To Conclude

As for quills…well, I would say that people using quills should get with the times, but the more I think about it the more it occurs to me that if we all used quills it would help make sure only those people that are truly dedicated to what they are writing about would persist in the writing. There’d be a lot less to read, but what would be available would probably be pretty damn good! So I’m pro-quills (and pro quaffs, but anti-quiffs).

So, to summarise the kind of pen that might be best suited to the type of thing that you are advertising.
• Everyday products and services: ballpoint or gel pens.
• Specialist products and services: ballpoint or rollerball pens.
• Arty Products and services: fibre-tips or pencils.
• Kids product: fibre-tip or gel pens.
• Or something along those lines.

So to the final question; what do I use when I write? Why, thanks for asking! I use a keyboard; it’s quicker, hard to lose and doesn’t stain your pockets. Obviously keyboards aren’t as easy to carry around as pens, so I wouldn’t advise it as a replacement promotional product. When I do write with a pen, I like to use a felt-tip but tend to use a ballpoint; they’re cheap, they write well, they’re nice to chew one, they can be disposed of without feelings of guilt and they shatter nicely when you toss them across the room in a rage. I’d love to use fibre tipped, rollerball or fountain pens but I have neither the money nor the can-be-bothered-to-find-a-pen-shop to ever break free from the biro prison in which I find myself perpetually encaged. As for the psychological analysis; my use of cheap biros highlights the way in which I tend to live more in my head than in the real world. Not only would the use of a nicer pen would distract me from the content of my writing, but waiting for the ink to dry would hold up what needs to be as swift and natural a process as possible.

The conclusion; with a little thought and research you can boost your promotional effectiveness by choosing the write promotional pen for your clients. Ooooooow!

5) Fountain Pens

Finally - the age-old classic, the fountain pens. Truly the only type of pen for the person who genuinely enjoys writing. Or so the claim goes. You see, I enjoy writing. But I enjoy writing in the artistic sense; choosing the right words and constructing them in such a way that they ebb and flow with the mental tides of the reader. Since it would take me fifteen times as long to write using a fountain pen, I can quite safely say that I do not use a fountain pen…because I enjoy writing. So it seems to me that the type of people that use fountain pens can be divided into two main groups. Firstly, the sensualists; people who, however much of a wordsmith they might be, love the physical act of writing as much as they love the words that they write. These people are often the best of writers and their use of fountain pens means that they can put feeling into their work, not just be the words, concepts and construction, but in the way in which the words are literally written on the page. The nib of the fountain pen allows the writer to accentuate their words in the same way that a violinist can vibrato the living hell out of the most badass note in a solo; these people rock.

Sadly there is a second category of fountain pen users; the snobs again. These are the people that use fountain pens because they feel like they should do; to maintain social status or look like they are one of the aforementioned writers, when in fact they have no idea what they are doing. Such people use the most expensive and expressive pens in the world for signing large cheques and decorating their desk and/or top pocket; a tragic state of affairs for sure and proof that the best of things should be unavailable for purchase and awarded only on merit.

In terms of promotion, I can’t really see the benefits of giving out nice fountain pens outweighing the costs. What is more, most people that will truly appreciate a fountain pen will probably resent you for running it with you logo and phone number.

4) Gel Pens

Similar to a rollerball pen, but more fun, the gel pen is capable of writing on a lot more surfaces that rollerballs. Appropriate for writing and drawing, gel pens also have much thicker ink, allowing them to come in a massive range of colours. An even cooler fact is that the pigments in gel ink are insoluble in water; this means that, unlike normal ink, gel-pen ink cannot be analysed using thin-layer chromatography and hence cannot be traced back to its manufacturer; is UNTRACEABLE! I don’t know why, but for some reason I shall hence conclude that people who use gel pens are mainly spies, terrorists, evil billionaires – or a combination of all three. I’m not sure why since, of all things, government agents, explosions and large amounts of money are probably well up in the “Top-10 Most Easily-Traceable of Things” chart. If there is such a list, which I expect there is.

In any case, such people are more likely to be traced by the fingerprints they leave on their gel pen than by the location of the particular factory that made the ink; but nevertheless I stick by my interpretation. These pens are also often popular with children, “graphic designers” and other people who are easily impressed by bright colours and glitter. “So…” you’re thinking to yourself, “If my target audience is terrorists or children, I should go with a gel pen!” Not so quick, punk; it’s not that simple. Despite the eye-catching colours and ease of use, the majority of gel pens that I have laid eyes on simply do not have enough room on them to write contact details of any kind, excepting those written in Braille or symbolic Morse-code. They’re not the cheapest of pens either so, all things considered, giving away expensive items with no sign of your company on them is about the worst kind of promotion that you can do.

