FCCS News & Insights

New Directions for Branded Products Focus on Experience

Each experience with your organization is an opportunity to build engagement, a truth that applies to the promotional items and gifts that carry your logo.

Customers and prospective customers are a primary audience for these branded items. Popular ag-related items within Farm Credit include laminated feed totes, hoof picks, ear tag removers, sweat and tongue scrapers and feed scoops. More generic items include pens, blue light glasses, hats, work gloves, rain gauges and external battery packs. In recent years, gardening tools have become popular. Each time these items are used is a separate experience of your brand.

“The right branded product creates an ongoing relationship,” says Jessica White, branding specialist with LogoBranders, a Passkey Partner. “A relevant, meaningful item has a positive influence every time it’s used, and that generates appreciation for the gift and helps build trust with the brand.”

The newest trend in promotional items is interactivity, where event attendees are invited to experience the creation of the gift. At larger trade shows and conferences, attendees may be offered onsite embroidery and engraving. Lower investment options range from a “pen bar,” with multi-colored parts to self-assemble, to customizing socks with decals applied with a small heat press, to customized notebooks and totes. By design, this interactivity lengthens the engagement and gives the booth staff more time to establish rapport. Out in the community, such as local and county fairs, the interactivity theme extends to children’s coloring kits and fidget toys.

In another trend, a growing number of organizations are gifting employees with branded items throughout their tenure. Onboarding gifts often include clothing, sometimes with a set budget and a link to a customized, online store so the new employee can select their own. Significant employment anniversaries have long been recognized within Farm Credit, but today employee birthdays and holidays are also being marked with promotional gifts – embroidered outerwear, wood-burned cutting boards, pizza kits and steak knives included. These gifts bring the employee brand experience outside of the office and into their daily lives.

LogoBranders finds that Farm Credit organizations’ overall promotional budgets have remained stable, despite the challenging economy. However, they have seen a shift in how the budgets are spent: for customer events, fewer big-ticket items like Yeti coolers and Carhartt jackets are being raffled rather than giving every attendee a lower value gift.

Promotional items are sometimes passed along, which LogoBranders believes also delivers brand value. A first aid kit, for example, brought home for a spouse’s or child’s car still delivers a strong message of care to your primary audience. This isn’t to say that ideal promotional products need to break the bank. Pens and stress balls – often animal shaped for Farm Credit’s agricultural audience – remain go-to gifts for many organizations.

Whether they cost pennies or dollars, thoughtfully selected promotional items carry your brand image as well as your logo, and contribute to establishing and building important business relationships.

Ideally, the promotional item is practical and/or is used regularly, delivering a new brand impression each time. A branded pen might be used daily; a branded tire gauge will be used less often but serves an important purpose aligned with your brand.

“You don’t want to invest money in items that your audience will just leave in their hotel room or throw away when they get home,” says Jessica.

It almost goes without saying that quality is a key component of any branded item. LogoBranders conducts stringent quality reviews of the products it sells.

“You don’t want a pen carrying your logo drying up after a week, or decals to fade or peel off a hat,” says Jessica. “You want a high-quality logo application so your promotional items last to make as many impressions as possible. That’s where the real brand value lies.”

For more information about LogoBranders products:

Contact Jessica White at 334-277-1144 or via email, or visit the LogoBranders website.