It's true; doing what I do for a living, I tend to become a magnet of sorts for promotional products. I do find myself receiving a lot of free giveaways but it's only the great ones that are worthy of making their way into the blog.

So Sunday, when my fiance Sara and I made our way to the Mets game we were just hoping for a good game and great weather. Sure, the Mets lost (unsurprisingly) but we got the great game and we got fantastic weather. However, we also got a great free giveaway. To promote the upcoming movie Iron Man 3, the Mets teamed with Verizon and Paramount to give away some great looking digitally imprinted water bottles. Not just any water bottles though, they were the 24 Oz Metal-Like Bottle with Flip Straw Lid. 

This is a great bottle, it is a low cost bottle made to look like the higher end aluminum or stainless steel bottles. They are Made in the USA and union printed. They are of course BPA Free and they are strong, they are made of Tritan.  Normally, these are done with a standard screen print but for Iron Man 3 they went above and beyond and went with a Digital Imprint. It may have cost them a little bit more, but it was worth it. The imprint of Iron Man really pops, it is truly bright and the quality is top notch.

Everyone leaving the game made sure they had their bottle with them. These are great for going to the gym and very portable with a loop to clip to a bag, keys or a belt. 

Today we take a moment out from talking about all of the things that bring us joy and happiness on this blog and send our thoughts and prayers out to those affected by the tragedy that occured today in Boston. 

After 2pm today, Patriot's Day, the Boston Marathon was horrifically interupted by two major explosions by the finish line of this world famous race. Runners and onlookers alike were injured and immediate panic set in. 

In moments of tragedy, Americans come together and unite to help those in need. Today all of us here at Motivators have those affected by today's tragedy in our hearts and minds.

New York and Boston, two cities known for their rivalry. Today, all of us -- New Yorkers included -- send our love and thoughts to Boston. Myself and all of my colleagues certainly wish everyone affected the best.

We here at Motivators have always prided ourselves in doing our very best to stay ahead of the competition. We were the first ones with a mobile app, we are always on top of our social media game and are constantly updating our product videos. We even offer rush production FREE! If you need something produced in 24 hours you can easily find something that you won't have to pay additional for. Now, we take that idea one step further.

Instant Promos.

For no additional cost you can now order any item on our site and have the branded items you want moments after you complete your order! For the small price of $25,000,000 you can purchase one of our handy dandy promotional material transporters! This gives you access to unlimited instant rushes! 

No more having to wait 24 hours for goods to print! UPS Overnight not fast enough? Have your order there in a Motivators minute!

Stress balls, drawstring backpacks and more will all be available literally ON demand. Now keep in mind, this will be limited to 1 color imprints and we will only deliver instantaneously site quantities! Plus if you order our promotional material transporter before midnight tonight Motivators is offering $50 off!

That makes the promotional material transporter only $24,999,950! Buy one for yourself and for a friend and start ordering your Instant Promos now!

You would be a FOOL not to order one this APRIL 1st! 

We all have our guilty pleasures. The things we do, the things we eat and the things we buy that that we know we don't know need and we know that we just shouldn't buy. It's the things we obsess over, either secretly or not so secretly. Maybe for some it's chocolate; sure it's unhealthy, but it tastes so good and it just isn't that expensive.

Unfortunately for me, my guilty pleasure is tech gadgets. It can be an expensive guilty pleasure. I love nothing more than something new to plug in and charge up. It can be video games, TVs, laptops, tablets, streaming devices or cell phones. Especially cell phones. That is probably because you can't blink without something new coming out.

If you didn't know I am Team Android, as opposed to Team Apple or what is left of Team Blackberry, and there is always a new Android phone coming out. However, leading the way in almost all electronic devices the last few years has been Samsung. They have proven their quality in all areas. They have been the one to take down the iPhone as the best-selling phone over the last few years. It is for that reason that so much hype lead up to their new phone being released last week, the Samsung Galaxy S4. Most expect it to take down the iPhone 5, the same way it did the 4/4S.

There is plenty to like about the new 4S too. A 13 MP camera, Smart Sensors that automatically adjust brightness and video playing based on your environment and whether you are LOOKING at the phone or not, a built in remote control for your TV, a built in voice and text translator and much more. As it's the soon to be best-selling phone on the market ,keep an eye out for the flood of branded cell phone accessories that will follow. 

Where do I get in line? 

If you are reading this blog, it hopefully means you have worked with Motivators in the past for your order of branded promotional products. My colleagues and I are very thorough in making sure your order exceeds your expectations. No detail ever goes unnoticed. So, when you place your order, one of the questions you will be asked is "What PMS number is your logo?"

PMS stands for Pantone Matching System. It is a system used not just throughout our industry, but by artists, designers and marketers around the world. It is why every McDonald's ad you have ever seen has the exact same shade of red. It is why every item sold in the Mets Clubhouse features the exact same shades of blue and orange. Every shade of every color has a corresponding PMS number. So if you are in graphic design, art or marketing, these are the rules you follow.

Minneapolis-based graphic designer David Schwen was working on his latest project when he had taped two PMS color samples together, to see how they looked together. This would be his inspiration for his latest project.

"...while I was finishing up a poster design, I had taped two Pantone chips together to see how they looked next to one another. Instantly I thought of how people pair food together, and that was that. Pantone pairings."

Famous food pairing and the Pantone Matching System. Admittedly, the project is more about fun than any type of deep, thought-provoking art. However, at least in the social media world, it has created quite the buzz. The online gallery of Pantone food samples are simply a selection of the most common food pairings in our world set up as Pantone sample squares. I've included a few of my favorites below, but be sure to check out more of Schwen's work at http://instagram.com/dschwen. 

