I love to travel. Anyone who reads my blogs knows I always jump on the chance to go somewhere different, even if it is only for a day or two, even if it is only a state or two away.I'm lucky that I have a girlfriend that feels the same way. We have traveled as far away as Cancun, and as close to home as Mystic, CT. This Friday is her 25th birthday so what better gift could I give than a Labor Day weekend mini vacation? So, this weekend we are packing our promotional duffel bags and heading off to our nation's capitol, Washington DC. Here's the thing, we both have leased cars pushing the limits of mileage and flights are overly expensive. That didn't stop us though. One of the most popular ways to get to DC is by bus. When I did my research I found MANY different DC bus lines. Not wanting to put my wonderfully patient girlfriend through a miserable 5 hour transportation experience to DC I made sure to read many reviews of the different bus lines.Based on reviews, availibility and cost my choice was a line called DC2NY. They have a very easy to use website, good reviews, moderate cost and oh yeah, a free bottle of water. Now you may laugh, but they are the only line that does this. It is a very small thought that can do a lot to seperate themselves from a crowded field of competition. If they are smart, they give out promotional bottled water. That will keep the company name in front of their customer's face for the entire bus ride, maybe even when the ride is over and long after! They could probably get close to a month's worth of promotional bottled waters for .90 per piece! So, long story short, I'm very excited for my trip, hopefully along the way I'll find some more promotional products to come back with.

As the summer comes to close we enter fall. Fall may very well be my favorite time of the year, baseball enters the playoffs, football begins, the weather cools down and the holiday season starts up. More important than any of that though, fall means National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Breast Cancer Awareness Month happens every October to help find a cure and end an affliction that affects millions of women every year. There are walks, fundraisers, concerts and more all held to help raise money for the cure. We here at Motivators are here to help two-fold. We have an entire category of promotional pink items to help out for every occasion that charities and companies may need giveaways for. We even have a category of free rush promotional pink products! Probably, the most important way we help though is through the Carol M Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund. For every order placed through the promotional breast cancer awareness category Motivators will donate 10% of the profits to the Carol M Baldwin Cancer Research Fund to help find a cure. So no matter what your event is this fall, consider a pink promotional product. You won't just be helping your company and your customers, you'll be helping millions of women around the world.

I'm really not a big morning person.  My ideal day involves not waking up between 1030 and 1130. While I do have one day a week here at Motivators where I work a West Coast shift and I do not start until 11am, every other day, I have to be a morning person. Unfortunatly, I am also not a coffee person. It just doesn't do it for me. So, my recent kick has been tea. Its certainly healthier than coffee, comes in infinite amounts of flavors and still eases me into my morning routine. Since my new obession with tea has started I have noticed how many great tea related promotional products we carry.

You can start with the basics. We have promotional instant iced tea packets as well promotional Teavelopes with Lipton tea bags in them. Those items are great for beginners in the tea game. I consider myself at least at the intermediate level at this point. So for me, I'm looking at the tea sets that have a little more variety. Right now I'm hoping to get my hands on our promotional tea sampler or the promotional holiday tea set (with pumpkin spice!). Again, I am only an intermediate tea connoisseur, we have plenty for the more advanced tea lovers as well. For them we have the promotional organic tea box or if you already have your own favorite teas, the promotional bamboo tea box.

However, whatever level tea connoisseur you are, everyone should have one of our promotional Double Wall Glass Beverage Vessel w/ Tea Strainer to make the entire process smoother. Now, let me get back to drinking my Orange Spice Black Tea from Maria Pinto's desk.

If you haven't seen Inception yet I will try not to give too much away (Ozzie) but Inception is the movie to save the summer movie season. It's the hottest movie since Avatar, having made over $230 million dollars in under a month. A movie this popular is bound to create a cult like following. It has. However, any cult like following worth your time better have some good promotional products. They do.

The rarest and most wanted of the Inception promotional products is the case that was given out to movie critics before the premiere. It was a tin case, with a promotional flash drive and of course a metal spinning top with the word Inception on it. I assume the cell phone scannable bar code on the tin would bring you to the Inception movie home page.

