Well, maybe it’s not the amount of re-branding that gives you the headache as much as when a company’s re-branding attempts seem misplaced. You would think that major corporations put plenty of time, effort and lest we forget money into the research and development of their new branding, but examples such as Blimpie’s recent logo change really make me scratch my head. It almost seems like logo change such as this one was done simply to just change it to something new. It reminds me of when I used to rearrange my bedroom when I was younger just because I felt like a change of scenery would be cool. There was no logical or purposeful reason to rearrange the furniture, but I suppose it added some kind of excitement to the room until it eventually wore off in a few days when I was used to it.

 

As far as an outdated appearance is concerned, I don’t even think that the original logo seems that old looking. Sure, it has been around and unchanged for quite some time so technically one could make the argument that it is outdated, but what they changed it to is no more modern looking than what they already had. Not to mention it gets zero style or originality points from me. When I saw this it near boggled my mind because it is very likely that Blimpie paid a decent amount of money to a reputable designer, only for them to simply choose a font. To be fair, the font that spells out the company name is often the main element in many effective and modern logos, but this one just screams downgrade to me.

 

The font used in the original logo had additional style applied to it and further interest was created by using a second color to dot the i’s. The font itself on the original logo also seems like more of a calculated decision, as the nature of each character is bubbly and sort of gentle, which goes very well with the most common feelings one gets from the word Blimpie. Aside from being the name of a well known sandwich shop, for many people the word Blimpie instinctively reminds them of an actual blimp, which is what you might describe as bubbly but certainly rounded and smooth looking. That being said, it seems like a curious decision to choose such a bold, firm and rigid font for the new logo design. Neither of them seem to have anything to do with sandwiches unless you consider the yellow dots atop the letter i’s in the old design to be conceptual representations of olives on toothpicks. Even if that wasn’t the intention, it is just hard for me to get behind a logo design that is nothing more than a common font that has no creative elements introduced to it.

 

Maybe their motivation was to rid their logo of two colors so that they didn’t have to think about how two different colors would look on various promotional products. Although if that were actually the case, they could’ve simply changed the dots above the i’s to green. So despite my best efforts to come up with an acceptable explanation for this logo change, I simply cannot do it. Maybe in time they’ll wind up pulling a Tropicana and restore the old logo, but in the mean time I can’t help but wonder if I have seen a more generic, unoriginal and purposeless logo change than this one.

 

If you are a frequent reader of Motivators’ blogs, you have heard that line quite often, and it’s the truth. Promotional Products Work! There are a number of factors and plenty of research that lends credence to that statement, but I am not going to regurgitate any statistics or pull out the pie charts and graphs because I can prove it from having experienced it for myself just a few short weeks ago. As many of you may have heard, Motivators TV took a trip to the Roosevelt Field Mall a few weeks ago when the cast of Fox’s ‘Glee’ was making an album signing appearance there.

The initial purpose of the trip was to promote Motivators by offering each member of the cast promotional hand sanitizers that had Motivators’ logo and contact information on them. Hand sanitizers seemed like the most appropriate promotional product to give them since they would be touching hundreds of album covers that were being held by other people, not to mention shaking hands with the fans.

 

 

Of course, promotional Sharpie markers would’ve made a relevant promotional giveaway for the cast, but on short notice we did not have any custom imprinted Sharpies with our information on them. Either way, it was a great opportunity for Motivators to potentially get our name in the heads of the ‘Glee’ cast, Fox promoters or public relations directors so that they’ll consider using us for all of their future promotional products needs. 

 

The other purpose was of course to cover the event in hopes of creating a video for Motivators.tv that was worth watching. However, I thought that a few seconds of footage talking about how we gave the cast custom hand sanitizers, wasn’t quite enough as far as entertaining video content was concerned. Seeing as how we decided to do this at the last minute, I thought about what we already had here in the office, when I remembered that we had a never-been-used-before promotional mp3 speaker / carrier that had our logo and contact information on it. That’s when the big idea really hit me. Everyone attending the event is going to be celebrating the music from this show, so why not interact with the excited crowd by connecting the mp3 speaker and playing songs from the ‘Glee’ album for them to sing along with? In addition, I figured we could give the singing volunteers an added incentive to belt it out by offering them the mp3 speaker as a prize for the best and bravest singer.

