When looking how to spell “tchotchke” I ran across this blog post from a company in the UK that sells promotional items. It is exactly why I was looking to how to spell “shotzky” because I wanted to explain the different words that describe promotional items or ad specialties. So here it is.
The articles of merchandise which are used in marketing and communication programs are known as Promotional items. These various items are generally imprinted with a company’s name, slogan or logo. Its products are given away at conferences, trade shows, and also as a part of guerilla marketing campaigns. The Promotional items are referred by the slang terms swag from the British usage of word meaning as “stolen goods” and also as tchotchke derived from a Yiddish word which means “trinket”.Promotional items as Business gifts are used to foster customer goodwill and retention. The main objectives of companies behind using promotional items is to facilitate brand awareness, employee and public relations, new customer generations, internal incentive programs and marketing research.
The Promotional items are same with the term Promotional products. Most of the promotional items are quite inexpensive and small in comparison to other items. But often expensive perfumes, electronic items and leather goods are used as promotional items for like celebrities at film festivals and popular award shows. Companies use to provide the celebrities with expensive gifts and in return ask the celebrities to allow a photo shoot with the gift item. Thus the gift presented to the celebrities act as Promotional gifts helping the company for promotional purposes with the brand name and product.
HOWEVER…. I sometimes take offense to promotional items being referred to as cheap plastic “stuff.” It may be inexpensive, plastic or both, but remember if you buy it, you buy it for a reason. Not because it is on special, or it is cool but what is it going to do to promote my company, organization, event and the message I want to deliver to the audience. Oh, and YES…special pricing and cool can be very effective in marketing.
