Here at Motivators, we've seen it all:  promotional tools, custom printed pens, and even eco-friendly promotional products.  But what about a jumbo jet with your name on it? That's Virgin America's latest offer on deals site Gilt City. 

According to Fox Business, "In a Cyber Monday deal sure to raise some eyebrows, Richard Branson’s Virgin America is offering a deal on deals site Gilt City to take a round-trip flight for 146 people -- and name one of the company’s planes -- for $60,000." The site, which rivals Living Social and Groupon, invited consumers to book a round-trip flight to any nonstop domestic location yesterday. 

Abby Lunardini, a Virgin America spokesperson, told Fox Business that the promotional gift is real: "We think it’s a unique once-in-a-lifetime gift for Gilt's holiday gift list." What do you think -- would you dish out over $50k to have your own plane for a day?

Over the weekend, my family and I celebrated my little sister Courtney's 13th birthday.  I've literally watched her grow up before my eyes -- she was born when I was 11-years-old -- and the fact that she's finally a teenager is kind of crazy.  I can still remember changing her diapers, putting her down for naps, and feeding her mushy vegetables.

But I'm lucky, because she's still a really good kid.  She cares a lot about her friends and family and has a huge heart.  She worries about the environment and tries to use eco-friendly promotional products as often as possible.  And most importantly, she's grateful for every little thing in her life -- from all the fancy promotional gifts she received this weekend to simple things like reading a good book.

Courtney inspires me to be a better person.  She's still got an innocence about her, and she sticks to her guns and always does the right thing.  I'm proud to say that even as she enters those dreaded teenage years, she's still one of the best people I know!

Last week I blogged about 'O.C.' starlet Rachel Bilson's newly eco-friendly home.  Today, yet another celebrity is being honored for his environmentally conscious decisions.  According to the Washington Post, Justin Timberlake is being recognized by the Environmental Media Association and will receive the organization's coveted Futures Award. 

Timberlake, who has been "lauded for his work in music, TV and film," is being celebrated for his "attempts to reduce his carbon footprint during his tours, his advocacy for environmental issues and his eco-friendly golf course outside of Memphis, Tenn."  Who knew the former boy band-er was a part of so many environmentally responsible initiatives?

The Environmental Media Awards, at which plenty of eco-friendly promotional products are sure to be distributed, will take place on October 15 in Burbank, California.  Previous recipients of the Futures Award include Maroon 5, Edward Norton and Rosario Dawson.  The star-studded ceremony will showcase Timberlake and other celebrities who are "a great example of how you can lend your voice for positive change," EMA President Debbie Levin told the Washington Post.

For the last month, Motivators has been running an accelerated version of our Plant a Tree program. We're not using magical tree seeds, but we have amped up our partnership with the American Forests ReLeaf program to give back even more trees to our environment. So with only one day left, get Earth Day interactive and order some of our Earth Day giveaways.

How will Motivators be going green this Earth Day? Tonight, like every night, our computers will automatically go beddie-bye and reduce the use of energy in our office while we're gone. Tomorrow, we will continue to use our promotional eco-friendly drinkware and to avoid plastic bottles. And we'll make sure to place any plastic we do come in contact with, in our recycling bin.
                               

I also invite every Motivators to take place in a bike to work day. Sure, we'll all stink, but it'll cut back on our carbon footprint significantly. While cutting back our negative impact on the environment, we'll also be cutting back the pounds by getting active.

My apologies to the New York State Highway Department for any traffic jams on the Northern, Southern, Wantagh, Meadowbrook or LIE; though Motivators is a fabulous name for a bike crew- we are not one.

Biking to work and sticking to reusable bottles are great ways to go green. The greatest way for us to spread sustainability is to give our customers access to the best supply in eco-friendly products.

"Ready or not here I come!" And chances are I'm going to find you in a matter of moments. I'm really good at games. I'll nab the Boardwalk in Monopoly and I'll trump your pocket aces. So when you're good at something- sure you want to do it lots. That's why when I was camping earlier this summer; I couldn't pass up the beach towel Scrabble game I found at K-Mart.

The promotional towel had the Scrabble board imprinted into itself and the "waterproof" foam tiles fit perfectly into their foam trays. My sister and I had a pretty competitive game while the rain poured down on the tarp we hung above us. When the rain began to pick up we abandoned our game and hid out in the tent for a bit. When we returned many of the tiles had been blown around to the ground. We were able to salvage all of them but it reminded me of my pet peeve of Scrabble- lack of letters.

When I returned home, I was in the Scrabble spirit and challenged my parents to the promotional game. As I waited for them to gather-round I counted up the letter tiles and reached the awful conclusion that 11 tiles were missing. This is the fifth Scrabble game in my home that I've had to reject (for some reason buying an entire new game seems easier then ordering new letter tiles.)What really bugged me was, "Where did all of the lost Scrabble tiles go?!" Today, the answer was revealed.  
               