--- Update! ---
Contrary to my last point; further research has suggested that gel pens come in a range of shapes and sizes! Curse my narrow mind; as narrow as a gel pen. Based on this new evidence, I would suggest gel pens instead of ballpoints if you can afford it.

3) Fibre Tipped Pens

For the less patient but equally pen-interested consumer, there are fibre-tipped pens. These items of Japanese invention are a fantastic compromise between the good looking, water-based inks of the rollerball pen, but the swift drying of the ballpoint pen. The ink is absorbed in a spring-loaded fibrous-tip and expelled through said tip in a lovely, smooth motion that lets the ink dry almost immediately. However, the spring-loaded nature of the fibre-tips does not agree with everybody’s writing style and the heavy-handed can often find the finer tips “scratchy”. Fibre tip pens can usually take rollerball refills and don’t run dry as quickly, but the writing process can take a while to get used to; by which point you’ve probably given up and grabbed a biro. In terms of promotion, I think most people would be confused by what you’ve given them should you chose a fibre tipped pen because, let’s face it, we’re all expecting a ballpoint. When they press down and find the nib disappearing into the end of the pen, the shock might just be enough to have them tossing it aside, along with your contact details. These pens might work impress artsy-people though, since they are used in drawing more frequently than most other kinds of pen.

2) Rollerball Pens

People in the know understand that, if you’re thinking of buying a decent quality ballpoint pen, you may as well buy a rollerball pen. Rollerball pens use water-based inks which look and feel a lot nicer than the oil-based ink of a ballpoint pen, providing a much nicer writing-experience for your money. The actual writing itself, once it has dried, tends to look considerably more stylish than ballpoint writing often does; making you look even more pro than you would using an expensive biro. That being said, the ink does take longer to dry, greatly increasing the risk of smudging; hence, in terms of promotion, it would take a fool to advertise a company making specialist tools for left-handed people by giving away free rollerball pens - utter chaos would ensue. It seems to me, as somebody who is not a psychologist at all, that rollerball pen users probably put a bit more thought and effort into their writing and their ability to wait for the ink to dry shows patience and understanding (maybe I should consider astrology…).

Since the majority of companies use ballpoint promotional pens, there is a lot to be said for using rollerballs as an alternative. They look almost identical and the client will immediately feel and see the difference of your pen compared to all the competing pens and their shoddy oily ink. The main disadvantage of rollerball pens is that they run out of ink much quick than their ballpoint brethren; but as a promotional product, the impact they make to start with may well outweigh their short lifespan

1) The Biro

Where better to start than with the simple biro, or ballpoint pen; yes that’s correct, they are the same thing. Whether it is the clear plastic tube with a flimsy insert or a spring-loaded steel case containing an aluminium-coated flimsy plastic insert; they are all just ballpoints. It’s the equivalent of me putting on a suit; I would still be a bum, but it would look like I’d robbed somebody more successful. Hence, people that use ballpoint pens probably come in these three main categories.

Firstly, the student-like category of people who need to write but can’t afford to spend over 30p doing it. These people buy multi-packs of cheap plastic biros; the kind that can be melted down and made into tiny decorations when they run dry. The second group of people are the majority of pen-users; the kind of people that give little or no thought to which pen they are going to buy, but are still too proud to stoop to the plastic tube. These people walk into Staples, grab the first cheap pen they see, pay for it and leave. Time is saved, money is saved, stress is reduced; but in the world of the pen-connoisseur…an angel dies.

The final category of people who use these pens are the ones who buy the carbon-fibre, super-edition ballpoints; the kind with replaceable ink-inserts, as if they are ever going to bother replacing the ink rather than simply tossing the pen aside and picking up a reliable plastic Bic when nobody is watching. Snobbery really, isn’t it? When considering whether it is worth spending more money on fancy looking promotional ballpoint pens, remember that all you are really doing is appealing to snobbery nature and reducing the risk of staining your clients’ pockets with sticky metallic ink.

