Recently, an industry colleague and Facebook friend of my mine named Mike Schenker put an innocent enough post on Facebook featuring a photo of promotional item from the old Concord Hotel in upstate New York.
The post sparked a flood of responses because of the memories it generated of a time long since past when the northeast’s biggest promotional products trade show took place at that once famous and pretty unique venue in the Catskill Mountains.
Personally it made me remember joining my Geiger colleagues at an event that required about 7 hours of travel by car each way, stops at one of New England’s best out of the way hotdog dives and a show venue that was cramped, had food I didn’t like, but also introduced me to a lot of people who to this day remain friends and really gave me an education as to what makes my industry really tick.
And what really did it was simply the photo that Mike posted of a travel sewing kit imprinted with the Concord's logo and phone number.
This little story illustrates one of the true - and under appreciated - strengths of promotional products as a marketing medium - the ability to create recall.
I hadn’t thought about the Concord or the show there for a long, long time, but that simple promo item brought it all back - for me and lots of others judging by the number of comments that followed Mike’s post.
Do you want an event to be truly memorable? Give the attendees a promo item with the event’s name, location and even date. 20 years later, that inexpensive sewing kit from the Concord is still doing its job.
What promotional items have you held onto?
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