Swag Party

We recently asked readers of our sister publication Chief Marketer Plus to share thoughts about the best conference premiums they'd given or received. Here's a sampling of what they said:

• “I don't recall the exact year (somewhere around 1998-1999), but the best premium item I ever received was from the cable network TV Land at The Cable Show (the National Cable Telecommunications Association's annual confab). The network had just secured the rights to the (former) hit show ‘The A-Team.’ They gave away custom-created ‘Chia Heads’ of Mr. T. It was perfect because it was nostalgic — the absolute key element of their brand.”

• “At one show, we gave away a corrugated briefcase-shaped box, printed with our marketing messages, with a handle and a wide slot to stow all the literature collected at the show. When it was full, you could close the slot, address it to yourself and ship it home at another booth.”

• “My husband goes to a lot of banking shows. Chase gives out these unisex, nylon courier bags with its logo and tagline stitched on the front flap at every event. I've got seven of them in the basement, collected over 14 months. He just got back from a conference where Chase gave away a 32-MB memory stick and mouse — logo printed on each. I grabbed both.”