Promotional items are a great way to market your company or your event. If your promotional item is fun then it makes your product and your company or event even more memorable. It will be more memorable for both before and after the event. To make promotional item fun the easiest would be to opt for promotional toys. However they are just for kids right? Absolutely not! On many many occassions I have seen grown men in sharp 3 piece suits around the city and in our office play around in glee like kids with things like promotional footy balls as well as custom printed yo yo’s. In fact from observation they seem to have a better time with promotional toys than kids or students as Im guessing kids would have all the toys they need anyway.

With this in mind I have compiled a list of top 5 promotional toys (based on popularity, client feedback & general observation)

1) Stress Footballs

2) Branded Yo Yo’s

3) Custom branded Playing Cards

4) Rubik Cubes

5) Donut Customised Frisbees

I got some really cool dynamite sticks stressballs the other day. They were heaps cute and were a big hit as i saw scores of people wanting to get one. I was lucky and got one early so i missed the crowds. One thing that i noticed though was that the staff handing them out got a little lazy really quickly. Initially I observed them handing out 1 stress ball per passer by. They were even really diligent too as the product they were handing out related to a wine delivery service and they made an effort to only hand out to adults. However after a while they seemed to get either a bit tired or a bit lazy. They started out handing them out to anyone that would accept one and worse still they started handing them out by the handful. ie. 3 per person and even 4 per person.

What they were handing out was not cheap. It had a 2 position print and had a custom shape and based on the quantity I saw I can assume they costed roughly $1.80 each. The tricky thing about handing them out in bunches is that several things occur:

1) You run out of product very quickly
2) Recipients have more than they need and start disposing them

a 3rd scenario may occur being:

3) They hand out the excess ones to their colleagues and friends (you would hope this would happen)

However we may never know that the recipient will indeed give to others. Which means when your team members are handing out promotional items it is always better that they hand out 1 per recipient to really ensure your advertising dollar goes further!

Needing new promotional products? Want to be the first to come up with a BRIGHT & SMART IDEA? How about be a Smartie and recommend using Custom Printed Smarties for your next marketing event. Newly available at Cubic Promote, we offer branding onto the those bright coloured button chocs. Available in bulk buy from 5KGS or order them as individually packaged packs.

Don’t head to your next marketing meeting with generic ideas, be SMART! let them know the new craze is Promotional Chocolate Smarties!

More Custom Printed Smarties will be up on our website soon, stay tuned.

We all know Daffodil Bear and how cute he is, last year his name was Dougal. The Cancer Council promotional bears must be one of the most popular fundraising merchandise and I for one have bought quite a few over the past years. If you are seeking custom design promotional plush toys and have the capacity to order 1000 or 2000 to be distributed for your event, read on and let me inform you as to how it can happen.

Call Us – that would be the simplest step! 02 9232 2163 or email us This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Firstly to order customised promotional soft toys:
Gather your Ideas:
Write it down, draw them, sketch them, or look for figurines. The more information you can provide us to use the better. Also take into consideration the
- Size of the promotional toy in cm’s and bulk (ie round, skinny)
- Approx order quantity – the starting minimum for custom made plush toy is 1000 units (large), for smaller promotional plush toy it is 2000 units.
- Decoration – Add a Tshirt, jacket, cap, add badges, branding those paws. Let us know!

Once you send use the information, we can then discuss what materials & colours are available and we will then supply you with a quotation. Once you’ve decided you’d like to proceed, we would create a prototype of your customised promotional plush toy for your approval. A deposit will be required at this point. If the prototype of the promotional toy is approved, we then take it into production. Expect to see your finished promotional merchandise, unique to your business available in 12 -16weeks time!

Sounds like a lot of work? Yes but we do all the hard work for you, so you can concentrate on the main event!

Promotional pens and stressballs as well as promotional bags have always been some of the most popular product categories that customers opt for. These items are common and usually more often than not the first thing many people think of when they are looking to brand their logo on merchandise. However if you have a spare moment please dig deeper into our website. You see there are a whole range of promotional items that we rekon fly under the radar because they are not as commonly used as others. However these products may possibly appeal to your recipient a lot more purely because they are not distributed by other corporates yet they are very useful. For example products such as

1) promotional nail files
2) branded lighters
3) branded tape measures
4) branded pencil cases

These items are very functional and are not nearly as popular as say a promotional pen and is precisely the reason why these promotional items may be a smart option for you to brand your corporate logo onto them for maximum marketing value!

It’s official Aussie companies are now fully embraced into social media! (Translation: companies use Facebook Twitter and other interactive websites a lot more) A recent report by AC Nielson found that 75% of Australian companies now allocated up to 10% of their marketing budget for social media. Our larger companies still have more precense than small and medium companies though and they have a very high social media precense. I can only guess that the 10% of the budget is allocated to staff salaries. Interestingly enough Aussie banks are increasingly using it more and more. I guess they have larger budgets. Check out our forrays into social media marketing by joining our Facebook, Twiiter & Youtube. We just did a hilarious skit on indoor promotional items on YouTube where our Team member gets pelted with products!

Statisticall the Nielson survey found the following:
- 72% of Businesses spent 10% or more of marketing budget on Social media
- 14% had a Facebook share button on their site
- 35% of respondents declared that they didnt know how to implement social media as a marketing platform.
- 21% of respondents used Facebook in marketing However not many companies use YouTube, MySpace, Twitter or Flickr
- 15% used their own blog (us included of course )

Interesting numbers. Most of our forays into social media has been more about informing, demonstrating our products and communicating with customers. We also try and have a bit of fun about it too! Feel free to join our twitter and FB and chat with us today!

