STOP! You Could Be Damaging Your Brand.
It is understandable that you want to shop wisely for promotional items. In many situations, you are looking for an inexpensive product bearing your name. Then you can pass it out in quantity, building brand awareness among many potential prospects. But that can lead you down some dangerous paths.
Promotional product suppliers desperate for the order (or companies that order directly) can, knowingly or unknowingly, wind up with very low-quality promotional items that put your brand at risk. Often these are counterfeit items that even display the brand name of the original, higher-quality item. Clearly a crime, and clearly a copyright infringement or trademark violation. You can be the one to ultimately pay for that crime.
How “Cheap” Promotional Items Can Cost You Much More
If the fraudulent merchandise is detected and intercepted by customs agents, you could lose any time or money invested to that point and have no items to show for it. But it might be even worse if you do “successfully” take delivery.
Your logo on a defective piece of merchandise that fails quickly or delivers poor performance does just the opposite of what you intended. It spreads a poor corporate image and makes prospects less likely to do business with you, not more.
Popular Items Are Popular Targets
Some of the most popular and inexpensive promotional items available today are cell phone accessories. We do business with a company that provides Pop Sockets®—a small grip that is extremely useful in handling your smartphone, using it for “selfies” and much more. It’s a quality item, and our clients love them. In fact, our sister brand gave them away at a trade show last year.
But many unethical companies, frequently overseas, make “knock-off’ versions. This has become common. So common with Pop Sockets that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has empowered U.S. Customs to seize any shipments of “fakes” to protect the company’s patents.
We’ve seen many other examples as well, from custom pens to custom reusable bags. It may not be outright counterfeiting, but the corners cut in trying to achieve “cheap” can mean poor materials and construction, which become apparent pretty quickly.
Our CMO once told me about an electronics trade show that she went to where she received a promotional bag. The handle ripped off of the bag within minutes. She tells of seeing many more bags that like, some just dropped in the corner of a booth or worse, in trash cans.
The problem she said was that there was no double stitching on the handles, and that makes all the difference. That brand’s logo was certainly all over the trade show floor, wasn’t it? Unfortunately, it was a clear signal to prospects that they don’t care too much about quality.
Shop Wisely for a Promotional Products Partner
Phony phone accessories. Pens that don’t write (for long). Low-quality promotional bags with faulty handles. Time for you to get a handle on what makes a promotional item worth giving out. Make sure it’s one that will advance your company’s image, not set it back or subject it to negative thoughts.
Founded on business efficiency in 1924, we have been working with businesses and addressing their print and promotional item needs ever since. And we have almost 1,000 distributors nationwide. With those resources, we can not only find anything you need but even manufacture anything you can conceive. And with our experience, we can help you choose (or make) a quality product that will accomplish your goals for promotional items.
We have ISO certification, unusual among promotional product suppliers. That means our processes and procedures (like the products we provide) are of the highest quality. We’ve won two consecutive Best of Print and Digital awards (thanks to our customers) should be even more comforting. No way to counterfeit those reviews.
Contact Superior for a promotional item audit and analysis today. And if you have friends or colleagues looking for knock-offs, advise them to knock it off. For the good of their company.