 

This turned out to be a huge hit and we even had excited volunteers screaming at us to come and video tape them while we were in the middle of filming other people. We even managed to hand out some promotional sunglasses and custom imprinted mint boxes to many of the fans waiting in line. You can check out the video at the bottom of the post if you are curious to see what a bunch of excited, singing teenagers sound like. Not to mention a great performance by Tony as our host and a dash of an enthusiastic Sarah Shepherd who may or may not have sung and danced in the midst of all the excitement. 

But the real point of this blog was to illustrate how promotional products work. Sure, the Motivators name was very prominent at the event with all of the giveaways and us telling people to visit Motivators.tv to check themselves out on video. But it was our own promotional products that really worked for us that day. As I mentioned, we decided to cover this event at the last minute. In fact, it was the morning of the day it was taking place. Therefore, not only did we have to use the promotional products that we already had, but we didn’t have the time to get press passes before the event. So when we got there nobody really knew who we were or why we were there. Luckily, Sarah, Tony and I all had promotional polo shirts with the Motivators TV logo on it, and we all strapped on a Motivators TV custom lanyard for good measure. 

 

Without this we would’ve been looked at as regular people or fans with a video camera. Despite the lack of press passes, our uniform appearance got us respect at the event and we were asked by several people what type of organization we were. I think it is safe to assume we wouldn’t have been treated that way without the promotional products we were wearing. In fact, the PR representative for the event wound up getting us press passes after only being there for just a short time. I am sure the hype and excitement we were generating amongst the hundreds of fans helped our cause, but promotional products can definitely help any company or organization to ‘fit the part’. 

Promotional Products are generally inexpensive, but they can give you or your company the professional look that you desire. The proof is in the footage, without the press passes I wouldn’t have been able to film the cast from an arms length away, or get close-up shots of our promotional hand sanitizers sitting on the table that the cast was sitting at. We even spoke to and interviewed the parents of Jenna Ushkowitz, who plays Tina on the show. 

Overall it was a pretty successful endeavor for all parties and it just goes to show you that promotional products work!

 

I'm sure you have all been wondering where I've been around these parts as I have not posted to our company blog in quite some time. But I wasn't far away, in fact some fellow employees have joined me in our efforts to share our feelings about our favorite television shows at the Motivators TV Blog. We get some good discussion/debate going as well as analysis, reviews and dont think that promotional products are far behind. In fact, you can probably spot them in almost any TV show out there. So check it out, tell your friends and you'll actually be contributing to the social media frenzy.

Yes, I feel strongly enough about it to call it a frenzy. You cant go anywhere or watch anything without being hit over the head with encouragement to visit some social media site. Companies and corporations small and large are directing you to their YouTube channel, their Twitter page or their Facebook account left and right! As I mentioned before, we're doing it too! We've even podcasted about it because social media sites such as the ones I just mentioned can be a huge benefit to your current and potential customers. Its a great way of sharing information and even luring clientele. So last night as I watched some television, I saw a certain T.G.I.Friday's commercial for the first time. It wasnt the funniest or most memorable commercial, but the kicker that made me talk about it today was an incentive to become a fan of the completely random, unknown actor in the commercial. Not even the actor, but this 'character' that T.G.I. Friday's has created named Woody. If you become a fan of his and he reaches 500,000 fans before the end of September each of the first 500,000 fans is rewarded with a free Jack Daniels burger. At first I was a little surprised, but we really cant be surprised by these marketing tactics anymore.

 

This campaign is going to get them tons of exposure and you can plan on seeing campaigns and promotions like these for a long time to come. Think about it, countless people will become a fan because 'hey, why not get a free burger?' Right? All one has to do is click the mouse. The thought actually crossed my mind that this may be an experiment because of the small window of time that they have set for this goal. Giving it more thought, I just can't see how they won't hit their mark and then some. I'm sure plenty of people became a fan immediately after seeing that commercial. Now figure how many other people have done that when they saw the commercial for the first time. Then as the power of social media flexes its muscles once again, here I am perpetuating the campaign by writing about it here. Potentially letting people know about it that may not have heard about it or seen the commercial before. It all seems to boil down to word-of-mouth marketing, so go on and tell everyone about our blogs, our podcasts(you can subscribe on iTunes too!), our YouTube channel, Motivators.tv and our twitter, facebook and myspace pages so we can share ourselves and our product with a bigger audience.