A brand new eco-friendly jewelry company, Squishy Sushi, has stolen miscellaneous Scrabble tiles from around the world and has fashioned them into various accessories. On Squishy Sushi's web-site you can find recycled Scrabble tile pendants, rings and cuff links.

If we're going to be honest, I'll admit that along with being very good at winning games, I am also quite the winner at losing things. Therefore, I'm sure there are tons of Scrabble tiles swept under couches, stuck in the heaters and thrown up in the attic of my house. What Squishy Sushi has actually done, is provide a cool alternative to throwing away unused Scrabble tiles.

I've used the rejected Scrabble letter tiles in my house to decorate scrapbooks, so why not dress them up into jewelry. The pieces SquishySushi creates are all handmade with unique designs and all of the pendants retain their Scrabble letter on the back. This is one great eco-friendly product that makes recycling almost glamorous. They've even turned recycled dominos into pendants.

While no jewelry products are carried in our eco-friendly promotional items selection there are some awesome promotional bamboo products that are great alternatives to plastic and metals.

I hope that Squishy Sushi does a ton of great business- so much so that I want to be able to go to a party and see so many men sporting recycled Scrabble tile cuffs links and women in Scrabble pendants, that right then and there we can take off our jewelry and play a game of Scrabble with it.
                                        

I like my promotional products like I like my men. (Sorry, this isn't a dirty joke.) Strong, attractive, innovative and able to perform many functions at once. That's why when I saw the solar powered water bottle lantern; I hoped it belonged to a single man. Unfortunately, it didn't belong to any strong, attractive, innovative, multifunctioning man.

When its owner, a hiker chick, began talking about her awesome printed water bottle, I listened to her like a child at story time. She explained that her water bottle held a liter of water and turned into a lantern at night. She pointed out the solar panel on the cap and explained, "Whenever the solar panel is exposed to light it charges. Even if you're in a shaded area in a forest...it's charging." I researched to find that she was right, it does however charge faster if exposed to direct sun light.

   

"Once it's charged (which takes about 4 hours)," she continued, "The solar powered light lasts about 12 hours." This has got to be the coolest promotional sports bottle I've ever seen. The white LED lights illuminate the water bottle and the red LED lights are included as emergency lights.  All in all this is a super cool poly-carbonated custom sports bottle.

I found an eco-friendly blog boasting about the bottle and an eco-friendly web-site selling two different models of the solar powered water bottle lanterns both for around $19.99. But it gets even better! You could even order from our awesome supply of custom water bottles, have them imprinted for your event, and then upgrade these bottles with the individually sold solar caps. Sold for the sale price of $17.46, these caps fit most promotional sports bottles and provide the same amount of light time.

With the many precautions taken with plastic water bottles in fear of containing BPA, the makers of the solar cap are saying, "Don't throw away your old custom sports bottles! Turn them into a lantern!" This is a great product for on the go. It can join the masses over in our eco-friendly promotional items, and shine, shine, shine.
                                                  

Her hair is all sorts of tangled and is subject to feverish movement when the birds nesting in it want to spread their wings. Her face is hidden under a scarf, and her dress drapes over her shoulder. Her tablecloth cape drags an empty aluminum can behind her. And her feet are in mismatched sneakers. The Bag Lady.

She is relative to the infamous Can Man…the one going through your trash and singing, “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!”But the Bag Lady has a sense of class that the Can Man can never acquire. While her three wheeled shopping cart is filled with the same scavenged cans as the Can Man’s; the Bag Lady has taken it a step farther. The Bag Lady has bagged her cans.

While the Can Man has actually found more cans than the Bag Lady, the semi-crushed ones have been falling between the shopping carts rusty cracks the entire time. Smart Bag Lady, realizing this, quickly whips out her promotional Straight Jacket Travel Golf Bag. Its handy wheels glide along side the shopping cart as she picks the fallen cans off of the ground and tosses them into the custom imprinted golf bag.  Once it is full she reached for her promotional shoe bag. With easy to unzip access into multiple compartments, the Bag Lady quickly fills the shoe bag and reaches for a few promotional Ipod holders and cases. She quickly realizes the can cannot fit cans inside such a small bag and reaches back again to pull out a custom imprinted tote bag.

The Can Man continues up the block still not realizing the escaping cans. As he hits a slight incline up, he starts into a roaring version of “When the Saints go Marching in,” and is deaf to the cans that begin falling out of the back of his shopping cart. This time the cans fall more rapidly and roll down the hill like Sonic the hedgehog. But Bag Lady is ready for them. She stretches open a promotional garment carrier and the cans roll into the long zippered bag as it dangles from the handle bars by it’s metal hook.

