5 Horror Movie Marketing Tactics You Can Steal for Your Brand
On October 14th, 2020Horror movies claw into our minds to exploit our worst fears. Ghosts, zombies, monsters, clowns, girls with long…
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Marketing & Branding
Brand Characters: Top Three Terrific and Terrible Examples
As technology continues to develop our attention span will deteriorate, and in some cases it already has started. Your company has one shot to attract customers’ attention on television. What’s your strategy? Chances are you figure that the more unique (i.e. obnoxious) your ad is,…
Marketing & Branding
How to Use Social Media to Boost Buzz About Your Trade Show Attendance
Sorry Kevin Costner, but we don’t live in a “build it and they will come” society. Any good business owner knows that you have to do some serious marketing and relationship building if you want your company to still be around many years down the…
Industry Insights
National Hobo Convention Swag: 7 Promo Products for Next Year
If you didn’t already know, each year the small town of Britt, Iowa hosts the National Hobo Convention. This convention has been held since 1900, and each year hoboes from east to west ride the rails into Britt in order to enjoy some free food…
Office Life
Why Team Building is Effective and What It Can Do For Your Business
As soon as you mention “team building,” your employees probably roll their eyes and groan. After all, there’s something inherently cheesy about getting people up from their desks and making them do slightly embarrassing activities. We all like snuggling up in our comfort zones where…
Marketing & Branding
5 Obscure Ways to Market to Hipsters That You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
I would define what a hipster is, but that would just make them mad. Basically, they’re 20- and 30-somethings who reject mainstream culture, because it’s mainstream which creates a subculture that has become trendy which, by definition, is mainstream. So there’s that. They’re an appealing…
Marketing & Branding
Tattoo Marketing: How to Foster EXTREME Brand Loyalty
You’re probably loyal to at least a few specific brands – Pepsi or Coke, McDonald’s or Burger King, Advil or Tylenol, for example. But are you an advocate to the extent that you would literally brand yourself with a tattoo of their logo? I’m guessing…
Office Life
Feeling Overwhelmed? Bring Zen into Your Workplace with 3 Easy Techniques
I didn’t know what to expect when I attended a week-long Zen retreat back in July, but it ended up being an unforgettable experience. Many of the lessons I learned can be applied to work life as well as personal life; I’d be remorseful if…
Marketing & Branding
How Small Businesses Can Rock Their Next Trade Show: Tips from Chicago Comic Con’s Artist Alley
So you don’t have thousands of Facebook fans. And you might not make hundreds of millions of dollars each year. But that’s okay, because you’re considering trying the marketing power of a trade show to grow your brand awareness and client base. It can be…
Industry Insights
5 Promotional Products for Outdoor Festivals, Concerts, and Fairs
Outdoor festivals, concerts, and county fairs draw huge crowds — we’re talking thousands (and sometimes tens of thousands) of people. If you’re not taking advantage of such an ample advertising opportunity, then you should consider it in the future! Let’s use the music festival Lollapalooza…
Marketing & Branding
Tide’s ‘Loads of Hope’: Cause Marketing You Should Follow
A few weeks ago, I wrote a guest post on using cause marketing to promote your brand rather than just using the same old promotional ideas. One of the comments reminded me of a great cause that I’ve always admired. Tide deserves a pat on…
Industry Insights
15+ Mood Color-Changing Promo Items to Shake up Your Next Giveaway
Month after month, mood color-changing items make an appearance on our top-selling products lists. It’s easy to understand their appeal; what’s not to like about a pencil or stadium cup that changes color? That’s awesome! Color-changing items also give your clients extra incentive to hold…
Industry Insights
Trend Alert! Fun, New Promotional Products Straight from ASI Chicago
Are you in the market for a trendy, fun promotional item? Perhaps you’ve used cap pens and stress balls in the past, but now you want to get a little bit bolder with your giveaway items. Fear not, friends. As you know, a bunch of…
Industry Insights
The Art of the Trade Show Freebie: 6 Dos and Don’ts from ASI Chicago 2012
Naturally, as a promotional products website, we often discuss promo items and the effectiveness of free stuff on this blog. Freebies rock, and one place where you’ll see a ton of them is at a trade show or convention, where exhibitors try to make a…
Miscellaneous
3 Reasons I Would Hire LeBron James
Two plus two is four. The earth goes around the sun. LeBron James is a jerk who should die in a fire. There are few things universally acknowledged by humanity, but those three are pretty solid. Whether you’re a sports fan or not, the country…
Industry Insights
Setup Fees for Promotional Items: What You Need to Know
Many of the questions we get here at Quality Logo Products® are about our setup fees: Why do you charge one? What’s it for? And why do I need to pay for separate ones for each item? There’s so much you need to know! Want…
Miscellaneous
Panera Cares: Why ‘Suggested Prices’ Are Bringing Back Goodwill and Restoring Pride
You’re at the gas station, say. Your purchase comes out to $10.02, and all you have on you are paper bills. Luckily for you, someone was kind enough to take the extra three cents they received as change, and put it in the “Take a…