Although my most recent plans to see Pixar’s newest hit ‘Up’ were thwarted, I have heard good things about it, with many people saying that the ‘talking dog’ was one of the shining stars of the movie. Like everyone else, I have seen the trailers and it definitely seems like ‘Dug the dog’ provided some good comic relief. I have also read that many dog owners and lovers claim that the writers and animators seemed to depict the dog very accurately in both its mannerisms and emotions. Many dog owners have a great connection with their pet, and at times dogs certainly have a way of letting their owner know how they feel without actually telling them. Sometimes its body language and sometimes it’s a groan or bark. But how many times have you experienced a dog just barking for what seems like a random reason? You go check to see if someone is at the door and there’s not. You try to let your dog out in the yard because you think maybe that’s what they’re getting at, yet they don’t want to go outside. You check their food and water supply to see if maybe they’re hungry, and when the food and water bowls are found full, a sentence somewhat along these lines comes next: “What is wrong with this dog? What is he barking at?” In many cases, it winds up being one of life’s mysteries that we will never know the answer to…until now? Yes, I do write it as a question because I am a bit skeptical, but if I had an extra $220, plans for a Japanese vacation, and a dog of course, I may be interested enough to experiment with TakaraTomy’s newest invention: The Bowlingual Voice Dog Collar. The Japanese toy company has released the collar which includes a microphone and digital sound reading device that supposedly translates a dog’s bark into one of six emotions that the dog may be experiencing. Apparently those random barking fits can now be diagnosed as either happy, sad, frustrated, threatening, needy or assertive barking. The story from ABCNews.com says that “The Japan Acoustics Laboratory, according to a press release, provided ‘research and development and consulting as well as aiding speech, acoustics and radio waves’ for the Bowlingual Voice's creation.”

            However, despite scientists’ involvement in the project, many are still very skeptical and understandably so. Many make the argument that all dogs don’t bark the same, while others argue that while dogs experience a wide range of emotions, the actual feelings or thoughts that they are experiencing wouldn’t translate into anything us humans can understand or relate to. All I know for certain, is that if a product like this proves to be effective, it is only a matter of time before it becomes a fancy promotional product for your dog to join the likes of our other promotional pet products. After reading Mike’s blog about Doggy beer, it may not be long before your dog is asking you to grab him a cold one. 

 

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.

 

So I happened to stumble upon a headline today stating that Lance Armstrong was fined what winds up being the equivalent of $92 by the Tour De France Competition Committee for failing to sign in before riding in the third stage of the race. Not that this is much of a big deal to Lance or a blow to his team by any means, just one of those darn things called ‘a rule’, and unfortunately he did not abide by it. The tour competition director also took this time to criticize Lance for not making himself more available for fans. “We simply asked his team to have a respectful attitude toward the public," the competition director said. "They [fans] want to see the team, they have been here since 7 a.m. and they don't see him." Maybe it’s just me, but since when does a world class athlete become the bad guy for not catering to the fans in the midst of their biggest event of the year? In fact, Astana team spokesman Philippe Maertens said that the main reason for Armstrong’s late arrival and inability to sign in had to do with him being held up by signing autographs and the general circus that follows Lance Armstrong around. Not to mention, athletes that have done far worse than 'ignore fans', are still beloved and embraced in many cases. So please Tour De France Competition Committee, count your blessings that there even is a huge star to draw ratings and interest to your sport/event. The least you can do is not pick on the guy. But that got me to thinking, not only has Lance Armstrong done so much for the Tour De France and competitive biking, but he’s done amazing things for promotional products too! Well, its really just one product, but who knows where the popularity of promotional awareness bracelets would be without Lance Armstrong? And he of course wasn’t just raising awareness for awareness bracelets, he was raising a ridiculous amount of awareness and funding for cancer research. That’s the point of the custom awareness bracelet in general, to show your support for a cause or foundation without having to say a word. When Lance first ran this promotion, the famous ‘LIVESTRONG’ yellow bracelets were being sold for a dollar a piece in a variety of venues and stores. The now dual-purpose promotional product not only raised awareness by appearing on millions of wrists across the country, but it raised money for the cause at the same time. Now I am a fan of getting creative with promotional products, so I’d suggest that next time, they wrap an awareness bracelet around a custom water bottle and market them as a package deal. You could cross promote a healthier and even eco-friendlier lifestyle with the use of your promotional sport bottle, while at the same time raising awareness and contributing to the original cause.

