So I don't know about all my followers out there, but this past weekend I was out at the old watering hole with a few friends. Now when I was at the fine establishment, I went up to the bar, unsure of what of what beer I wanted. I looked around at my fellow patrons to see what they were having. After careful observation, I decided on a Dos Equis, paid the bartender, and went back to my table.

     Did you miss it? So did I, at first. But the marketing was so subtle; I didn't even notice what caused me to make my decision.

     As I am walking back to my table, enjoying my ice cold, refreshing lager, I couldn't help by wonder what caused me to make my decision. Then it hit me...THE GLASSES! As I was deciding what beer to get, I was checking what other people at the bar were drinking. Now, I didn't ask anyone what they were drinking, but then again. I didn't have to. Everyone who was drinking from glasses, was drinking from logo beer glasses. When I scanned the bar to see what others were drinking, whether I knew it or not, I was being bombarded with logos from various beer companies. All that information can easily sway you to choose one beverage or another. Plus, the person drinking the beverage will constantly be staring at the logo while they drink it, virtually engraining the image in their head. This is very clever way to promote ones brand and should be used by anyone looking to make it in the beverage industry.

    "A chalice is not a glass, it is a chalice"

     That is one of the many lines you will hear from the latest promotion by Stella Artois. It was a simple promotion that involved people becoming the lucky recipients of the ever-so-coveted chalice. The chalice is a cup that was specifically designed for the Stella Artois beverage. Its gold rimmed elegance makes it highly desirable, giving the holder of the chalice an aura of class and sophistication. The chalice is so detrimental to Stella, that even at a bar, Stella Artois will be served to you in a chalice.

     The promotion is simple. First, you must go to Facebook and "Like" their page. You need to do this so when Stella posts a status giving the number you need to call for the chalice, you can see it. Then visit the page and call the number that Stella posts. Now when you call this number, feel free to listen to the automated voice on the other line listing the options available to you. The options she says are quite humorous.

     Now I must warn you, you will have to either wait on hold for a while, or keep calling back. I had to call over 20 times to finally get through. A free chalice is not an easy item to come by. Now when you do eventually get through, all you have to do is give them all your mailing information, and email address, and you will get a free Stella Artois chalice in the mail. That's it!

     This is a great promotional campaign. It is simple to participate, and gives Stella a chance to get new customers, plus vital marketing information. I found it so easy to do that I told a few of my co-workers about this and they called too. This was also a great opportunity for Stella to push their La Societe de Stella Artois, a campaign where you can win prizes by being a member of La Societe. When you called for your chalice, you are asked if you want to join La Societe. This is a perfect way to get the consumer engaged and interested in your brand.

     So several weeks go by, and one by one, each of my co-workers and myself begin receiving our promotional drinkware. They come packaged in very sturdy cardboard boxes, and have a thank you letter enclosed. I also received my membership into La Societe, which made my other co-workers very jealous. It came in an elegant black envelope, with a handbook, membership card, and invitations that I can give to people so they can join La Societe.

     Isn't she beautiful. Her hourglass figure and golden top make the chalice look stunning. Everyone is enjoying their chalice. My co-worker and friend Nicole, loves hers so much that she even drew a picture of us celebrating our chalices. Isn't the drawing amazing? (I am the handsome one in the picture)

On November 1, Starbucks helped to unofficially launch the holiday season with the release of its festive, red holiday cups.  I for one don't mind the coffee chain's early adoption of the holiday spirit; for me, Christmas couldn't come soon enough!

And yesterday Starbucks announced that it's making the red promotional drinkware interactive.  Beginning next Tuesday, coffee lovers can animate their holiday-themed cups on their smartphones.

How does it work?  According to Mashable, with the Starbucks Cup Magic app, consumers can aim their camera phones at holiday season coffee cups, as well as 47 other items (like bags of coffee), to "produce animations involving five characters — an ice skater, a squirrel, a boy and a dog sledding and a fox."  The characters can be interacted with, and anyone who manages to activate all five will be qualified to win a yet-to-be-decided Starbucks promotional gift.

Of course, the application also features other social sharing capabilities; Mashable reports that users can "send ecards as well as holiday offers from Starbucks." I'm excited to stop by my local Starbucks next week and give the app a try!