Miscellaneous
Steve McQueen Still Sells: The Impact and Influence of a Hollywood Superstar on Fashion
It’s one thing to have a company invite you to endorse their product, and – at least in the case of fashion – wear it on their behalf. It’s completely another when they re-name their product after you and make it a “Signature” item. Unless…
Marketing & Branding
Trade Show Exhibitor Secrets from the Pros (C2E2 Edition)
The mother of all conventions is the San Diego Comic Con, which often hosts Hollywood types who want to screen footage from their movies or television shows. With more than a quarter million visitors each year, it’s no wonder that exhibitors hit the jackpot with…
Marketing & Branding
Get Your Game On: 11 Board, Online, and App Games for Marketing Nerds
Sure, all of us here at Quality Logo Products are a bunch of marketing nerds, and most likely those of you reading this blog are marketing nerds yourselves . But is the world of marketing appealing to general audiences? Apparently. We’ve done a slogan quiz…
Industry Insights
Trade Show Booths: Good, Better, and Best Booth Ideas from ASI Chicago 2012
A well-organized, noticeable trade show booth isn’t as easy to pull off as you’d think. How is it possible to stand out among the aisles? What does it take to draw people in, make a connection, and ask for the business? Besides the relevance of…
Office Life
Stress Relief for Busy Professionals: How to Unwind in 20 Minutes or Less
Our lives are packed with things to do, places to go, and people to see. Between our social lives and work, it’s difficult to find the time to actually relieve some of the daily stress. In fact, work is the leading source of daily stress…
Marketing & Branding
Legit SEO: Embrace Your Inner Scammer to Make an Honest Living
It’s said that crime doesn’t pay… but apparently, it does. Because scammer strategies work. Whether it’s straight up fraud or technically-legal-but-still-shady black hat SEO tricks, taking short cuts has traditionally positioned short term bumps as an attractive trade-off for long term business growth. Even J.C.…
Miscellaneous
Alternative Content at the Movies: Experience High-Brow Entertainment at Your Local Theater
The other day, while looking up showtimes for my fourth viewing of The Avengers and deciding whether it was worth seeing again in 3D (if you’re wondering, it was), I noticed an online advertisement for a screening of Frankenstein, the award-winning play that ran for…
Miscellaneous
5 Ways to Spot a Pinterest Scam: Brides and Budget Shoppers, Beware
Pinterest is more than just a place to share pictures of tempting dishes and home improvement projects; it’s a breeding ground for scammers who especially love to prey on the pinners in the high traffic wedding section. Scammers see the Pinterest wedding boards as an…
Marketing & Branding
How Gap Inc. Excels at Niche Marketing (and How You Can, Too!)
How can you save money and increase idea flow while still growing your company? You can start by checking out what larger companies are doing in their marketing and business models, and then tweaking it to align with your company. After all, why make the…
Marketing & Branding
Music in TV Advertisements: 10 Examples of the Best and Worst
Music can be a pretty powerful thing. Who amongst us hasn’t bawled like a baby when Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” comes on? How many can resist the first few chords of “Dust in the Wind?” There’s a reason we all have earbuds…
Miscellaneous
Agent Phil Coulson’s Guide to Attracting and Motivating Top Talent
Managing employees is no easy feat, especially when the top talent is working for a shadowy government organization. The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division (affectionately known as SHIELD) employs the Avengers, that small super-team whose little film made a few bucks earlier this…
Miscellaneous
Emotions and Inanimate Objects: ‘Kansei Engineering’ Explains How We Respond to Products
Have you ever looked a product and thought, “That coffee pot looks happy because it seems to be smiling at me” or, “Man that car sure looks mean”? I know I have on more than one occasion, but I just thought it was my imagination…
Marketing & Branding
5 Fundraiser Ideas to Boost Your Charity Donations
If you’ve read any of my previous articles, you know I’m big into fundraising and helping out with special causes (like Relay for Life, cancer awareness, and community fundraising). It’s not as easy as it sounds to raise money for a special cause. People can…
Marketing & Branding
How to Market to the Millennial Generation
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, millennials are the largest consumer group in United States history. They even surpass baby boomers by over 15 million people, making them some of the most frequent shoppers out there. With their spending totals nearing $600 billion each year,…
Miscellaneous
Not So Elementary: The ‘Sherlock’ Guide to Freelancing and Small Business
“Elementary, my dear Watson,” says Sherlock Holmes. Well, okay, Holmes never actually says that to Dr. John Watson in the stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But the point is, it’s simple to deduce who committed a crime from just a few clues. Simple for…
Miscellaneous
Amazon Is Taking Over the World, and You Can Get a Piece of the Action
All twelve of you who read my blogs know I like to make fun of Hollywood. But most of that stems from pure jealousy. As a (temporarily) failed TV writer, I want to be those people. I’m aware that makes me a hypocrite. I’ve made…
