Sales of Promotional Products Edges Ahead

In the advertising world, where fragmented media and products like TiVo have made it harder to capture an audience, the humble tote bag is rising.

Sales of promotional products - useful, often cheap things that bear a company logo like that mug on your desk - reached an all-time high of more than $18 billion last year, according to Promotional Products Association International. They were up 4 percent, the association said, while TNS Media Intelligence reported that other forms of advertising spending rose 3 percent.

Promotional products are popular, industry leaders say, because the best of them stick around for months, subtly burning a brand name into a user's brain. (One literally burns a brand name into toast.) Others are more short-lived, but amusing or crass enough to be memorable. And, of course, as some in the industry concede, some of the products are "cheap plastic stuff" that immediately gets lost in the children's toy bin.

Last week, about 2,500 distributors - the people who sell promotional products to the companies that put their logos on them - roamed the aisles of the Convention Center trying to separate the keepers from the future rejects.

At the trade show - produced by Trevose-based Advertising Specialty Institute, a company that brings together suppliers and distributors - 450 suppliers represented by friendly salesmen hawked their wares to distributors carrying plastic bags or even suitcases for samples.

ASI, which also publishes trade magazines and hosts Web sites, produces four similar shows nationwide. It has about 450 employees and produces more than $60 million a year in revenue, president Tim Andrews said.

The Promotional Products Association is running a similar trade show expected to draw 4,200 distributors to Atlantic City on Tuesday and next Wednesday.

ASI's two-year-old Philadelphia show, considered a fairly small one in the industry, was a display of sheer capitalistic ingenuity - and proof that you can slap a logo on almost anything.

As one might expect, there were many variations on the perennial favorites: wearables (T-shirts, golf shirts, caps, jackets, etc.), pens, and brightly colored water bottles and mugs. One salesman proudly pointed out a square mug that fits in a round hole. On top of that, there were flashing badges, iPod covers, flashing plastic ice cubes, rubber duckies, stethoscopes, tattoos, voice-recording refrigerator magnets, big umbrellas for the golfer and small ones for the golf bag, and jar openers.