 

With so much talk about re-branding, this particular example is kind of refreshing because they actually turned back the clock for their ‘new’ logo design. With basketball season just over, this news didn’t make that many waves, but thanks to my buddy Bill and his ‘I’ll-give-this-thing-a-try’ personal twitter page, I found out that the Philadelphia 76ers recently decided to change their logo back to the traditional logo and color scheme that was established in 1963. In my opinion, this is the most useful benefit of twitter. It might be the quickest form of sharing information on a variety of topics and because he chose to share an article about the ‘new’ Sixers logo, I have today's blog material. Ahh, the power of social media. Anyway, many of you probably recognize the logo because it was used for quite sometime, from the 60’s to the 80’s and even made an appearance in the 1996-97 season.

 

With so much re-branding going on lately, this scenario branches off from the trend a bit. Sure, the concept is similar. It generates a buzz and a ‘fresh’ feel for the basketball court, the game jerseys and all of the promotional hats, promotional shirts, and promotional bags that will be given out and worn around the city of Philadelphia next basketball season. Of course ‘fresh’ is a relative term since it is actually an older design. But for the fans, especially the up and coming younger generation of fans, this is a new look. It deviates from the current branding and at the same time it sparks nostalgia for some of the older fans. Philadelphia Mayor, Michael Nutter said that "Seeing the return of the 76ers old logo with the red, white, and blue colors brings me back to the time of growing up watching Wilt Chamberlain, Hal Greer, Dr. J, and those great teams. I am excited now, as I was then, for Sixers basketball."

So in this case, the ‘re-branding’, perhaps better described as a ‘re-launch’, does the job that a brand new design would’ve done, but also generates a different feeling of excitement for long-time NBA and 76er fans as well. You never know, now that they went back to a previous logo, they could even save money if they have some extra promotional products left over from past seasons. After all, if the logo is the same, who’s going to know if those logo stress balls are from yesterday or 1984?

So the other day I was surfing Motivators.com when I stumbled upon a product that I had never seen or heard of before. Unfortunately it was poor timing considering I had already posted one of my more recent blogs featuring promotional products  that are not your usual suspects. But in any case, it intrigued me because not only had I never heard of such a thing, but I was unsure of its function. From the product’s name I obviously knew that it was a magnet, and we all know the primary function of most magnets. And sure there are a multitude of different magnet varieties, but aside from holding something onto your refrigerator, the promotional magnet also serves as a reminder or mini advertisement. Even if it has an extra function like a hook or a clip, all promotional magnets should remind you of a particular brand or service, and in many cases will feature contact information in the imprint so that you can conveniently get in touch with said company or service. Promotional magnets work for virtually any industry or application. The most common ones tend to be take-out or delivery restaurants, landscaping companies, tax services, utility companies, doctors, dentists, taxis and the list really goes on and on. So if almost any company or service can utilize this cost-effective promotion, you need to make sure your promotional magnet stands out amongst the community of other magnets and fridge door décor. The solution: this Large Solar Magnet.

 

 

I think I know what you may be thinking but don’t worry, it was the ‘solar’ part that had me scratching my head too. Solar energy is great and all, but its tough to tell from the picture why this magnet even needs an energy source. (Which is why there will be a product demonstration video going up on Motivators.com and Motivators.tv shortly.) But without any further adieu, this magnet utilizes solar power to make your imprint flash or blink. Every 1.5 seconds or so the image goes away and then comes right back. Initially I thought that might be an unnecessary feature, but it actually makes sense when you think about it. If your magnet is flashing, it is undoubtedly going to draw ones eye to it amidst the cluttered mess of other promotional magnets, notes and pictures. This is one of the many products that stray from your typical and boring versions of a product while still serving the purpose that it always has. When you have a few minutes to kill, browse Motivators.com. With over 40,000 products, you might be surprised at what you find!