This is where the madness starts, Inception branded spinning tops. There are now websites dedicated to selling the spinning tops from Inception, they are all over eBay and the studio has been giving away promotional keychains in the shape of the top engraves with the word Inception. That's right, these promotional keychains and promotional flash drives, that were given out for free, are now in high demand and being sold for good money across the Internet. For Inception, that is like double the promotion! Not only did your message get delivered effectively to your end user but it is being redelivered to countless more people on the Internet. As of today, we do not carry any Inception style promotional spinning tops, but we do have a lot of fun promotional games and toys as well as tons of promotional key chains.  If nothing else, these tops show us even the simplest of items can be hugely effective.

I love my job, I really do. As far as sales jobs go what can be more fun than being able to sell promotional animal stress relievers , promotional whoopee cushions and promotional rubber ducks all in the same day? I only wish I could be at more of the events these promotional products are used at!  It isn't a secret, people love free stuff. Especially when myself and my colleagues work so hard on perfecting these projects sometimes you can only wish you were there to see these pieces given and making people smile. Well this past Saturday was just an overall great day. A good friend of mine ,going on a decade, recently got engaged. As I am very close with the couple, when they decided they wanted to do promotional bags to announce the bridesmaids and groomsmen well of course they came to me first. For the bridesmaids, we went with the promotional Ensigns Boat Bag, it was pink trimmed and had plenty of room to be filled up with goodies for the girls. For the guys we went with the promotional Ogio Half Dome Duffel Bag. It's blue and black, its tough and it's big enough to hold everything you need for maybe a Bachelor Party to Atlantic City (or maybe Vegas anyone?). As with any order I put much care and consideration into making sure everything went right, but this time I got to be there to see it delivered.

I am happy to report all of the bags went over fantastically (it's a word, I checked). Everyone was very surprised to get their bags and they were all excited to receive them and couldn't wait to use them. Cheers to my friends and cheers to another successful promotional product!

"Now more than ever..."

This may be the most overused phrase in our society today, since the our country fell into a recession within the last two years. Companies will find any excuse to insert this phrase to compel you to use them. "Now more than ever, your car's mileage is important to you" or "Now more than ever it is important for you to save money on groceries" when the truth is recession or not, most people always care about getting the most for their money. I personally hate the phrase. That being said I will use it for this one occasion. Now more than ever, companies should not be increasing the costs of their goods if they are a discount oriented store. This was the case of ".99 Cents Only" one of the larger .99 cent stores in the country. About two years ago, the company decided to increase the price of their goods from .99 cents to .999 cents. According to the Los Angeles Times, "company executives thought it was a clever way to increase sales while staying loyal to the chain's love for the number 99." One problem, anyone with any basic knowledge of US Currency knows there is no way to actually pay less than a penny. So, now customers were paying $1 plus tax as opposed to .99 plus tax. It is only a penny difference but it has greatly angered customers who have put together a class action lawsuit against the company. "If they call themselves 99 Cents Only, it should be 99 cents," said Dan Callahan, an Orange County lawyer. The moral of the story? Don't be cute when it comes to your customers' money. Our promotional products under a $1, are under $1. Yes, there is also a setup cost but every on item on our site indicates the cost for setups in Imprint Info/Pricing tab as well as running charges for extra colors or locations. We don't believe in hidden costs, it is all laid out in front of you. So if you are still on a recession style budget but you don't want to ignore marketing your brand be sure to check out our Under $1 Promotional Products section.

Earlier this week, Motivators celebrated not just the birthday of, but the life of, Jenn Jimenez. Motivators lost Jenn about two months ago, but what many of us realized at the beautiful birthday party held for her at the Vanderbilt Planetarium (if they hadn't already), was the effect that she will leave on us for the rest of our lives.For this celebration, Jenn's parents worked with Motivators graphic designer Anthony Zuaro to create a promotional product to give to all the attendees that would leave everyone with an inspiring message, "Be More Jenn" Three simple words that speak chapters.

For those that didn't know Jenn, let me take the honor of helping you to "Be More Jenn."

Never be petty or hold grudges.

Smile and laugh every moment you can.

Be exactly who you want to be when you want to be never pretending to be someone else.

If you want to pretend to be someone else, do it in a costume.

Dance.

Enjoy and appreciate every moment you have. Every moment. Make even the dull and boring moments fun.