We use promotional items to market our own business to you. So what do we use? Well we use products that tend to store well and are durable. So when we have visitors, client visits or even impromptu sponsorship events we make sure that we always have several hundred stored somewhere to make sure we take advantage of every opportunity to promote ourselves. Also promotional items always tend to bring out a smile in our clients as well as being a fab way to break the ice. We also make sure that our promotional products are quality items and not budget items to ensure that they will be used which helps makes the product all the more better marketing wise.

Here is a list of products that we have used in the past.

Promotional Stressball burgers


Customised Thermal Mugs


Promotional Branded Pens

A brand name which is not only well known and recognisable but also associated with all things good such as reliability, prestige, quality and other positive traits will give your company an unbelivable boost up in all aspects from being able to sell more, sell at a higher price and even help in business products such as borrowing funds. We work with many companies who are very strict in how their image is portrayed and they have branding guidelines which run into dozens of pages long.

So why bother with all this fuss about your brand?

Well take this example. You are at the super market and your about to purchase a can of sardines. There are 3 different brands on offer all at the same price. One of these is attractively packaged with nice colours and graphics and its also a brand that you have seen a lot on T.V too on cooking programs and in advertisments. The other 2 brands are so-so in packaging and come from a company that you have never heard of. Take a guess which brand of sardines would be more attractive to consumer?

You see we unconsiously make these decisions every single day. It’s this brand recognition which precisely makes our promotional items so neccessary to be an essential part of any marketing campaign and any conference or tradeshow.

It is critical that your company brand reflects your business otherwise no matter how good of a product or your service you will never be perceived as anything but average and business will suffer. So first thing, ensure that what your customers see are all professionally presented and consistent. Consider things such as colour, structure, layout and design on items such as:
1) Website
2) Business Cards
3) Letter Heads
4) Promotional Merchandise
5) Advertising

Commonsense, a critical eye, graphic designers and feedback from a variety of honest opinions will all help. Whats really cool about having a really popular and liked brand is that you can charge more for a product. There are many companies I can list off the top of my head that does these from service corporates to consumer brands. Brands such as UBS (stock broking), any of the top 5 accounting firms, any of the top 5 marketing companies, Apple, Coca Cola, Mercedes, Luis Vuitton, Nike. I can go on and on.

For clients who are offer premium products under the umbrella of a premium brand it is important that their promotional merchandise be mid to higher quality items. It would be beneficial for these companies to offer corporate gift products in lower numbers yet higher in quality. For mass market companies it would make sense to have promotional items in higher quantity yet be slightly lower in quality.

If you need any free advice on branding just send us an email and we would be glad to help. If all else fails a marketing consultant should be well versed in strategies to assist in implementing a strong brand and better still implement general guidelines for you and your team members which will make all decisioning streamlined and consistend!

I thought I share this article with you. You see I hate fear public speaking. However presenting stressballs or promotional pens or any promotional merchandise in front of a corporate team I have no problems & in fact I do it with articulation and ease. It is a very strange psychological thing where I freeze at any number bigger than 10!!! Here are some tips which I thought were fantastic in overcoming fear of public speaking

Tip 1# Did you know that your nervousness is generally not seen by most if not all the audience? The thought of doing public speaking is worse than the actual doing of it!

Tip 2# Prepare heaps about your topic

Tip 3# Practice before the day if possible. This preps you mentally and physically for the task. In fact go so far as to practice scenarios when things go wrong such as losing cue cards or presentation slides not working. So if something does go wrong you are prepared

Tip 4# Drink water at room temperature or warm water. Cold water can make your voice go funny

Tip 5# Dont slouch. Back straight. Act confident…. and you will sound confident

Tip 6# Focus on your audience. Not yourself. Engage them as well so that its not just about you

Tip 7# Nervousness leads to short breaths. So take deep breaths to calm vocal and chest muscles

Al these tips seem like really good advice and I’m eager to use these techniqes a crack for my next presentation. I’ll keep you posted on if it works or if I fail dismally!!

I’ve been hearing more and more about Kogan televisions in various websites and blogs lately. For those who dont know Kogan is a young Australian fellow who sells Kogan branded T.V sets online. What I found curious about him is that he really makes dramatic statements regardless of authenticity and his comments more often than not are really really out there! This makes him perfect fodder for the media to latch on and in the process this gives him free publicity.

Securing free publicity is not easy and never happens instantly. However no matter who you are you it can be accessible to you and consistent efforts will help you get some rewards.

I recently read about Justin Herald who grew a $50 outlay selling t shirts at Parklea Markets to a multi million dollar enterprise. One aspect about him was that he managed to build publicity momentum. How? Well he had an odd type of personality & in his words “ In a quarter of an hour, you could email a pitch to five journalists, place three follow-up calls, or research a new media outlet to see whether it might be a PR opportunity for you. ”

He first appeared on an Alan Jones radio segment, later he realised that journalists often found their next story by checking out their peers….. this led to his next interview with A Current Affair. The next morning he got heaps of calls from retailers wanting to stock his products.

Here are some tips that may help you garner some PR for your business:

1) Persevere and put in the time to develop new ideas to spark media interest. Then follow up with journalists that you want publicity from.

2) Start small. Locally in fact. Its easier and gives you credibility as you are already a local.

3) Alternatively focus on one area. Eg. Marketing Press or Engineering Press only.

4) Write down what you achieve and 3 things to do to achieve them.

Ultimately persevere and focus. Its a daily task to follow up and to strategise. Pitch and follow up with phone calls to journalists!!