Only feet away from the supermarket, the Bag Lady begins to catch her breath just as the Can Man looks back into his shopping cart. Realizing that he has lost a significant amount of cans, he screams and rocks his cart back and forth. The cans bounce against each other and six empty Buds fling up into the sky. Without a moment to spare, the Bag Lady rips open her favorite custom imprinted eco-friendly tote bag and gawks as the cans drop inside of it.  

The Can Man stops hitting the shopping cart, continues singing, and returns his cans for $4.65. The Bag Lady takes her time emptying out her promotional bags and receives a receipt for $18.95. That could buy her a brand new pair of sneaks! Congratulations Bag Lady. You are my custom imprinted bag superstar.

Bag Lady has since bought a new pair of shoes and a hot new makeover. She's currently really into under $1 promotional bags. Nice and thrifty.

An energy crisis comes when there is a rise in cost for the supply of energy resources to an economy.  Usually, it refers to the shortage of oil, electricity or other natural resources.  A lot of talk has been made of the energy crisis currently facing our world.  We have heard President Barack Obama on many occasions talk about different ways we as a country and world could begin to produce and utilize alternate sources of energy.  The president has stated that it is his plan to shift our energy dependency from fossil fuels to green energy sources, developing alternate power/fuel resources such as bio-diesel, solar, and wind energy.  In the long run this will help our world, protecting our climate and saving energy.  As consumers, we help our planet by purchasing eco-friendly products.  When we buy energy friendly products this has a direct effect on our money because we save using less energy.  Environmentally friendly promotional products would be a good idea for any company that is looking to market their business as being environmentally responsive, for in recent years, consumer behavior has shifted towards the use of eco-friendly products.

Leeds Hydro (Water Powered Clock)  

You know that one of the many things to consider when looking for a job is location. The closer it is to home, the better. I used to live about 25 minutes away, but since I moved I'm now only 8 minutes away. And Aaron used to live about 45 minutes away, but since he moved he only lives about 7 minutes away. And the other Sarah used to live about 30 minutes away before she moved, but now lives a solid 3 minutes away. We're all convened in close proximity to one another, which makes car pooling easier! Usually, we car pool on the ride home, but on the rare occasion we'll do a morning car pool. Like this morning, I happened to be on facebook and Aaron IMed me for a ride (sidenote: facebook chat is the greatest thing ever). So while that was a motivator (punny, yes I know) to get my butt out of bed and get moving, the universe felt like I needed another swift kick in the pants. That came in the form of a text from Sarah.

So this morning I was officially the Motivators taxi service. Sarah even said she's getting me a sign for my car that says Taxi on it. Of course, I think it'd be swell if it had the M logo on it. Then I'd be official.

The one thing that finally hit me this morning, was how eco-friendly we were all being. It took me a while to make the connection and that's gotta be due to lack of caffeine, but car pooling is definitely one of the most eco-friendly things you can do for the environment. Sure, we're always pitching eco-friendly promotional products towards you, but there are so many other things that you can do to help the environment. You can car pool, like we all did this morning. You can be sure to not leave the water running when you brush your teeth. You can spend a little extra dough and support local farmers by purchasing locally grown organic fruits and veggies. You can purchase an Energy Star refrigerator like Sarah did. Coincidently, her boyfriend's at home waiting for it to be delivered which was the reason he couldn't drive her to work today.

However, keep buying those eco-friendly promotional products. Not only are they a great way to show customers that your business is forward thinking, but they also help keep us employed!

Oh the lessons that can be learned from Saved by the Bell. And I'm talking about more than just the dangers of caffiene addiction, although no one can possibly forget that very special episode. Nope, I'm talking about the benefits of being eco-friendly. This morning, as I was programming my TiVo to tape my "stories" (yes, I've gotten back into soaps and I've accepted that I'm an old lady), I happened to catch one of my favorite episodes of SBTB, the one where oil just happens to be discovered beneath Bayside. Zack is all for the drilling, knowing that the school will be better in the long run. In fact everyone's all for it, except Jessie. Apparently she can stand strong against corporate evil but you give her a cup of coffee and it's all downhill. The drilling moves ahead, until there's an oil spill and Zack's precious duck Becky, who he had just put back in the pond dies because of it. Zack realizes the dangers and thus leads the gang and the school board in the right direction.

When this episode first aired, it didn't make that much of an impact. Except of course on teenage girls who wept unconntrollably as Zack cradled a dead oil covered duck, but that's neither here nor there. This episode actually makes an eco-friendly statement way before the eco-friendly craze started. And it got me to thinking that maybe someone else caught that episode and maybe they'll buy eco-friendly promotional products because of it. And then I thought Sarah, you really are an idiot. But hey, who knows what powers can be held by nostalgia. Especially nostalgia that involves Zack Morris.