Another (yawm) normal day...
Nov. 21st, 2002 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpOpened the store, did the report, etc.
Finished the translation; sent the invoice.
Chased paper.
Noticed that the professional web site looks significantly different under Opera and IE, having to do with the minimum height of a table row. Noodled around a little with CityDesk to try to resolve the issue, with no luck.
* * * In sorting through some stuff I picked up at the ATA conference, I notice I picked up a lot of items with advertising on them. This includes a handful of cheap pens, a combination letter-opener and staple remover, and other stuff. Perhaps the "prize" item is an electronic calendar/calculator/currency converter (interestingly enough, there is no company name on the thing).
I've looked through a number of catalogs that advertise such novelty items, seeking something different, useful, and inexpensive. I can't seem to find anything that satisfies all three criteria. Personally, I have all the coffee cups that I need for groups of up to about 50 people (any more, and then I'd have to hit the cups that are in storage).
Again personally, I have never made any kind of buying decision on the basis of a name on a pen, or a pad of Post-It paper, or whatnot. Perhaps the closest I've ever come was looking for the phone number of my local bank branch on one of the pens that lie ubiquitously around here. Anyway, looking at that letter-opener/staple-remover I mentioned earlier, all it had on the side the company's name and phone number.
Let me clue you in to something: there is only so many ways you can compose reasonably short names that include words such as "language," "service," "translation," "company," "associates," and so on. So the name recognition afforded to "Language Translation Services" is not that much different from that afforded to "Language Services Associates" (which happens to be the name on the letter opener).
So what drives people to buy and distribute this kind of stuff? Tradition? A yearning to have an inexhaustible supply of pens? Or is it because it's simply expected of a conference exhibitor?
I guess, to a certain extent, it's a simple (and simple-minded) way of telling customers you care. Here, I am recalling all the stuff that we distributed when I was at Borland, including tee-shirts, but then again, a well-made tee-shirt with a nice design is something that gives a recipient the warm fuzzies. You can't say that about a letter opener or a 10-cent ballpoint made of plastic.
Too, any business generated by the novelty may not come from the recipient, but from someone who comes into contact with him or her. Handing over a keychain doodad that opens bottles and has an imprint that says nice things about, say, Symantec C++ may put the name in front of a prospect that one additional time necessary to eventually trigger a buy reaction.
But that's too much of a reach for me.
Cheers...
Finished the translation; sent the invoice.
Chased paper.
Noticed that the professional web site looks significantly different under Opera and IE, having to do with the minimum height of a table row. Noodled around a little with CityDesk to try to resolve the issue, with no luck.
I've looked through a number of catalogs that advertise such novelty items, seeking something different, useful, and inexpensive. I can't seem to find anything that satisfies all three criteria. Personally, I have all the coffee cups that I need for groups of up to about 50 people (any more, and then I'd have to hit the cups that are in storage).
Again personally, I have never made any kind of buying decision on the basis of a name on a pen, or a pad of Post-It paper, or whatnot. Perhaps the closest I've ever come was looking for the phone number of my local bank branch on one of the pens that lie ubiquitously around here. Anyway, looking at that letter-opener/staple-remover I mentioned earlier, all it had on the side the company's name and phone number.
Let me clue you in to something: there is only so many ways you can compose reasonably short names that include words such as "language," "service," "translation," "company," "associates," and so on. So the name recognition afforded to "Language Translation Services" is not that much different from that afforded to "Language Services Associates" (which happens to be the name on the letter opener).
So what drives people to buy and distribute this kind of stuff? Tradition? A yearning to have an inexhaustible supply of pens? Or is it because it's simply expected of a conference exhibitor?
I guess, to a certain extent, it's a simple (and simple-minded) way of telling customers you care. Here, I am recalling all the stuff that we distributed when I was at Borland, including tee-shirts, but then again, a well-made tee-shirt with a nice design is something that gives a recipient the warm fuzzies. You can't say that about a letter opener or a 10-cent ballpoint made of plastic.
Too, any business generated by the novelty may not come from the recipient, but from someone who comes into contact with him or her. Handing over a keychain doodad that opens bottles and has an imprint that says nice things about, say, Symantec C++ may put the name in front of a prospect that one additional time necessary to eventually trigger a buy reaction.
But that's too much of a reach for me.
Cheers...
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no subject
Date: 2002-11-21 10:52 pm (UTC)Some of the sponsors who have exhibition stands also insert goodies, which can be weird (a gadget for detecting false hologram foils from a counterfeiting conference), or miniatures of vodka from Estonia (very nice). I even have some demo banknotes, or tiles with crests (used to put hot dishes on these days). I have umbrellas from Hungary and the Cameroon, key chains, little plaques from all over...
I have this theory, though -
First, kids tend to get their paws on them. Write life-changing essays using the pens or carry stuff in the bags. Subliminal images of company / organisation X flit through their brains at an impressionable age *g*. When they get older, they might remember them. I often wonder if Charlotte wants to be a criminal psychologist because she totes her choir music around in an Interpol bag *g*.
Second, on the international circuit, some of the delegates love 'em too. I expect the plaques, etc. look good on their desks at the other side of the world. Proof that they've been. Prestige takes strange forms in some countries. I picked up pens in Salt Lake and they were eagerly snapped up by locals here, even though the advertising logo was ten times bigger than the Olympic one.
I'm rambling. Also wondering how, as I'm taking the train to Lyon in a couple of weeks thanks to truckers blocking the roads and possibly also snow, I'm going to bring back my now usual dozen bottles of VERY nice wine with their own label, as sold at HQ for a subsidised price. Now *that* is also a very good example of merchandising. A police organisation selling its 'own wine'. Drink too much of it, get caught at the wheel... and plead where it came from.
Must work.
Umbrellas, though, are a Good Thing and are useful, (fairly) inexpensive and different.