In terms of promotion, ballpoints are pretty much the cheapest pen to give away. The obvious problem is that everybody knows that they are the cheapest pens to give away and hence it doesn’t exactly look great for your company. Nicer-looking ballpoints are considerably more expensive, but will undeniably be more impressive, especially to people with very high-self esteem and very low levels of education. That being said, they are all the perfect size and shape for writing an address or phone number on…but then again so are business cards.

What Does Your Pen Say About You?

A large part of choosing the correct promotional product is to do with knowing your target audience and catering to what they might actually find useful or interesting. As such, it is worth investing time not only deciding which product you are going to put your logo on, but also on which type of the chosen product would be most effective. In the case of pens, for example; no classy company is going to be impressed by a clear plastic tube with your slogan on the side. A free, gold-nibbed fountain pen, on the other hand, will wow your clients but consume your budget like a biscotti. The key is compromise and understanding; famous promotions-guru Sun Tzu had the right idea, I quote;

“Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories” (Sun Tzu, The Art of War, roughly 600 BC)

Obviously Sun Tzu was Chinese and, though my linguistic skills aren’t perfect, I can loosely translate this into English as meaning “Know thy product, know thy target-audience. A thousand clever items, a thousand new clients”

The poignancy of this statement is undeniable and, in tribute to Sun Tzu, I shall further expand on this key feature of promotions with regards pens, in order to help you decide the correct kind of promotional pen to give away to your specific target audience. I begin;

From the schoolboy boldly using the writing-end of an ink eraser in the confidence that he won’t make a mistake, to the businessman carrying a golden fountain pen in his top pocket that he will never use; pens have a strange way of accompanying us throughout the journey of life. But what does your choice in pen say about you?

What do you consider somebody’s pen says about their personality? Nothing? You’re probably write, but in classic pseudo-psychology style (or “meta-pseudo-science” as physicists may snidely refer to it), I am going to go ahead and do some personality analyses regarding a person’s choice in pens. Am I am psychologist? No. Am I a pen expert? No. Do pen experts event exist? In the modern world this is a ridiculous enquiry; of course they do. A better question might be why do pen experts exist? However, this is the kind querying that is likely to provide more questions than answers and, despite my Socratic nature, I am going to spurn it in favour it in favour of simplicity; pen experts do exist, I have no idea why and I am definitely not one. However, I have done enough writing in my time to know my rollerballs from my ballpoints and hence I feel qualified in casting judgment upon all writing implements. I shall start in the next post...on biros.

Why Use Promotional Products?

My second post; some insight into why you should actually use products to help promote yourself.

No matter how good your product is, nobody is going to buy it if they don’t know that it exists. Hence advertising was invented. However, in the modern world there are almost always a host of other companies that offer the same product or service that you do; sometimes they do it better, or cheaper or with a smile that you simply cannot muster. As such, the only real way to get people to buy from you instead of other companies is to promote your company relentlessly.

The use of promotional products is a well-tried and tested method of making potential customers aware that your company exists and of getting them to associate your company name and logo with the products and services that you offer. Even the most simple of pens provides readily available information about your company, in an unintrusive but nevertheless specifically targeted manner. Where a million-pound TV advert comes and goes in twenty-seconds, if at all in the world of Sky +, the useful nature of many simple and cheap promotional products means that they often kept and used on a daily basis. Hence the overall exposure to an advert placed on a product like a pen is not only greater and repeated, but is also voluntary in that people choose to use your promotional pen every day, where they don’t get much choice in which adverts come on between a TV show.

Furthermore, some products like umbrellas, T-shirts and car-stickers are not only large adverts, but they are mobile adverts for your company! For every person that receives and uses your promotional umbrella, hundreds more will be exposed to your advert on every rainy day (and let’s be honest, that is pretty much every day in the UK). As much information as paper fliers, handouts and business cards offer when you hand them out, they are rarely ever seen again because they are otherwise useless your audience; unless somebody has a specific place to keep these things, they will almost definitely be thrown away or used to light a fire. People are much less likely to throw away a T-shirt, even if they do only use it for playing tennis in.

There are a massive variety of promotional products available; from pens to plug adapters to sim card readers, there are products to suit any target audience and any size budget. The bottom line however, is that big or small, expensive or cheap, the fundamental role of the promotion product is to provide a constant reminder of who you are, what you do and how people should go about contacting you. This is the most important thing a potential new customer or client can have with regards to your company and is essential for surviving in the world of business.