Tchotchke Power Rankings

Tchotchkes, swag, freebies — call them what you want, they are as ubiquitous as any form of corporate branding and promotion these days. As anyone who’s attended a trade show can testify, the mountains of swag that companies hand out these days is limited only by what you can carry out the door.

And just as TV, print, out-of-home, and digital advertising all struggle to avoid becoming more white noise amidst today’s bombardment of media messaging, the same can be said of the litany of handouts that companies give to prospective and current customers, employees, and anyone else whose favor they’re trying to curry. When someone gets 20 pounds worth of free junk (like the SXSW swag bags pictured below), what can you do to make sure yours doesn’t just wind up lining a wastebasket or sitting in a Goodwill bin somewhere?

Photo Credit: leelefever

So I thought I’d go through and assemble a highly-scientific list ranking the most-coveted swag items a company can give out today. As the post title suggests, I’m calling it the Tchotchke Power Rankings (or TPR, for short).

The ratings take into account two main factors — desirability and cost. Engraved iPods are great — but they certainly aren’t cheap. Meanwhile t-shirts may be easy to come by, but a super-comfy American Apparel t-shirt is only going to cost a company a few bucks to produce. And also note, this list doesn’t include the variety of uber-pricey gift bag items, things like free exotic car rentals and spa weekends. The working definition is simple: if you can’t put your logo and/or branding on it, it doesn’t count as a tchotchke.

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Tchotchke Power Rankings (week of June 15, 2008)

10 – TIE.) Collapsible can cooler (aka “coozie”)
At less than a buck per unit, this one definitely wins on price, first and foremost. And if you can manage to hand these out with a frosty beer already inside, you’re packing a solid 1-2 promotional punch.

But the key to coozie success is knowing your audience. While the coozie is particularly effective if your target customer base is a beer drinker who appreciates a frosty brew without the cold hand, when you’re targeting a more upscale, wine-drinking crowd, you probably want to go with a nice cheese plate and knife set or wine sleeve.

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10 – TIE.) Breath-freshening Implements
You can never go wrong with mints or gum, assuming they are remotely decent-tasting. Especially effective at trade shows where your audience is largely comprised of business travelers who could use a quick oral freshen-up after yet another greasy road meal.

Of course, while these can be a very practical gift at the time, they’re also quite disposable after the fact. So you might want to consider packaging like a tin that can be easily re-used, as opposed to some of the other styles that while “cool” (like the ones pictured here), are also rather useless once they’ve got nothing left to dispense.

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9.) American Apparel t-shirt
In general, clothing is tough as a giveaway. While people would no doubt love a nice fleece or hoodie, you run into all sorts of sizing issues (“oh sorry Mr. Important Client/Former College Football Player, all we have left is mediums. Care to re-enact the Chris Farley/Fat Guy in a Little Coat scene from Tommy Boy?”)

But a gross of t-shirts can be done on the cheap, and with a nice American Apparel (or some equally soft, 100% cotton number) shirt, it’s guaranteed to be useful in some capacity, even if it’s just as a sweaty gym shirt or sleeper. But be advised — American Apparels tend to run small, so err on the larger side of things with your order.

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8.) Laser-etched iPod shuffle
A year or two ago, the personalized Shuffle became THE go-to guy for companies wanting to strike the right balance between appropriately-priced and ultra-cool gift and would have dominated the TPR. But flash ahead a couple years, and who doesn’t have a Shuffle or Nano or some sort of iPod?

Then there’s the subject of pricing — which definitely makes this one an option for only the most valued of customers (and thus, hurts its TPR).

Finally, gotta knock a point or two off for limited brand visibility. Sure, the recipient may know that iPod bears your company slogan and/or logo, but at 4pt font clipped to the inside of a shirt or jacket, who else will?

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7.) Tote Bag
Once regarded as the exclusive domain of PBS pledge drives, tote bags have come back in a big way with the green “revolution” of the past few years. Paper and especially plastic bags are public enemy #1 (or close to it) in the fight against waste, and consumers are using tote bags as the reusable alternative.

The price is good (usually about $3-10 each) and there’s nothing like a customer lugging your logo around with a sense of socially-responsible self-satisfaction to help spread your brand far and wide.

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6.) Branded Rubber Duckie
Credit Ze Frank with bringing some cachet to the old bathtime standby.

Unlike other novelty toys (like custom bobbleheads or action figures), the rubber duckie is cheap, it’s small (meaning it’s not hard to find room for it on a desk or shelf), and it’s got a timeless charm that’s difficult to come by for most promotional items. Just make sure you do SOMETHING to set yours apart (cool logo treatment, duck in a Hawaiian shirt, etc.), on the off chance the competition was a fan of Ze and The Show just like you.

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5.) Mousepad
The key here is providing utility to the intended user. Some hokey mousepad with a big screenprint of your logo is probably going to find its way to more trash cans than desktops.

But if you can provide something useful for the audience — like a hex-color value chart embossed on a tastefully-branded piece distributed to graphic designers (pictured to the right) — you could be looking at a big hit, and a place on your intended audiences’ desks for years to come, for not a lot of scratch.

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4.) Custom-branded Kicks from NIKEiD

These aren’t for every situation (which has a lot to do with why they’re at #4 and not higher): as I pointed out with the American Apparel t-shirts and other apparel above, there’s the obvious sizing issue — you can really only hand these out to customers and/or employees whose shoe size you know. And much like the iPod above, there is a cost-prohibitive nature to these, since they’re probably run you at least $75 (and quite likely more if you go for a popular model).

That all being said, you hand someone a customized pair of shoes in your company’s color scheme, and they’re going to be excited about it, and make a point to tell just about anyone who encounters them while they’re wearing ‘em.

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3.) Laptop Mini Mouse
This one wins on several levels: the price is right (just a few bucks), they’re practical for any laptop owner, and they’re still rare enough that there’s a nice novelty factor.

Sure, using one at length may (a) cause the logo imprint to completely wear off and (b) give you a wicked case of carpal tunnel. But those concerns aside, I’m still using the Yahoo! mini-mouse I received over two years ago — and to this day, it gets looks anytime I bust it out.

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2.) Nalgene Water Bottle
As with the tote bag, eco-friendly gear is about as easy of a sell as there is today. Giving people a way to join the high-and-mighty green brigade and do it by putting your logo into their hands on a daily basis is as close to a can’t miss as you can find in the swag world right now.

But beware the backlash against the plastic Bisphenol A (BPA) — make sure you go with a Nalgene or another brand of BPA-free bottles, to ensure people don’t start associating your brand with trying to kill them via plastic poisoning.

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1.) Embossed Moleskine

As evidenced by their much-publicized user base, Moleskines have been popular for quite some time. But thanks to recent resurgence within the hipster and geek ranks (I hope Merlin Mann is getting some of the action), the logo-embossed Moleskine has risen to the top of the inaugural TPR.

Hand someone one of these, with it’s classy leather exterior and functional inner pockets, and they will use it until every square inch of it is occupied with writings and drawings. Coffee shops, meetings, interviews — everywhere the recipient of one of these goes, they will take your logo (with a premium leathery/embossed presentation) with them. For the time being, it’s the Rolls-Royce of tchotchkes.

(Pictured: Hublot Moleskine, via Amateur Economist Blog)

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Editor’s Note — I don’t necessarily endorse any of the links provided above as places to purchase these items; unfortunately my tchotchke purchasing experience doesn’t include everything listed below, so I can’t guarantee these are THE places to buy each of these items. Just wanted to provide reference points for each.

Tagged as: free, giveaways, Moleskine, NIKEiD, promo, swag, tchotchkes