Personalized Products
Let’s face it, companies are constantly giving out personalized products in an attempt at brand advertising. You can only purchase so many billboards, magazine ads, and radio/TV commercials before you start running out of ideas. This is why businesses are taking a different route. Hopefully, they will be able to give consumers products that they are going to use time and time again, and each time they will see the company logo. In fact, it’s an extremely effective tactic when trying to improve brand identity. Studies have shown that the more you see a brand name or image, the more you will become desensitized to the idea. Once you’ve become familiar with a brand, your brain confuses this familiarity with trust. Now, just because you’ve seen and heard of one brand 15 more times than another, you’re more likely to trust the one you’re accustomed to. This is just human nature, and we can’t really help the way our brains work. However, business experts have become pros at utilizing this tactic. They’ve come to the conclusion that if they repetitively expose us to their brand, we’re bound to cave. Fortunately for Corporate America, this works.
If you’re a company trying to increase brand identity, but you’re simply running out of ways to do so, here’s some places for you to try to expose more of the general public:
- Concerts- The energy drink Monster is famous for hiring attractive young women to give out samples of their product at events such as concerts and music festivals. All the company does is literally hand out free cans of Monster. While most of us would assume we would just drink our free product and move on, subconsciously they have you right where they want you. Typically, people who really enjoy attending concerts will try to go to them on a regular basis. If you’ve seen Monster handing out their energy drinks and personalized products at five of the last nine concerts you’ve been to, they’re starting to build that familiarity. Now, when you go to 7-11 for an energy drink, you think, “Well I’ve never heard of half of these, so I’ll just get the one I’ve tried before.” Monster’s done their job well.
- Trade Shows- Trade shows are great when you’re trying to target a specific crowd. This type of niche marketing will ensure that you’re not wasting your efforts giving personalized products out to people who had never even considered buying your product in the first place. Using the Monster example above, it would be much more beneficial if the company could figure out exactly who enjoys drinking energy drinks, who does not, and who physically cannot due to health reasons. If there were a way to know this, they wouldn’t have to waste time and money providing free products to those who will never become a potential customer/client. Individuals attend trade shows because they are specifically interested in that product or service. In b2b marketing, we could consider this the first step in lead generation. Weeding out prospective customers from those just passing by will hopefully ensure a larger return on investment.
- Sporting Events- Sporting events are very similar to concerts in the respect that you can target mass quantities of people in short periods of time. When giving out personalized products at a sporting event, it’s a good idea to print the home team’s name or logo on your product as well. Handing out hand towels that say “Go Eagles!” at the Lincoln Financial Field is going to be a huge hit. Now all you have to do is print your company’s logo/information on the towel as well. Most of the passers-by won’t even think about the fact that you’re advertising your company; they are just excited to get a free Eagles towel! This is also a good way to narrow down audiences. If the product you are selling could be used for a specific sport, such as golf tees, then handing out your personalized products at golf events/tournaments is going to ensure a better outcome than if you were handing out golf tees at a NASCAR event. Always do research on your target audience before you invest a large amount of time and money on advertising.
Brand advertising can be done in a variety of ways and at a variety of different places, as long as you have spent the proper time figuring out what will be the most beneficial for your company. Personalized products have been proven to bring in revenue, but only when distributed to the correct audiences.