I know what you are saying, it sounds a lot like that Sunscreen Song (which fellow Motivators Dan Link didn't listen to, WEAR SUNSCREEN). That being said these are some of the rules of life Jenn lived by and everyone that met her, even just once, can vouch for that. Actually, I forgot one other rule she lived by.

Love everything and anything that is bright and shiny or that lights up.

So in doing what Jenn did so well, blogging about promotional products on the Company Blog, let me show you my new favorite promotional product I have been obsessed with the promo bouncer glitter ball.

From 1900 to today, this century certainly has had more technological developments than any century before. It seems to me that technology keeps taking leaps and bounds faster and faster. If I told you 10 years ago you would be playing video games without having to press a button, just by moving your hands and body, you would laugh at me. Here we are though, lead by Nintendo's Wii with Sony and Microsoft ready to carry the torch. Microsoft it seems may be looking to take this all to an entirely new level. Recently, Microsoft made official that they will be releasing an addition to their XBox 360 called Kinect. With the Kinect you will actually be able to control your system, your video games, without even holding a controller. The system will be able to recognize not just your body, but also your face, your emotions AND your intentions. And so, yesterday Microsoft unveiled the first ever "virtual human", Milo :

Milo, is a learning evolving person. Accrording to Microsoft, "No two people's Milos can be the same - you are actually sculpting a human being. Some of the things you are doing will change the course of his life." Don't kid yourself. The marketing impacts of this are tremendous. All of the information in Milo's head comes from a cloud server Microsoft controls. So certainly, as you get closer with Milo, and have conversations with him, Microsoft will be able to use him to let you know that "Coca Cola is so much better than Pepsi" or that he is "SO excited to see the new Harry Potter movie." Not to mention the obvious fact that I'm sure Microsoft will also be able to control what Milo wears, which would mean there is nothing stopping them from putting a promotional t-shirt or promotional cap that has say, a Mets logo or a Toyota logo on it. This person that you talk to every day and invest your time in every day will certainly have the potential to also effect your buying decisions. Lets face it, we are one step away from the next big thing in promotional products being promotional people.

Everyone is all smiles today at Motivators Central here in Westbury, NY. Is it because today was payday? Maybe. Is it because regularly remote sales reps Rhonda Blum and Greg Hill are in house today? Maybe, partially. Is it because Rhonda has brought in a truck filled with goodies and treats.

I can't say for sure but I am certainly leaning that way.

See free, surprise goodies tend to have that effect on people. That's why we have such a large selection of promotional food products. All of the foods that would make your day can be customized and branded. There are promotional chocolates, promotional cookies, promotional mints and more! Personally though, as good as cookies and chocolates are, I'm all about the munchies. Thats why my favorite promotional food products are the promotional food tins. First of all, you get great exposure with a big imprint area, and the tin will stick around even when the food is gone. Trust me, the food will be gone pretty quickly. The best fills, as far as I am concerned, are pretzels and popcorn. Nothing beats the promotional 3 Way Popcorn Tin and the 3 promotional 3 Way Pretzel Tin. Give these out to employees to boost morale in an instant!

From what I am told, we are right smack in the middle of wedding season. It seems that it starts in the spring and extends into the summer. When all is said and done, and this particular wedding season is over I will have attended two engagement parties and a wedding, for now. These types of things have a tendency of just popping up around you. So being that I am surrounded by this wedding season I sense patterns, particularly promotional wedding favors. That seems to be the running constant between every single wedding themed event.Now, I personally, am not a huge fan of all of these wedding events. I'm not a Scrooge, it's just everything that goes with these events, the suit, the gift, is it on a work night?, if there is an open bar who drives?, and so on. However, that is why the promotional wedding favor is so important. In fact, it may be my favorite part of these wedding events (other than the open bar). So, when judging the promotional wedding favor I receive I judge it based on one of two things, usability or edibility. Is this something that I will be able to use in everyday life? If not, is this something tasty I can snack on? Two examples of promotional wedding favors that would fit these categories:

Paneled Tankard Beer Stein

OR

Jelly Bean Snap Top Tins

These are just two items featured in Motivators Promotional Wedding Favors theme page.So when planning your promotional wedding favors remember three words:

Usability

Edibility

Motivators!