Visibility Tips

This is the initial edition of the Next Level Promotions monthly newsletter. We’ll give you necessary information -facts, terms, definitions - to use when considering promotional products for your advertising and marketing campaigns. From time to time we’ll feature how a particular company used an item to achieve a specific marketing goal.

In this issue: Promotional Products: Reach, Recall and Repeated Exposure.

These are the surprising and sometimes eye-opening results of a survey of business travelers conducted at the DFW airport. (If you’re inclined to view promotional products as “trinkets and trash,” “swag,” or "tchotchkies" you might be intrigued to see how effective they can be in strengthening the reach and stickiness of your brand.)

Reach –

• 75% of an audience of primarily business travelers reported having received a promotional item within the last twelve months. (Proof that this stuff is out there and being used.)
• One in three actually had the item on their person. (If they have the item with them, then they have you with them.)

Recall –

• 80% could recall the advertiser’s name on the product they had received within the last twelve months.
• By way of comparison, participants were also asked if they had read a newspaper or a magazine in the past week. While 80% of the respondents said yes, only 53.5% of them could recall the name of a single advertiser. (And think about the cost of a newspaper or magazine ad.)

Impression Of The Advertiser – Promotional products are powerful opinion change agents. Look how the promotional item effected opinions and perceptions.

• 52% of the respondents did business with the advertiser after receiving the promotional item
• Of those who had not done business with the advertiser, almost half stated that they were more likely to do business with the organization that gave them the advertising item.
• The impression of the advertiser is important in building brand awareness. 52.1% of the study participants reported their impression of the company was more favorable after receiving the promotional item.

(Couple this with the relatively low cost of the item and you begin to see just how effective these items can be.)

Frequent Exposure Equals Low Cost Per Impression – The frequency of the use of an advertising item is the frequency of the recipient’s exposure to your advertising message.

• Of those who said they used the promotional product, 73% stated they used it at least once a week. 45.2% used it at least once a day. (Think about that for a second, what other medium will give you that kind of repeated exposure and not cost a fortune?)
• In terms of media measurement, the greater the frequency of exposure the lower the cost per impression.

Repeated Exposure – 55% of the participants generally kept their promotional item for more than a year.

Amount of time promotional products are generally kept…

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Why Keep The Item? - The chart above shows how long people tend to hold on to their promotional items. But, why do they keep them for so long? This study found:

• 75.4% thought the item was useful.
• 20.2% thought the item was attractive.
• 1% refer to the item for information.
• 3% keep the item for other reasons.

Pass-Along Exposure - Study participants were asked what they do with promotional products they do not plan to keep. Their responses indicate the opportunity for pass-along (additional) exposure:

• 26% said they give the item to someone else.
• 45% file the item away
• 30% will discard the item if they don’t plan to use it.
• The 26% who pass the item along clearly provide ample pass-along (additional) exposure for the advertiser.

To Summarize - Promotional products furnish advertisers with advantages that are not available with other media. These include:

• High recall where the name of the advertiser is remembered.
• Repeated exposure to the advertiser’s’ name and message because of the length of time the product is kept.
• A more favorable impression of the advertiser, resulting in a higher propensity to do business with the company or organization giving the item.

This article is attributed to a research study conducted by PPAI. (Promotional Products Association International)

The study was conducted at Dallas Forth Worth International Airport using an intercept method in which anaudience consisting mainly of business travelers were asked to complete a 22 question survey. The results are based on a sample of 536 completed surveys, twice the number of participants in similar studies done previously.

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