Each year we always see a new summer promotion, campaign or commercial for Coca-Cola. Sometimes it’s a contest, sometimes it’s a giveaway, and sometimes it’s a new summer slogan or celebrity endorsement. This year Coca-Cola has re-designed their traditional can in the spirit of summer. It wouldn’t be the first time a can was temporarily re-designed to accommodate the season. In fact, the first one to come to mind for most people is probably the Santa Claus or Holiday Polar Bear cans that Coca-Cola puts out around Christmas time. This of course is not exactly re-branding because the logo remains consistent and the cans go back to the traditional design once the season is over. But similar to re-branding, it is a great way to draw attention to your business and perhaps even boost sales. Of course if you are an avid fan of one particular brand, chances are you won’t make the switch just because of a new design. But if you could go either way and the price is similar, the festive design might lead one to choose these over another brand because these cans are a great compliment to any summer party or gathering. It's almost like an additional decoration. All 5 designs are pretty cool, but my favorites are the beach ball and sunglasses design because of the use of negative space.

I’m thinking that if they wanted to take this a step further they could offer rewards to consumers who collect several UPC codes or show proof of purchase of these summer cans. Then Coca-Cola could get some custom beach balls and promotional sunglasses printed as choices for the rewards. This way it reminds them of the summer cans each time they use their reward. Or if you really wanted people to remember this summer promotion, I think it would be really cool to get some red imprinted aluminum bottles with the same design as the cans. It works perfectly because the red custom aluminum (or stainless steel ) bottle looks exactly like the can. Just imprint in silver and you have yourself a replica in a re-usable bottle form.

We speak in great length about branding here and for good reason. Not only do we specialize in helping people brand their company, event or cause, but for the past year or so there has been a re-branding frenzy! Some have been successful and some have not, while still some may not yet know the impact that their re-branding will have. But all this change got me thinking. Maybe I haven’t been paying as close attention all these years, but it seems like this a new trend. Of course many companies have re-branded before, but I don’t think it has happened nearly as often as it seems to be happening now. We’re in a new millennium for 9 years now but maybe its because everyone wants to finally modernize their brand to catch up with the times. It could even be a case of following the lead of others. It could be a combination of the two, and I think that there’s even a healthy dose of desperation mixed in as a result of the struggling economy. A new logo certainly draws attention to your brand, but as I have mentioned before, re-branding can be a risky endeavor considering the cost to execute it and no guaranteed return or boost in sales. Whereas promotional products are a much more cost effective way to draw attention to your business or brand. And I’m not just talking about your traditional products like promotional keychains, promotional stressballs, printed bags and promotional flash drives. The promotional products industry has grown by leaps and bounds since its early days and there are brand new exciting and innovative products being created everyday. I have seen promotional products that I didn’t even know existed in general, let alone having the ability to print your logo or contact information on them. Granted the following products may not the best examples of the obscure ‘never knew it existed’ variety, but they are definitely not your father’s promotional products.

 

Starting with the email voice recorder that conveniently connects via USB cable and with the push of a single button, you can easily record memos, ideas and reminders for playback later. But what’s even better is that it automatically converts your recording to an mp3 so that you can easily attach your message to an email. I’d say that would be more useful and more exciting than receiving an imprinted wall calendar.

 

The computer power-saver button easily connects via USB cable as well. It couldn’t get any simpler than one giant button, kind of like Staples’ ‘easy button’. When you press it, your computer goes into ‘economode’ which saves more energy than the standard sleep mode. Compatible for both Mac’s and PC’s, this is definitely an attention getter with a large imprint area that’s sure to create a buzz and save money for its recipients!

 

Last but not least, it’s the ‘I’m not a paper cup’ Travel Tumbler. Yes, a travel tumbler is really nothing new to the promotional products world, but this product’s design will have people talking for days because it’s a dead ringer for a Styrofoam cup with both its size and design. Especially the lid, which looks like the weak, flimsy lids that you typically get with your on-the-go coffee. Plus, it is eco-friendly in more ways than one. Not using actual Styrofoam is a great start. You get many uses out of this one cup rather than disposing of it when you're done with your drink, and its made of biodegradable plastic. So before you re-brand your company logo, consider a promotion that is 'outside the box' to stimulate your business.