Happy Monday all! Everyone enjoy the Super Bowl last night? Everyone except 49ers fans I assume, and the electricians for the SuperDome. They say about 50% of people with television sets watched the Super Bowl last night. Now, in all fairness, many people are not actually watching for the football game, many people are watching because they were invited to a party and/or for the commercials. 

Yes, the commercials. Super Bowl commercials are as American as apple pie. It is the one opporttunity for the great companies of America to reach out to as close as possible to all of America at once. For example, popular personal grooming and care line Axe announced an incredible unique promotion. They are offering the opportunity to become an Astronaut. One winner will actually get to go into space. It will be tough, it will include not 1 but 2 rounds of Competitive Space Camp, but 1 person will get the 1 in a billion chance of getting to go to outer space.

We here at Motivators believe we have the perfect young, smart and tough candidate to become the Axe Astronaut. Our own Director of Sales Rachel Levin McEneaney! We know she is smart, thats how she was able to rise to Director of Sales and be successful at her job for so many years. We know she is tough because she is an avid skydiver and well, she puts up with this Sales Team day after day after day!

So when you get a chance, click the link below and vote your favorite Promotional Product Director of Sales as the first ever Axe Astronaut! It has to be her, because if not, who will be the first one to take a branded drawstring backpack into outer space?

Vote Rachel Levin McEneaney for Astronaut!

It's 2013 and for me that means each day is one day closer to the "Big Day". That Big Day being myself and my lovely fiance Sara getting married.

So this past week, through Motivators, I created our Save the Dates: Essentially, a wedding announcement to all your friends and family that you want to share that special day with. This gives everyone the chance to plan ahead for any days off, babysitters, hotels or otherwise they will need to attend your wedding.

Over the years magnets have become popular. They typically end up on your fridge so that you can never forget it. Sometimes though, magnets just don't have enough space to say all that you want to say. That's what is so fantastic about our Magna-Peel Postcard with Magnet.

It is completely customizable and entirely digital printed. So the postcard can express all the important information you need to communicate, and the magnet can be something memorable for your friends and family to keep. Even better, included in the price is the ability to inkjet print all of the addresses, instead of hand writing out each one. Needless to say, thanks to our fantastic order artist Sara, Keri and I are very excited to see how great they look!

Recently, I spent some time with my dad cleaning out an old storage room. Each of us uses it to keep memories and things we just can't part to give away or throw away. It has been years since I had gone through what was in there. I noticed a repeating pattern of how I would keep a memory when I was younger. It was always a t-shirt.

I found a promotional t-shirt from my bar-mitzvah. I found a plethora of t-shirts from a trip to Israel. To me the most interesting t-shirt I found was from my 6th grade graduation. They gave one to every graduating student. In fact, on the back of it, it had listed the names of every single student.

It was probably "real cool" in 6th Grade for us. Now, almost 20 years later (yikes!), it's real useful. Here in the days of Facebook it was a great tool to bring together old friends, people who I haven't spoken to in ages. It was even able to bring together OTHER people who hadn't spoken to each other in ages. 

It was fantastic foresight on the principal and teachers back then, to give us something that we could keep not just to remind us of when we were young but to also bring us together as we got older. 

Good job PS 169, and thanks! 

When purchasing a new cell phone, there is a lot to think about and a lot to consider. What carrier do I want to be on? What size screen do I want? Do I want a hard keyboard? It's a big decision. Of course, worst case scenario you are stuck with a phone you don't like maybe 2 years and you get a new one, right?

Wrong.

Australian police are warning citizens and tourists alike, to stay away from Apple Maps as using it could be a "potentially life threatening issue." Just to clarify what Australian police are saying, owning an iPhone 5 could kill you. Let me explain.

As anyone in the tech world knows, prior to the release of the newest iPhone, Apple cut ties with the hugely successful Google Maps. For years, thanks to cars chartered by Google around the world, Google Maps have been able to consistently update and correct streets and avenues everywhere. 

Unfortunately, when Apple created their own Maps app, without the years of updates their maps were not accurate. Now this is an inconvenience maybe if you are looking for a new route to work, but it's something completely different when using GPS to travel through dangerous or unknown areas. 

According to Wired.com:

Police in Mildura, Victoria, said they've had to rescue "a number of distressed motorists that were directed off the beaten track” and stranded in Murray-Sunset National Park. Apple Maps places the town about 43 miles (70 km) away from its actual location. It’s a potentially deadly mistake, as the location is in the middle of nowhere — the park has no water supply and temperatures can reach 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius).

If you ask me I would stick with an Android phone to stay with old reliable Google Maps, but that should be no surprise to anyone here at Motivators. Whatever phone you have, make sure you keep it charged and protected with high-quality promotional cell phone accessories. 

On November 9th, my friends and I attended the International Great Beer Expo in Belmont Park. For the price of one ticket, available to you were samples of dozens upon dozens of brewers from around the state as well as around the country. Most brewers had multiple beers there to sample, and there were ciders and wines, as well.

It was a fantastic event; with unlimited samples of great beers and great wines, what more could you ask for? Great promotional products of course! They did not fail to meet expectations on that end either.

Of course, everyone was greeted with a branded shooter glass that held about 2 oz. That was only the beginning, though -- I would end up leaving with promotional bottle openers with key chains from Samuel Adams and Yelp, as well as temporary tattoos from Angry Orchard Cider and Port Jeff Brewing Company.

Unfortunately, there were even more products that I wasn't able to get my hands on, like customized wristbands and branded playing cards. That was just what I saw with my own two eyes, too. I can only imagine there must have been more than I missed.

I have to give credit to Samuel Adams and Yelp, though: they hit it on the nose. What is the best way to make a lasting impression on attendees at a Beer Expo? A bottle opener to open their beer! Great job!