Your Logo Goes Here!
Posted: August 24th, 2008 | Author: James Glave | Filed under: Almost Green, bottom, Marketing, Waste | 4 Comments »
File this under ‘sad and funny at the same time.’ Here’s an embossed aluminum pen that my parents recently received in the mail at their house; a promotional-products company sent it to me, hoping to score a new account.
The info on the ballpoint dates from a few years ago when, for the space of a couple months between real-estate transactions, I temporarily moved my family in with my parents who live in a suburb just east of Vancouver. At the time, I was doing some contract gear-writing work for a since-shuttered Conde Nast men’s shopping magazine called CARGO.
I got a good chuckle out of the fact that some far-off privately held customer-leads database thinks that this once-glossy title is not only still in business, but headquartered in Burnaby.
Then it sunk in: How many thousands of these things went out on spec to similarly obsolete firms and addresses? And beyond that, how much logo-crested crap is presently churning its way through the warehouses and shipping channels, into the grateful hands of business people and consumers, who extract whatever utility and joy they can before ultimately handing these items off to the landfills?
Quite a lot, it turns out. According to the Promotional Products Association International, a trade group representing the fine people who make, import, distribute and sell mouse pads, stress balls, magnets, umbrellas, footballs, calendars, plastic coffee mugs, nylon tote bags, watches, ball caps, this is a $19.4 billion industry.
Sigh. If you believe the group’s research, consumer demand keeps the schwag engine running at top speed. Apparently, lots of us still love getting something for “free.” Utlimately all this marketing momentum needs to move into the digital realm, the atoms need to turn into bits. But when’s that going to happen?
How long can this madness continue? Anyone care to weigh in here?
At least in the case of a pen (or pens) the items will likely be used.
At one conference I recently attended a vendor was giving away foam-rubber superhoes by the hundreds:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/geoff_ana-maria/2790150769/
No use for these, as near as I can tell.
The planet weeps for foam-rubber superheroes….
Here’s an amusing (?) follow-up. Last weekend I bought a couple of your books. On the way out the cashier said “You’ve bought two books. Here’s your free pencil case!” She then slipped it into my bag.
My father was in the advertising ‘biz’ in Montreal and used to be bombarded with the most ludicrous things in the ’60s (when no one was thinking about eco-stuff). We, as kids, loved the Wabasso bunny piggy bank and the DuPont lycra eternal blinking light (whatever happened to that. ) Must be in a landfill still blinking away after 40 years..
I wonder what happened to matchbook covers.
No one smokes anymore I suppose…. or will admit to it, and if they do, it’s the fabulously handy BIC disposable lighters.
Disposable.
Dictionary
disposable |disˈpōzəbəl|
adjective
1 (of an article) intended to be used once and then thrown away : disposable diapers | a disposable razor.
• (of a person or idea) able to be dispensed with; easily dismissed : the poor performer is motivated by the fear that he or she is highly disposable.
2 (chiefly of financial assets) readily available for the owner’s use as required : he made a mental inventory of his disposable assets.
noun
an article designed to be thrown away after use : don’t buy disposables, such as razors, cups, and plates.
DERIVATIVES
disposability |-ˌpōzəˈbilitē| noun
Thesaurus
disposable
adjective
1 disposable plates throwaway, expendable, single-use.
2 disposable income available, usable, spendable
Oh well….. I think I’ll have a nap.
I like disposable income.