What swag do you like?

General
1

I was speaking with a product representative today. He wants to get some nice swag items for the upcoming product shows and conferences. He asked me what I like, and I gave him a few ideas, but nothing really great came to mind.

What swag items do you like to have, and which ones do you leave on the table? Thanks,

2

I like to take the following:

  • Phone charging cables
  • Battery banks
  • Umbrellas
  • Socks (only if they’re colorful and cool)
  • Golf balls and tees
  • Good quality pens
  • A reusable bag (bonus if it folds into itself)
  • Stainless steel water bottles

I tend to leave:

  • Stuffed animals
  • Fidget items/ toys
  • Low-cost Sunglasses
  • Branded notebooks
  • Low quality pens
  • Large reusable bags
3

My favs are:

  1. Good thermal travel mugs (Yeti’s make me come running).
  2. Nice pens that write really smoothly (oddly, sometimes my favorite pens are the cheap ones).
  3. Any notebook that has “Stone Paper”, that stuff is like butter to write on with a pen.
  4. Good stone coasters if they are not too marketing cheesey (simple, elegant).
  5. A good reusable bag, again not obnoxiously branded.

Sometimes I will grab a charger or battery bank but most are cheap and don’t work well.

Otherwise, the only time I grab anything else is if it’s something my mini’s will love. (My granddaughter actually asks me whether I got her Sherwin-Williams color of the year nail polish every time I go to a conference!) :joy:

4

When I was young and starting out, I pretty much loved it all. And picked it all up. Now, I have a zillion mugs, almost as many insulated mug/cups, and I can’t begin to count how much stuff I have thrown a way.

But I do have a few favorites:

  • My Allegion mug. It is larger than the standard mug, and holds almost a whole can of soup. I use it a lot. (I will pick up another, given the opportunity.)
  • My Yeti insulated wine tumbler from National Gypsum. Love it.
  • Those cheap little drawstring bags. They are definitely cheap, but they are great for traveling: packing shoes in, using for laundry, bagging up the crap you pick up on vacation (like seashells), or just throwing in your suitcase to use in a pinch. (My husband keeps a couple in the seat of his motorcycle in case he picks up something that doesn’t fit in what little storage he has on the bike.) I always try to snag a few. I know, they don’t exactly say, “Oooh! Classy!” but they have a LOT of uses. (Update: I found another use – bagging up stuff to store that I specifically bring when attending conferences, but I don’t necessarily pack together when traveling. Like my array of pins, my portable charger, a mini-leatherman, extra business cards…)
  • The note books with graph paper and the pen. I have a zillion with lined paper, but I prefer the graph paper. And I never bring a notebook with me to a conference, so I do love getting a nice one…
  • …And with a nice stock paper. I like using gel pens, and they bleed through cheaper paper.
  • Good quality gel pens.
  • A decent business card holder. I got one when I went to BayBio that was a nice leather one. I picked up a metal one with small branding on the cover at another conference. I use it, but the BayBio one doesn’t make me look like I work for them.

While attending a conference, it is nice to get a bag to put things in while you walk around, but I usually wind up throwing them away (unless it is one of the aforementioned drawstring bags!) I once got a really nice big canvas tote with long handles that was a definite keeper. It had the company logo on it, but it was a simple understated logo. (My dog eventually chewed up one of the handles. I am hoping to find another one like it.)