How much fun can you have with promotional drinkware? It's not a challenge, so please, no strange video submissions. However, I did discover some awesome items that I must share with you. It's the crazy cool custom game bottle. Now that will keep the kids quiet! It's perfect for road trips, picnics and around the house.

                               
Schools and day care centers should utlize these fun giveaways because they'll garner them an awesome reputation.

I recently became curious as to how many promotional items I have in my own home. To be fair, I won't include the swag that I've garnered through trade shows. I want to dissect the average home and giveaways in store. So at some point I will count the promotional magnets, tally up the promotional t-shirts and collect the keychains to find out what items stick around.

As I pick my brain for the promotional products I know are popular in my home, one stands ahead of the pack, promotional drinkware.

                            
Sitting in a cabinet over my kitchen sink, are at least twelve custom imprinted brewery glasses. Most of them are imprinted with a logo, slogan or image token to Maine. My parents enjoy a nice glass of beer and they adore Maine, so at restaurants up North, they often purchase the available drinkware. That way, they're able to bring a little piece of Maine back to Long Island every trip.

There are glasses with imprinted Moose, one with some blue berries and many imprinted with my parent's favorite brew, "The Maine Brewing Company."

If your eyes shoot to the cabinet above the stove, they'll see a collection of more random drinkware. Martini glasses, fish bowls and margarita glasses all call this cabinet home. I'll refer to it as the cruise cabinet, because most of the drinkware was acquired on tropical cruises. Again, while vacationing, my parents enjoy their cocktails and tend to buy the special promotional drinks.

By just focusing on the promotional drinkware in my home, I can truly say that promotional products work. Everydaaaaaaaaaaay my parents fill up one of their beer glasses or fishbowls and reminisce about the trip they got it on. Then they book another trip.

Do you want to swim in a pool of sweet hazelnut syrup stirred into an iced coffee concoction? Have you dreamt of an exotic blend of coffee beans raining down from the sky? Then today is a close to that as you'll get...unless you plan on collaborating with Willy Wonka or the creators of MTV's Cribs in the near future.

Stop on by the nearest Starbucks and claim your free coffee! Except don't expect a cup. You'll have to open wide and let them funnel your favorite blend down your throat because this Starbuck's promotion is all about going cup free. Paper cup free that is. And the only way to actually redeem your free coffee, is to show up at a Starbucks with your promotional travel mug in hand.

Starbucks has run promotional discounts with the use of travel mugs before (As seen in the image below) but this is a rare oppourtunity to use your own travel mug and get a free coffee.
                         

Starbucks launched their Make A Difference campaign in March in the middle of New York City. The video shows the masterpiece they created as they all pledged to use promotional drinkware in an effort to reduce the waste and pollution contributed by paper cups. Check out this awesome eco friendly Starbucks promotion and enjoy your free treat made possible by promotional travel mugs.

You never know what you'll find when you type a phrase into Google. I've bumped into some things I wish I never saw after typing what seemed like harmless things into the Google images search. But more often than not, Google provides. Today for instance, I typed, "imprinted items" and found these gems.

A 14 year old was arrested for throwing promotional bottles at cars from an overpass. He was wearing a skull imprinted tee shirt to his court appearance. Nice fashion choice, buddy. He'll be under a 7PM-7AM curfew unless his mother and father are with him, and is subject to up to 7 years in jail and a $36,000 fine. Wow. Let's make sure to warn customers of promotional drinkware about the consequences of throwing them. Perhaps we can write something up and give people the option of choosing it as a stock imprint. "You thow this bottle, We throw you in jail."
                               
This next crime, also included a youngster but was of another caliber of crime. A 27 year old and 15 year old entered a local business and demanded that the woman there get down and direct them to the money. Like with most amateur robberies, they fled with chump change. Once the cops arrived the criminals were no where in site, however one officers keen eye led them to the bad boys. As the fled the seen, they left behind a crisp trail in the snow. Officers followed their tracks, like a man in the jungle, and were led up a street, over and fence and right to the robbers.