Marketing & Branding
Walt Disney World: Marketing to Diverse Demographics
Walt Disney World has been a source of entertainment for young and old since 1971. That’s over 30 years of pure magic! There’s something fun to do at Disney World, no matter who you are and what you enjoy. Are you a fan of the…
Marketing & Branding
Sensory Marketing: How Marketers Bond with Us Through Our 5 Senses
You may have learned about our five senses way back in elementary school, probably on the same day your teacher covered addition or subtraction with double digits (seriously, look back at your notes, you’ll see it there). Although this is useful information, did you know…
Marketing & Branding
Retro Flashback: 33 Memorable Commercials from the 1980s and 1990s
The very first television commercial on the air was a short spot for the Bulova Watch Company in 1941. It was on the air before Mount Rushmore was completed and before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. You can say that commercial advertising is as…
Marketing & Branding
Nike, Adidas, and Torn ACLs: When Healthy Brand Competition Turns Bitter
April 28th, 2012. The collective heart of Chicago sports fans were crushed when the Bulls’ Derrick Rose tore his ACL in Game 1 of the NBA Playoffs. I was there. There’s nothing quite like 20,000+ people sitting in silence. It was nothing short of devastating.…
Miscellaneous
How Peapod Is Revolutionizing the Grocery Shopping Process with Virtual Conveniences
Online grocer Peapod is one of those sleeper companies in my eyes — I honestly forgot they existed. Despite the fact that Peapod was founded in 1989 in Evanston, Illinois (years before the internet came into its own), I assumed they went under during the…
Marketing & Branding
9 Random Marketing Terms You Thought You Knew: A Cheat Sheet
Knowing (and remembering) the lingo of an industry can be difficult enough to make anyone’s head spin. The marketing and advertising industry is no exception to this rule; there’s so much jargon and terminology to keep anyone busy for years trying to memorize it all!…
Marketing & Branding
Marvel’s ‘The Avengers’: How to Be a Facebook Marketing Superhero
If you thought your business’s Facebook page was the coolest one out there, check out what Marvel is doing for The Avengers and think again. It’s safe to say Marvel is spending a ton of money on all kinds of advertising for this movie, social…
Miscellaneous
Relay for Life: How to Promote the Cause and Participate
Cancer doesn’t care if we oppose it or not, but those suffering from it do care. So, to make a difference, we can participate in fundraisers and raise money for cancer treatments and further research. One of these amazing cancer fundraisers is called Relay For…
Office Life
Tuesday Sucks! Here’s 10 Ways to Make This Day Suck Less
A few months back I wrote a post about how Monday sucks and how you can make it suck less. But while Monday still sucks, Tuesday sucks even more. Think about it: you’re not fresh off the weekend, and the next weekend is still too…
Miscellaneous
Bringin’ Back the Barbershop: Success in Gender-Centric Business
If you’re a fan of AMC’s “Mad Men,” more likely than not, you’re also a fan of the fashionably-dressed and meticulously-groomed ensemble. Don Draper – fictional character or not – has singlehandedly made the clean-cut, side-parted, slicked-back hairstyle popular again. Things like “combs” and “hair…
Miscellaneous
How to Choose Business Partners Carefully: Benefits and Drawbacks of Co-Branding
With all of our talk of Virgin Airlines here at QLP, you’d think that we secretly worked for them or something. Rest assured, we aren’t moonlighting for their marketing department! It just so happens they have been in the news quite a bit lately. Virgin…
Office Life
The Walking Dead: 5 Tips for Surviving Business (or a Zombie Apocalypse)
I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of the zombie apocalypse scenario. Horror and I just don’t get along. And yet, for some reason, The Walking Dead has become appointment TV for me. If you don’t know, the AMC show is based off the comic book…
Industry Insights
Construction Industry Promotional Items for Builders, Handymen, and Contractors
My fist real job was working as a cashier at a hardware and lumber store. I won’t specifically mention the name, but let’s just say it’s the place construction workers, handy men, and weekend warriors could save big money on all the essential carpentry tools…
Office Life
The 7 Most Inconvenient Phobias to Have in an Office Environment
What are you deathly afraid of? Whether you suffer from Acrophobia (fear of heights), Glossophobia (fear of public speaking), Galeophobia (fear of sharks), or my personal hell called Arachnophobia (fear of spiders — honestly, just typing out that word makes me cringe), we all know…
Marketing & Branding
How Celebs Use Social Media for Self-Promotion and Charity
Many of us grew up glued to the television. From Saturday morning cartoons to late-night movies, it seemed like there was always a hot new program grabbing our attention. They were even entertained by the commercials, with celebrities touting the latest cologne, sportswear, or trendy…
Miscellaneous
Virgin Airlines: Is the Experience All It’s Cracked Up to Be? Part 2
In the first part of this blog, I discussed Virgin America’s airline perks and speculated whether or not they’d live up to the high expectations once I traveled with them. Here, I’ll reveal my findings! Drumroll, please… Flying Virgin America was everything that it was…
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