Promotional Gifts Survive the Digital Age

Pity the promotional products industry. Someone obviously forgot to tell them that personalized pencils and calendars just aren't going to cut it any more in an era of laptop computers and Internet advertising.

As businesses continue to struggle with how best to advertise online, the promotional products industry marches blithely on. Sales have tripled to $17.4 billion over the past 12 years.

If you think imprinting "Spacely Sprockets" on a coffee mug would be a good way to generate new customers, you might be right. But you'd also be in the vast minority. Only about 6.5 percent of the promotional products produced in the United States are targeted at generating new customers, according to the Promotional Products Association International.

Instead, many businesses are using promotional products as a way of holding on to current customers and employees. Business gifts (17.8 percent) hold the largest share of the promotional product market, followed by employee relations and events, branding, public relations, and dealer and distributor programs.

In fact, a company that buys promotional products is almost as likely to be running an internal promotion (5.6 percent) as they are introducing a new product or service to the public (5.8 percent). Safety education alone holds 3.4 percent of the total promotional products market.