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Forget about physical swag. What about giving away virtual swag?

e.g. Backpack accounts, iTunes credit, ForumWarz flezz.

RubyFringe had condoms! :-D

Virtual Swag is my vote.

O’reilly had a post on how much shit these guys waste by giving stuff out in souvenir bags. Who uses any of that stuff?

Does swag (of any kind) make much of a difference anyway? Would anyone choose a particular supplier/group/company based on the fact that they gave them a really nice ballpoint pen?

I always liked simple stuff like pens and sticky notes – useful everyday stuff. For marketing swag, at least it’s something that you look at multiple times in a work context.

A squeeze ball might transcend the normal work/play barrier, though.

Imagine, a transcendental, meditative, aromatherapy-scented, stress-reducing, disturbingly addictive squeeze ball – ahhh, bliss…brought to you by 37signals, LLC (or is it 37Signals, 37 Signals, oh no, I’m stressed again!)

I wouldn’t mind getting something like this. Then I can put it to use in my digicam or as extra storage.

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra-Plus-2GB-Card/dp/B000EWI8IK

At a recent enterprise software conference that I went to, there was so much candy being handed out that one of the small vendors started handing out trial sized toothpaste. Obviously they had to have guessed the candy overdose was reaching absurd levels, so they got toothpaste tubes printed with their logo. It was the hit of the show!

....Cleanse your data…and much more….

Heh.

Hey, remember rubik’s cubes? Got one with our logo on it. 8-)

Yeah, they’re not cool anymore. Neither are squeeze balls or yoyos though (ok, yoyos are always cool).

But what they are is handy, and they’re near the computer.

In my circles we use the ones given out at the exhibitor floors to exchange files/presentations/etc at the technical sessions.

RubyFringe had condoms! :-D

Based on attendees that seems like a bigger waste to me. ;)

I’ve been thinking about using them as a replacement for the mix-tape or mix-CD. A mix-USB-key makes a nice gift. 256Mb is more than enough for a music sampler.

F8 had rubber duckies everywhere, courtesy of Context Optional, Inc. :)

I wish there was some kind of massive USB SAN or something like that, with say 30+ USB sockets, where you could plug every little useless USB flash memory you have lying around and build a RAID -like storage volume out of it.

USB Keys? AWWEEEEESSOOOMMEEEEEE !!!!

Hang on, can I put it on my carbiner that has the rest of my keys securely attached to my beltloop? Because that’d be awesome too.

(I agree) I want something much cooler like an office nerf basketball setup.

Actually I’d love to see a little Zen Garden that once a day used magnets to re-arrange the sand into the company’s logo. That’d be pretty clever to see the stones and sand shifting on their own. Not to mention the utter corruption of the whole Zen Garden idea.

A client just gave me a USB -Pen last week. At first I thought it was extremely stupid. Then I thought, well I’ll try to use it… might be cool to always have a USB drive handy…

Later, I went to show someone, and proceeded to remove the plastic casing instead of the drive (which remained firmly lodged in the pen itself).

So the lesson is, don’t give away USB drive anythings… but if you do, make sure the stupid thing works. :)

I love getting small 128MB/256MB sticks. They’re small enough that if I need to give some files to someone else, I don’t stress about getting it back. They’re the floppy disk of this generation, they need to be valueless enough that no one hoards them.

USB keys aren’t retro-cool yet either. Try giving out 8-in floppy’s with Duke Nukem Demos.

The non-geeky conference/festival equivalent of the USB pen is the branded cotton bag – lovely and environmentally friendly, until you find yourself with twenty of the things and start binning them.

The only useful swag I’ve ever received was at a film festival: they gave away pens with an LED in the tip so you could write in the dark of the cinema. Mine kept working for two years, and I miss it.

James,

I was thinking the same thing. Shit We All Get (swag) is typically useless and uninspiring. If a company gives me something that’s next to useless and/or uninspiring chances are I’ll view the company the same way or forget about them entirely.

What Jeffery Zeldman once said about words, “Seduce me, entice me, entertain me”, is equally applicable to swag.

Case in point: I was at an event several years ago and received a gift card for 1 year of free hosting. I used it and now I’ve been with the hosting company as well as going back to the event for years.

