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Sustainability-Focused Merchandise
Sustainability has remained a hugely important topic throughout 2024 and this is reflected in the growing demand for event merchandise that is eco-friendly and contributes to a circular economy.
This means brands should focus on two elements when sourcing event promotional products:
Promotional items made from eco-friendly materials are either recycled, recyclable, biodegradable or responsibly sourced, like bamboo, recycled plastic and organic cotton.
A focus in 2025 will be promotional giveaways that are reusable and multi-purpose.
High-Tech & Smart Promotional Products
If you are attending an event within the IT, consultancy or software industries, then you need to create event swag that will appeal to executives, business professionals and people who are always on the go.
Sustainable Tech Accessories:
Sustainability can also be applied to eco custom tech accessories, with an impressive range of promotional solar-power products, like eco printed chargers and cable organisers made from sustainable materials. This is a simple way of combining tech utility with sustainability and meeting the needs of your audience while fulfilling their demand for eco-friendly merchandise.
Health & Wellness Merchandise Products
The health and wellness market is rapidly growing, so there is clearly a demand for products in this space. It’s a brilliant category for businesses in travel or hospitality and a solid choice for promoting employee well-being.
Custom Personal Care Kits:
A small, thoughtful custom care kit goes a long way for both employees and customers. They can contain an assortment of branded personal hygiene and custom beauty products including custom candles, printed blankets and hand creams - all popular and considerate merchandise gifts.
Interactive & Experience-Based Merchandise Products
By adding an element of engagement to your event merchandise products, you can create promotional items that have a deeper, lasting impact on your business. They encourage recipients to interact with your brand and share that interaction with a larger audience, further advertising your company and increasing visibility and potential sales.
Using AR/QR Codes:
It’s good practice to start integrating QR codes onto promotional products, as they provide people with a quick and easy way to engage with your brand more directly. The QR code can lead to exclusive event content, product discounts, or your social media channels, inviting users to make a purchase or stay in touch after the event.
This digital interaction instantly gives your event merchandise more value without a huge financial investment on your part.
Speak to our team for ideas to bring your QR code to life on a selection of promotional items with the best print space.
Photo-Friendly Promotional Products:
Social media is a key part of any successful marketing strategy, so it’s important to find opportunities to tap into this channel through event merchandise. To boost event visibility online, you can create promotional items that encourage social sharing, like branded backdrop banners, selfie sticks, and Polaroid-style frames.
Take a look at our printed selfie frames and custom magnet photo frames for optimising your social media sharing with brand fans
Compact and Travel-Friendly Promotional Products
For those who are always on the go, which will be the majority of people who are attending an event, travel-friendly merchandise products are a must-have. When they are easy to transport, your handy travel promotional products are more likely to be taken out and about and used in public spaces - great for advertising your brand to more people.
Mini Custom Travel Kits:
Everyone finds value in a promo travel kit packed with valuable handy items often needed when moving. You can create a custom kit with promotional products like compact printed umbrellas, custom mini first-aid kits and promo travel pouches that are convenient and easy to carry.
Virtual Event Swag Kits
An effective way of adding a personal touch to a virtual event is to mail out event swag to the attendees. This small gesture can enhance their experience and leave them with a lasting memory of the event, even without any in-person interaction or physical presence.
Curated Swag Kits for Remote Attendees:
A carefully curated swag kit can be tailored to your audience or industry for maximum impact. You can create event merchandise bundles that include promotional office supplies, custom sweet treats, or promotional stress shapes, which are all things that a remote office worker, for example, wil find useful.
High-impact, Low-Cost Sustainable Promotional Giveaways
A big event with large crowds might make you feel like your merchandise needs to be heavily invested in, but this is not the case.
Eco promotional pens, printed recycled lanyards, custom wooden keychains and promo seed giveaways are great choices for ordering in high volumes while sticking to a smaller budget.
Eco-Friendly Event Merchandise Choices:
Even sustainable merchandise items can be affordable with printed bamboo pens, recycled company notebooks and custom seed paper wristbands all being solid options for all demographics and industries.
Charity Runs, Walks and Sports Events Continues To Increase In Popularity
Charity fun runs are poised for continued growth in 2025, fuelled by an increasing focus on health, community spirit, and supporting causes. As social media amplifies the impact of participation, these events will attract younger demographics eager to combine fitness with philanthropy. Businesses may sponsor fun runs more actively, using branded merchandise and involvement to showcase their commitment to social responsibility. Novel themes, eco-friendly initiatives, and inclusive accessibility will also play a pivotal role in boosting participation. Charity fun runs will thrive as they evolve to align with modern values.
Charitable events are great places to distribute practical promotional products that participants can use on the day. For example, printed high-visibility products, custom running vests custom sports bottles, printed foil blankets, and printed silicone wristbands are all common event merchandise ideas for fun runs and sporting events.
Our Top Tips for Maximising Your Promotional Products Impact at Events
Placement: Be strategic about where you place your promotional event giveaways by ensuring that they are visible in areas where there will be a lot of traffic such as registration desks, event booths and VIP areas.
Engagement: Build a creative strategy around your event merchandise to find ways to use products to boost engagement. For example, you could run social media contests or raffles where promotional items are advertised as prizes.
Post-Event Follow-Up: There is value in promotional items once the event is over. You should encourage post-event engagement by including follow-up items like discount codes or custom thank-you cards.
