. Last year I prepared all sorts of football snacks for the guys, including a football cake! Unfortunately after finding chicken bones all over the apartment I decided this year they could order pizza. When I came in after the draft I expected it to smell like beer and pizza and have a ton of cleaning to do. To my surprise William had already cleaned the entire place! Everything was put away and wiped down (there were of course some spills). I was proud of the guys for not making a mess...until the next day. Our beautiful plush couches and ottoman had pen marks on them. Long lines of blue ink on two of the cushions and ottoman...I wanted to cry. Luckily I had my handy dandy stain remover. I keep a stain stick with me at ALL times, and it has come in handy more times than I can count! Thankfully the pen marks came out with a little elbow grease and stain remover!

As we are approaching the weekend my fingers are crossed, hurricane dan is threatening to rain on our parade ...as well as everything else hurricanes do!  I am having the whole family over for my mom's 69th birthday.  We are plannning a traditional backyard BBQ; burgers, dogs, potatoe salad, etc.  We have some games planned to entertain the younger neices and nephews, some chairs sent up for the older folks to relax and tell stories of when they were your age and of course the cooler stacked with beverages for the thirsty adults.  We have put together some drawstring backpacks loaded with promotional items for the party favors but as my weather man is predicting hurricane like weather and as our real estate person had suggested.. maybe we should have gotten a bigger place or given away promotional ponchos as party favors.

   

I'd like to go sky diving before I die. So did Vada Rambo. The good spirited blind woman from Washington state decided to take on the sky for her 90th birthday. It just so happens that my nanna celebrated her 83rd birthday the day before Vada. To celebrate her birthday we played some canasta and sipped white wine. Not exactly sky diving but nanna jumps at even a harmless car door shutting. I don't think she'd fair as well as Vada did if she were to jump out of a plane, 13 thousand feet above ground. 
        
(There are no pictures up of Vada, yet. But give her name a search to watch some live footage!) 

Vada made a perfect landing and returned to her happy family to celebrate the rest of her big day. You've got to hand it to anyone old enough to retire that's out there conquoring the world. Now to capture the glorious event, all Vada has to do is go on-line or turn on the tube where many news stations are broadcasting the elderly woman's awesome feat. I hope the skydiving company gave her some custom imprinted products. Perhaps she'd fancy some promotional keychains or maybe some adventurous custom sports products.  Everyone knows that seniors love their free stuff.

So I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love me a water park. There's just something about flying down a water slide in a tube while holding on for dear life that gets me every time. Oh, zooming down a speed slide while water splashes around you. Or splash landing so hard into a pool of 3 foot water that your tube capsizes, you get trapped underneath your friends and you don't really need to be, but you're rescued by a lifeguard. (True story!) From the Dippin' Dots ice cream to the lazy river, I love it all. But there's one thing I love a little bit more and that's money.

At all the water parks and amusement parks that I've been to, there's always reason to hand over your 5, 6, 7, 8, even 10 bucks to get the locker. You need a place to keep your money safe. You need to keep those promotional drawstring backpacks somewhere other than just the ominous cubby holes that reside all over the park. So, in all my experiences with lockers...you hand over your money and when you return your key, you get back some of it: the deposit. But not at Wet 'N Wild Emerald Point in Greensboro NC. You don't get back your deposit, instead you get your choice of one of three promotional items.

We had to decide between a promotional magnet, a custom koozie or a promotional neck tote. Now they all have their benefits. The magnet will remind us that we should go back to Wet N' Wild. We'll use the neck tote to keep our money safe when we do go back. And the koozie...well that's just a classic promotional item that kind of really has nothing to do with a water park. And guess which one won out? Yep. the koozie.

And while I am the first to proudly tout the benefit of promotional items, on a week with a budget I think I would have liked my $3.00 back. I mean, after all, I did have a bridal shower, bachelorette party and a wedding. That $3 could have helped me sustain panic attacks with some dark chocolate.

 

Last September, I welcomed freshmen to my college and handed out their dorm keys. A local bank, interested in gaining new clients at our college supplied us with promotional keychains. One of the older staff members laid the custom keychains on the table next to the sign in booth where the flow of traffic would bring the new students and their parents.

About an hour into signing people in, the lines dwindled down and I was able to walk over to the promotional products table. That's when I realized the promotional keychains had to go. The bank was generous and very smart with their chosen custom keychains- perhaps too smart. Because attached to each key ring was a promotional bottle opener keychain. Being that most incoming freshmen are between 18 and 19, as "student life" of the school we couldn't exactly promote drinking with these bottle openers. We swiftly swept the table clean of the promotional bottle opener keychains and used them for a 21+ event later on in the year.

