71–80 of 81 posts
I told my boss I'd rather have the cash value, or maybe a lower deductible.
- A credit to a store for company/org SWAG
- There's a selection of products w/ team logo. It's all high quality stuff.
- I get something I need and use the credit
I guess the problem for me was that most things had no use, like you mentioned. The bags get used for groceries and I'd be lying if I said the Red Hat hat didn't give me a little glee, but a match box car? I'm not going to use this and it feels like a waste on me.
Shirts are fine, although I mostly wear plain colored shirts and jeans I bought in bulk years ago.
My favorite "swag" was probably the mini open bar one booth had. Honestly put me in a position where I wanted to talk about the product with an associate.
I think part of the problem is actually the shift away from shirts. Swag is advertising but at least a shirt served a purpose and if you didn’t want it you could donate it. Many company shirts ended up at Goodwill or shipped off the 3rd world countries. But shirts are expensive so no one gives them anymore. They’ve shifted to the cheapest items they can find. I usually turn down swag now and when I’m in charge of swa…
Bulk order single color silkscreen on a cheap tee is around $5. Totes are about the same. Dye sublimation mugs are ~$3. Not sure about nalgene-type bottles but I'm guessing in the $3-$5 range. Is it the cost? $3-$5 per item seems about what I would expect. I'd guess the biggest problem with tees is sizing. It's not one uniform product to hand out, so you have the added complexity of multiple inventory and people aski…
The useful things I got from startups and/or conferences over 20 years: - light backpack (got it in 2003 at a conference and loved it so much that I tried to find out where they sourced it from when it finally broke after years of intensive use); - mugs - USB sticks (can't have enough as they tend to vanish) - (unobtrusive) t-shirts The useless swag (which I often remove from swag backs while still at the event): - (…
As a rule I don't trust USB stick swag.
I think companies should produce swag that people could be proud of in 20 years if the company succeeds. A mug will last for years if you don't drop it, a plastic bag will not. One t-shirt I own is non-startup swag but "swag" from a powerboat race, and it's almost as old as me bar a few months.
> A mug will last for years if you don't drop it Depends. If the mug is cold and you pour a hot liquid into it fast enough, it'll crack. That's happened to me a couple times, but I've learned my lesson since then—pour slowly.
I think part of the problem is actually the shift away from shirts. Swag is advertising but at least a shirt served a purpose and if you didn’t want it you could donate it. Many company shirts ended up at Goodwill or shipped off the 3rd world countries. But shirts are expensive so no one gives them anymore. They’ve shifted to the cheapest items they can find. I usually turn down swag now and when I’m in charge of swa…
I think part of the problem is actually the shift away from shirts. Swag is advertising but at least a shirt served a purpose and if you didn’t want it you could donate it. Many company shirts ended up at Goodwill or shipped off the 3rd world countries. But shirts are expensive so no one gives them anymore. They’ve shifted to the cheapest items they can find. I usually turn down swag now and when I’m in charge of swa…
The tshirts, if they end up abroad, contribute to ruining the local textile industry. Many developing countries had local industry producing fabric and clothes, but they really struggle to compete with free or almost free waste Western clothes.
How does it ruin the local textile economy for a foreign company to pay the local mill to give out free shirts?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The tshirts, if they end up abroad, contribute to ruining the local textile industry. Many developing countries had local industry producing fabric and clothes, but they really struggle to compete with free or almost free waste Western clothes.
You mean the shirts made abroad, printed with Random Co. logo, shipped to the US, then shipped right back when no one wanted them? Those shirts? How does it ruin the local textile economy for a foreign company to pay the local mill to give out free shirts?
Those shirts were probably made in Asia, but ruin the African clothing industry.
I think part of the problem is actually the shift away from shirts. Swag is advertising but at least a shirt served a purpose and if you didn’t want it you could donate it. Many company shirts ended up at Goodwill or shipped off the 3rd world countries. But shirts are expensive so no one gives them anymore. They’ve shifted to the cheapest items they can find. I usually turn down swag now and when I’m in charge of swa…
The stuff has become so cheap and junky that it's basically useless. Like they hand out bluetooth speakers which sound worse than laptop speakers. And then the company gets stuck with box loads of this ewaste junk when branding changes. I think the least wasteful idea I saw was the company branding on a packet of mints. At least thats something almost everyone wants and isn't any more wasteful than store mints.