The Tangible Cost of Bad Trade Show Schwag

Tradeshows and The Schwag they effuse; we’ve got to get real here.

Bad schwag gets thrown away immediately. Not only does it NOT make it onto desktops, it causes harm to the environment. And all of you who don’t believe the environment is an important issue can go flip a duck.

Schwag has weight. When consumers are trying to decide what to take back home in the already heavy suitcase, your schwag will lose unless it has value, real or emotional. Perhaps they do need a new pen or want to give a bag to the cleaning crew. However there is a large probability that your chosen schwag may not do anything except take up space in the garbage of local hotels.

I’ve been to hundreds of tradeshows and seen a lot of schwag in my life. During a 4 year stint I actually produced shows for a living, so the schwag I’ve seen has run the gamut.

I’d currently wager that AdTech has a definite lack of schwag innovation considering the industry which it serves. Where are the call to actions and so forth? I expected to see more companies tying their live tradeshow participation and schwag giveaways to their websites, for example.

I can’t affect company tradeshow participation plans, but I can comment on the schwag, so here we go. There are a few simple rules to make your schwag memorable and worth keeping. Kind of like Internet advertising in a way.

Is it cute?
Does it do anything?
Does it add value? (perceived quality)

At every AdTech in recent memory for example, I’ve seen hats, pens and notepads given away by Casale Media. Their golf hats are BRIGHT red and I mean BRIGHT. You would not get lost on the links in this hat. The notepads are a slightly strange design that are too big to slip into a pocket, yet too small to use for regular note keeping. Their pens however, the pens they give out are by far the best at the show, in my humble opinion. These pens are worth keeping a deep supply of. When I return from AdTech shows in fact I usually find that my red Casale pen has mysteriously gone missing from my office desk within days. Hmm…

I thought it might be interesting to solicit your feedback, dear reader, about the “best in class” of schwag which you saw and/or collected at the recent AdTech in San Francisco. That schwag which is worth keeping… Comment away about your own finds at the show…. like maybe you really loved the Doubleclick iPod mini speakers set for example…. hmm that might make a nice bedside music player…..

Here are some examples to get you going:
Best Pens
Best Flashy Thing
Best Notepads
Best Bags
Best Mints
T-shirts with the best design
Best “Other”

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