                            
I was reminded of that "oops" moment after reading about Bud Lights latest college promotion. The "Fan Can" promotion encouraged college students to purchase their beer after painting the beer cans with school colors. But Anheuser-Busch has cut back on their, "Fan Cans" promotion after complaints from the Federal Trade Commission that the beer was being marketed to underage drinkers.

This seems like an awesome idea that would definitely increase sales of Bud Light across the U.S. since college life tends to includes lots of beer. And nothing says "Go Team!" like a bottom up school color imprinted beer can. We even encourage colleges to have our promotional drinkware imprinted with their school colors, name and mascot.

                                
                                   Louisiana State University "Fan Can"

Unfortunately, many college students take advantage of the new freedoms allotted in college and others are just very inexperienced when it comes to drinking, which can lead to devastating results. As a residential advisor at my school last year, I had my fair share of council with stomach pumped freshmen, fight mediating with jerk male drinkers and was witness to many walks of shame. But isn't this all a part of growing up? Certainly not the almost dieing bit, but...

A representative from Boston College said, "We think it’s an ill-conceived and inappropriate campaign that runs counter to our collective efforts to combat underage drinking.”  In response to the complaints, Anheuser-Busch has stopped selling the special-edition cans to colleges that have objected to the marketing plan. In my opinion, it's a bit silly. The colleges are basically receiving free promotions by a world-wide beer provider. But that's just me. Cheers.

After over a week being gone for my best friend's wedding, I'm finally back and I have to say I really missed my desk. It's not that I didn't love seeing my best friend and her husband (LOVE being able to say that!) and I absolutely adore my god daughter, but I truly did miss my desk. I mean, it was a whole week of not having anything to do with imprinted items or custom branded merchandise. Luckily, I didn't have to quit promotional products cold turkey, I was sort of eased into it and for that I have to thank the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

Personally, I liked Natural History more, simply because there was an amazing forensic anthropolgy exhibit and my recent obsession with Bones definitely played a part in that. I may have even walked past the FBI building in hopes of finding an FBI agent as good looking as Seely Booth. I did not. But American History had a whole exhibit on presidential promotional products and you know I couldn't NOT take some pictures! Especially since the very first promotional products ever recorded were promotional buttons used by Washington in hios campaign. Since then, presidential promos have come a long way and here's just a little something that the Smithsonian had this to say about them:

"Maintaining a memory of the Presidency allows people to honor or own a piece of the presidential past. Souvenirs range from expensive and unique items to cheaper mass produced toys, games, and mugs- "Star spangled kitsch"

So without further adieu, here are some presidential promos for you all...

Here are a couple promotional buttons for elections...

Here's a promotional hand fan that announced Franklin D. Roosevelt's cabinet...

A few inauguration souvenirs...

 

Not all promotional buttons were used for celebrations, here is a protest one...

 

Perhaps the coolest inaugration button I have ever seen...

They say that behind every good man is a good woman. Here are a few buttons for First Ladies...

 

So this concludes your history lesson for today! Study up, they'll be a pop quiz Friday...and tomorrow I'll talk about how I actually wanted money but got promotional items at a water park!

So my friends and I are snowboard fanatics, and this is a perfect opportunity to start the season early. Grab your gear and head south?

The Liberty Mountain SnowFlex Center in Lynchburg, Virginia opens on 8/29 and will remain open year-round. They're using SnowFlex, a synthetic material that is supposedly as close to the real thing as it gets. It's already in use at Olympic training facilities, and this will be the first public ski area in the US to use it.

The LMC features a beginner slope, freestyle rails, and even a quarter pipe. They also have crazy reasonable prices, with Thursday-Sunday rates of $7 an hour. Monday-Wednesday rates are even better at $5 an hour.

 

 

Here at Motivators we offer a custom Cold Weather Ski Kit to enhance your snowboarding experience. Keep your self warm with your own custom Thermos. My personal favorite is the custom Malibu Thermal Bottle.

 

It is not a secret, if you are a fan of the New York Metropolitans this has been most likely one of the worst baseball seasons you have ever seen. I assure you, it is even worse if you are a season ticket holder like I am. So when your favorite sports team, be it baseball, football or basketball, has tossed away any chance of playing significant interesting games there is only one thing to look forward to ... promotional products! Personally, I have one promotional giveaway day that is my favorite. I appreciate tradition, and through the thick and thin of Mets seasons there has been one thing the organization has always gotten right