Current Event Articles

Just before we discuss exactly what promotional products are available for this year’s World Cup in South Africa let’s get one thing completely straight. And I apologise to those of you who already are aware of this. You must not under any conditions print the official logo on any business products, promotional clothing or anything else unless you are an official sponsor or you are producing promotional products for a customer of yours who is.

Each time a large event like this or the Olympics comes around there are legions of people ready to produce illegal duplicates of everything affiliated with the event. However over the past ten years or so sponsors have started to fight back. Many of them have taken out very expensive advertisements warning individuals that they will take them to court if they infringe any aspect of their very expensive sponsorship deal

In past times millions of items such as printed T-shirts, promotional bottled water and even leather conference folders have been confiscated and destroyed in a blitz on fraudulent trading. It’s hardly a revelation when you consider that these businesses are paying out literally millions of pounds on sponsorship with a good part of that being applied to produce promotional gifts or corporate clothing.

OK so that’s the lecture finished now let us see what promotional items are around for this year’s World Cup. Well the usual old favourites of printed T-shirts, embroidered polo shirts and promotional baseball caps definitely head the list so far as promotional merchandise is concerned. And undoubtedly there will be millions and millions of the usual suspects including promotional keyrings, branded mugs, cheap plastic pens etc. Promotional face paints have become very popular over the past ten years and the addition of rub on skin transfers have made these promotional products even more popular.

The range of promotional soccer balls has once again grown and the selection of coatings and print techniques is really amazing. There is simply nothing that cannot be printed onto the surface of one of these great promotional products. Promotional Lanyards that can hold mobile phones or even promotional bottled water are already exceptionally popular because they are relatively inexpensive yet pretty visible so businesses like that combination. Promotional Flash drives are also on top of the list for firms with a marginally larger budget. Noisemakers will reign over the cheaper sector of the market with plastic-type trumpets and promotional whistles being the most commonly purchased products.

Corporate clothing will also be very popular, the local climate should be warm for the finals but some of the earlier rounds are being played at altitude where the temperature may easily fall in the evening. Consequently you will possibly see quite an interest in light promotional jackets in addition to printed T-shirts and embroidered polo shirts.

So whatever decision you make for your World Cup promotional items do if possible order it as soon as you can. The earlier your order is in the pipeline the better the chance you have of having it delivered in plenty of time. If you are sending promotional items out to South Africa rather than distributing them in your own country be aware that the Import Customs red tape could be very complicated and products can often be delayed for quite a while. The last thing that you will want is to have your products arriving a few days after the compatition is over.