USB keys aren’t retro-cool yet either. Try giving out 8-in floppy’s with Duke Nukem Demos.

You can use 5.25in floppies as killer CD/DVD sleeves. I do.

I get the gist of David’s post, but isn’t the point of SWAG to keep your company name/brand always in front of your potential customer?

The idea of virtual SWAG is great—cards with special promo codes for discounted/free service. Love it! But even in the Internet age, there’s still room for low-tech SWAG like a pen with my company’s logo on it.

I helped a customer of mine work a show of their’s last February. They handed out cigars.

Yeah … I liked it. :)

If you’ve got too many. Mail me one! I’ll pay for postage! Tell me where to send a $2 check.

Uh, you can get 8GB pen drives for $USD 35. That’s big.

I want a squeezy usb yoyo pen.

And a pony.

I attended Microsoft MIX last year in London, they had one company where giving out 1gb usb sticks (still use it today) but for me, the winner was Microsoft and these folding cubes.

They where made of smaller cubes to make one big one and where stuck together in a way that made them fold out and around.

I love pointless crap like that.

They gave out some other pointless crap like bamboo flutes, copies of Vista ultimate and Expression studio too!

on my last trip to SF i saw many ‘displaced persons’ selling swag from web 2.0 conference on the street…usb keys, pens, tee shirts…you name it, thats where it ends up

Why don’t they hand out BBQ Ribs? I would love to rome the next conference with BBQ sause all over my face.

Our CFUG has a box that everyone brings swag shirts too. We hand them out as gifts. LOL

I have piles of sqeeze balls I don’t know what to do with. USB sticks on the other hand I find handy to have piles of spares around. They seem to have a good way of getting lost or stolen, or not returned, so I find it quite handy, even with a small-ish stick, for transferring files around the office. If they’re not useful to you I’d be happy to put them to better use :)

At the AIDS2008 conference, UNAID is giving away 1GB usb-keys loaded with AIDS related pdfs and a flash app. I think it’s great.

I got a really cool light up martini glass from Yahoo once! perfect swag for a web 2.0 social network party…

In this day and age of being “green” and companies trying to cut unnecessary expenses, most of the swag seems like such a waste. Even those things that are useful - pens, USB drives, etc. - are crap quality and not worth using. If it was a nice pen that wrote well, or post-its that actually stuck, or a USB drive with actual storage space, that’s be cool… but instead they always go with the cheapest they can find.

And give away things that are relevant to the event and its attendees. Has anyone ever thought to give away gel insoles at a huge tradeshow? People will remember that long after the yo-yo is in their kid’s junk drawer.

I got gel insoles for shoes once at AdTech – I honestly didn’t GET it until I just read Benjy’s post! Ha!

I’ve also gotten a voodoo doll and a rubber hand from a recruiting firm hoping I’d hire their freelancers. Those were funny, but I gave them to my boss’s kids for Halloween.

Or wedding style disposable cams instead – capture the essence of the conference from each attendee’s perspective – free meal on the last day when returned.

I agree that swag is pretty useless. Most of it usually ends up in the landfill. My suggestion, have ex high school sports coaches greet people with a “GOOD GAME ” and hard smack on the ass. ;)

Unless you are giving me a 2GB+ USB Drive, they only make sense if they have relevant data on them. One great use case is Electronic Arts. They gave out USB drives at their E3 press event that had all the pre-approved digital press assets (images, video, text) on it. Every blogger and reporter there immediately plugged it in and started releasing it on whatever site they worked for.

Other than that, the coolest swag I’ve gotten recently was from Sony Online Entertainment. They had these pens with LED ’s on top that would project a mini “Bat Signal”. Surprisingly really bright and really awesome. I also remember Atari doing retro-controller shaped stress toys.

How about packets of pocket tissues with your logo on them?

The point is to give you all the handouts on the USB and save paper, you dolt.

I like the idea of BBQ ribs. No one’s going to shake your hand.

David, we’re about to make some squeeze balls for our new (RoR based) website (Smynx – shameless plug); we’ll be sure to send you one!

I don’t like any of the swag so virtual swag gets my vote. I am too particular about my stationery, pens, storage devices, etc for any of it to hold any appeal. The virtual swag is environmentally conscious too.