Now Motivators, during our snow storms there were many complaints from you. But let's be sensitive, the snow may have hindered our commutes, but at least it didn't get us arrested. haha And things are looking up for us. No snow, no slush, just rain today. It's the perfect promotional umbrella weather.
                                        

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.

Almost any baseball fan reading this right now can probably say that they watched most of, or at least part of this past Tuesday’s annual All-Star Game. I’m not going to get into the details of the game because I am a Mets fan and thus was not too thrilled with the outcome, but then again, not surprised. Speaking of being surprised, it wasn’t too far into the game that I became accustomed to seeing something else. No, it wasn’t seeing another misplaced throw from David Wright to the first baseman, it was seeing a Holiday Inn commercial at every commercial break! A few weeks back I had noticed that the Holiday Inn logo had changed from the old familiar script font. I wont say that this move was long overdue, but the new branding definitely gives the idea and perception that the Holiday Inn is a fresh, bright, even classy place to stay. Of course we all know that the Holiday Inn is not a 5-star resort, but a more modern logo definitely sheds the idea that the linens and wallpaper in each room is as old as the prior logo. Not only has there been a trend of new or updated branding recently, but this was not merely following a trend, it is a very effective marketing strategy because new branding in this case will very likely equate to a new inviting perception.

When watching this commercial over and over again, I thought about how I knew of the brand change, but didn’t remember exactly where I had seen the new logo. I just knew that it wasn’t in the form of traditional advertising, like said commercials, which got me to thinking that it was probably a promotional product! So I tried to think of the specific one, and when cycling through the usual suspects, I came to the conclusion that it was not a custom tote bag, and I didn’t see it on any promotional drinkware, finally leading me to the conclusion that I had seen it on a promotional pen. Imprinted Drinkware, Custom foil-wrapped chocolates, promotional notepads and promotional pens are staples in hotel promotional products. We see them every time we check into a room, but my experience with the new Holiday Inn logo just goes to show you how powerful promotional pens can be. I have not stayed in a Holiday Inn recently, nor do I know anyone who has. But the fact that I used an imprinted pen with the new branding on it, to sign for a credit card purchase at the Home Depot, means that someone took the pen from a room and it somehow got passed around until it reached a checkout counter in a random store. Exposure is one of the most important things that one should think about when running a promotion. Even if you are not a hotel, the custom printed pen has the potential to get the same mileage out of a pen from a hotel because it is a commonly used and shared item that often gets passed around unintentionally. For this reason, it might also be a good idea to consider a promotional bic lighter for your next promotion. It may very well be the single most commonly exchanged item that there is other than money.

But back to the point: I had originally thought that the new Holiday Inn branding campaign hadn’t had much effort or investment put into it, but after Tuesday it is pretty clear that they were just waiting for the timing to be right. Unless I have simply not seen any other typical advertising for the new branding, it appears that many of the Holiday Inn eggs have been put into the Major League Baseball basket at least for now. The commercial even revolves around baseball as the hotel room attendants are dressed as grounds crew members and make up the room in a similar fashion that you see a grounds crew tending to the field.

Hello out there promotional products fans! My name is Jennifer, and I am the Director of Operations here at Motivators. I am also an avid (or crazy, as some people like to say) New York Rangers fan.  The Rangers are currently in the NHL playoffs, and my husband and I are super excited to see our boys in the post season.  I have season tickets, so we get to see the blueshirts fairly regularly.

 Like any good sports fan, my friends and I "tailgate" before every game.  Since the cops would frown upon us sitting in lawn chairs and grilling hot dogs on 7th avenue,  we go to a bar right down the block from Madison Square Garden.  The Blarney Rock Pub is a great irish bar with spectacular food that has been our tailgateing home away from home for 8 seasons now.  We get pints, we get wings, all in the comfort of a warm bar away from the cold of New York City.

The Blarney Rock is home to one of the most creative (and inexpensive) promotional products I have ever seen:

This promotional "drink minder"  sits on the bar and on the tables, ready and waiting if you need it.  The "drink minder" is simply a business card with a small triangular slit so you can slip it over the top of your glass, and it certainly gets a message across!

I'll be keeping an eye out for more cool promotional products in action & I will keep you posted.  In the meantime, tune in to watch the New York Rangers rock, er, i mean play the New Jersey Devils this week!