If someone told you that giving away a cotton bag could be one of the most potent branding tools of all time, would you:

1. Throw him out on his butt, having informed him that he needs to be certified?

2. Have your secretary call the nut house while you nod, not wanting to provoke him?

3. Ask him how?

If you selected the third option, read on.

When you evaluate various promotions you might consider plugging into one of the biggest issues concerning discerning customers all over the world. The most educated and influential are also the customers who have the broadest world-view.

Even if many are publicly quiet on issues, most are disgusted at the amount of unnecessary waste that is generated in our daily lives. So before you think up a promotion that is pretty and cute and busy, consider what the recipient might feel about its lack of real utility and the amount of non-biodegradable material that gets consumed and thrown away in the process.

It is happening. No one wants to be considered insensitive, and that’s what waste makes people feel. So you might want to focus on ideas that are perceived as being environmentally smart.

Using cotton bags for promotions is probably the quietest and the loudest way for a company to make a value rich statement about itself. At a low cost and with an aesthetically pleasing subtlety, a company that gives away a cotton bags says:

• We are aware of world issues

• We are sensitive to what matters to our fellow human beings

• We have good taste – we could have chosen plastic at a lower price; instead we chose cotton

• We’re smart too. We know how to optimize ROI.

• We have the ability to look beyond our noses, and aren’t driven only by immediate expediency.

• Buying the cheapest isn’t the smartest buy. Cotton bags never get thrown away. Plastic bags rarely get re-used.

• You can count on us to think.

Good heavens, you might say. One modest little cotton bag doing all that?

Doesn’t it? How did you feel when you got a cotton bag from a company? Did a single negative thought enter your mind?

Contrast that with the last promo you got that was cute, pretty, busy, and wasted a lot of your time and caused you to fill your waste basket with junk? Aren’t you sick of being treated like a child who is amused by simple minded gimmickry?

If we go back to the basics of branding, simplicity and basics works better than high levels of sophistry and drama. Branding is about using every possible point of contact to communicate who you are and what you stand for. These are big issues. Frippery doesn’t cut it.

We rest our cases. Our cotton cases.

Tell us your target market and your budget and let us offer you some options. - info@badlani.com