The point of a promotional product is to raise brand awareness, and, ideally, make the end-user perceive the brand in a more positive light than they did before. (End-user means the ultimate recipient of the promotional product, as distinguished from the organization that purchased it.) Put simply: A promotional item should make your brand stand out. One way to stand out is to use products that come from a premium brand.

In recent years there's beeen a big shift in what people are utilizing for promotional gifts. Previously, it was a lot of T-shirts, pens, cups, things like that. We’ve seen a big shift in that — if the product is a premium product, something like AirPods or a JBL speaker, people are much more likely to use them and keep those things for years.

Thinking About the Goal: When it comes to deciding whether to use a premium branded item versus an industry supplier as a promo product, there are a number of factors to consider. Of course, one of the things to think about is the intended purpose of the product. If it is a larger event, with hundreds to thousands of recipients for the product, it can definitely be cost prohibitive to go with name-brand premium items. For those opportunities, it’s usually going to be better for the clients and the end-users to have something that’s not quite as expensive. It’s not going to be a long-term use item.

Thinking About the User: Another key consideration for using a premium brand is the end-user. Using a premium brand for promo purposes will exponentially increase the likelihood of the recipient keeping the gift. “If the company that’s wanting to self-brand, self-promote themselves within their own employee community, then that has great value to those employees,” says John Brenner, executive vice president of the Incentive Marketing Association. “But at the same time, within that same organization, if they’re doing a years-of-service-type program — five, 10, 15, 20 — or recognizing top sales achievement, typically a premium brand has more value, or what we call ‘trophy value,’ to the recipient. So they both have their own place depending on what the need is.”

The Bottom Line: Using premium brands to create promotional items in some capacity seems like a no-brainer, especially for things like gifts for work anniversaries or employee recognition. But using premium has extended beyond that, with trends indicating that consumers want premium. That said, there’s a lot of opportunity for using premium brands within promo, but you have to put the thought and effort in to make it a success. APTCO has the access; together we can develop the program for you.