Live From New Orleans: Premiums Prime
If we do say so ourselves, this story required a major effort of investigative journalism. There’s just no other way to seek out and find the best premiums, come-ons and giveaways at this year’s fall conference.
And find stuff we did. Absolute armloads. New Orleans seems to have inspired the exhibitors, who provided beads and masks galore creating a marketing Mardi Gras.
The undoubted “Best of Show” was the peacock mask from Jetson Direct Marketing Services. The basic domino mask has a nose piece in the form of a peacock’s head and body and is covered in down, with a fan of tail feathers spreading wide around the eye holes. Attendees were stopping people who were holding the masks, asking which vendor was handing them out.
The most malicious premiums were the cans of Spam from Focalex, a company specializing in opt-in e-mail lists. The cans of Spam are real — a member of our team checked by taste-testing the contents. They were customized with a diagonal “No” bar across the product picture and a nutritional facts label that identified a handful of basic lists by name, count and cost per thousand.
The toy most likely to be brought home to the kids was Ordertrust.net’s Walk-a-Pet — a foam-rubber dinosaur or reptile attached to a thin metal stick. We liked the dragon best, with its bat wings and arrowhead tail.
The best stuffed bear of the show came from Rubin Response Management Services Inc. A small mottled green, purple and yellow bear with an apricot ruff collar and a domino mask embroidered on its chest, the plush toy’s official name is “Mardi, the New Orleans bear.
“The winner for best “interactive” toy was Protagona’s boomerang. We also got a quick grin out of the company’s tag line: “Get a Better Return on Marketing with Protagona.”
