Swag

[metrologist]

When you go to an expo or tech event, what swag do you want? What is useful to you?

Ballcaps, mugs, USB storage/power, ? I put in for the Lamborghini contest but it didn't go through... Not even first base...

[TimFox]

When you go to an expo or tech event, what swag do you want? What is useful to you?

Ballcaps, mugs, USB storage/power, ? I put in for the Lamborghini contest but it didn't go through... Not even first base...

When I went to SPIE meetings, the most popular inexpensive swag items were shot glasses, in interesting designs, from Schott AG.

[Sal Ammoniac]

I want MCU development boards.

[Black Phoenix]

I want MCU development boards.

You and a ton of others... Get the normal Lanyard or Ballpoint and be happy...

[coppercone2]

things that are actually useful and will not get thrown away

1) key chain lights with replaceable batteries that don't totally suck. Even a coin cell and LED is actually quite useful and having extra flashlights around in a pen drawer or something can save the day. Make sure its not a shitty one that requires a stack of alkaline cells with dodgy contacts, a single lithium coin cell one with solid contacts is nice. Provide it with a silver cell if its a button cell kind so it does not leak if you want it remembered.
2) durable carabiner (metal), but they have to have a good spring. Useful for home organization (keep in kitchen drawer). Too many of these will just fail because the spring mechanism sucks and its just a disappointment. (niteize is OK)
3) miniature screw drivers that are not total shit, again useful to keep around in random places where you normally don't want to buy one, but it has to be made properly (proper materials, not one that deforms)
4) little pry bar or something (proper materials)
5) magnetic objects
6) miniature pen that will go in a place where a normal pen does not fit
7) miniature pocket knife (like the one that you open with a finger nail but its not too tight and its lubricated but not one of the ones that is like a box cutter that will open in your pocket)
solid plastic cards that are useful for scraping
9) well constructed minature boxes with good hinges and stuff, like altoids tins.. alot of people will keep them around for projects or accessories storage etc.
10) metal key chain stuff (be it wire rope, or metal), with a good ring, and as small a label/brand as possible, because that part is basically useless.
11) good miniature tweezers with case/sheath

Stuff that makes your car, remote places (shed, patio, etc) suck less

[james_s]

I always liked getting tshirts, I can use those. I did realize at one point though about 15 years ago that almost my entire wardrobe consisted of shirts with various company and product logos on them.

[JPortici]

When you go to an expo or tech event, what swag do you want? What is useful to you?

Ballcaps, mugs, USB storage/power, ? I put in for the Lamborghini contest but it didn't go through... Not even first base...

cool mugs are accepted
cloth bags are a must
the occasional pen if it's a fine tip

[RoGeorge]

Devboards.

[Sal Ammoniac]

I want MCU development boards.

You and a ton of others... Get the normal Lanyard or Ballpoint and be happy...

The lanyard or pen is going into a desk drawer in a few days, never to be seen again, but a dev board might result in a design win for the MCU vendor, and that could be worth a lot of money. Even if only one dev board that's given away in a thousand results in business for the company, it's probably worth it.

[metrologist]

We don't sell MCUs

[nctnico]

I always liked getting tshirts, I can use those. I did realize at one point though about 15 years ago that almost my entire wardrobe consisted of shirts with various company and product logos on them.

I used to have a co-worker like that. His entire wardrobe consisted of T-shirts he got for free. 

IMHO a good quality pen goes a long way. Out of all items I get for free, I only use pens. The rest I simply won't even take.

If you want to give away something more original, you could think about DMM leads, 4mm banana leads or an oscilloscope probe. Again, these would need to meet some kind of quality standard in order to remain on people's desk and actually have an advertising value.

[themadhippy]

I used to have a co-worker like that. His entire wardrobe consisted of T-shirts he got for free.

Hey dont knock it,99% of my t shirts,2 fleeces  and a woolly hat are all freebies .As for trade show swag,access to the free bar.

[coppercone2]

other thing that might be good is a ruler that is high quality like a machinist rule. Some cheap ass engineering department could make it their primary standard from what I have seen

a small one like a 4 or 6 inch won't be thrown away because its just too convenient

roll up tape measure will be used too but it will likely break and be thrown away, I can see a small ruler lasting 50+ years in a lab if its not stolen

[WattsThat]

Sometimes, your product is the best thing to give away.

A bazillion years ago, when we had Electro Shows in New York, I was an exhibitor (worked for Vishay Resistive Products Group) and the Aavid heat sink guys next to us had a table full of heat sinks they encouraged everyone to paw through and take as many samples as you wanted. TO-3, TO-220 in 50 different forms, you name it, they had it. When they packed up to leave, they said to us, “do any of you guys want any of this crap? It will cost more than it’s worth to get the union goons to box it up”.

Needless to say, almost forty years later, there is still a box of pretty different color heat sinks in my parts store.

[WattsThat]

Speaking of rulers, I have small collection of metal 6 inch scales from different shows.

Phoenix Contact had a neat one with a long V cut in one end that was a combined AWG and metric mm^2 wire gauge.

Another fav is an old NBS (before it was NIST) “standards to measure by”.

Useful stuff hangs around, the rest ends up in the bin.

[Black Phoenix]

I want MCU development boards.

You and a ton of others... Get the normal Lanyard or Ballpoint and be happy...

The lanyard or pen is going into a desk drawer in a few days, never to be seen again, but a dev board might result in a design win for the MCU vendor, and that could be worth a lot of money. Even if only one dev board that's given away in a thousand results in business for the company, it's probably worth it.

You didn't understood what I written. Most companies will not give a Dev Board or anything close to that.

A Devboard and all their related components is way more expensive than a lanyard or a ballpoint pen, and the bean counters and marketing department know that, so what think you think they will choose when promotion swag is requested by upper management? Not only that but as a company how you know that the Devboard you are giving someone who visits your boot is guaranteed to turn into a future business exchange and not a free swag collecting guy (yes they exist, people who only go to fairs to collect swag)?

If you want a Devboard, most companies sell you one for a fee in their website, as ST or TI. Renesas is the only one I know who send free Devboards sometimes (I got one some years ago) but probably others exist.

I remember a video from Dave in a Electronics Fair where a vendor gave him a Wera Precision Screwdriver with their company branding. That's the 1% of most companies.

That's why I reply as if I was a bean counter because it is exactly the reply most will give.

For me a 15cm metal ruler or a PCB ruler with different size of common components and packages would be a great thing since it gets used for years. A free sample book also is a good swag.

But the most common is lanyards, pens or catalogues.

[james_s]

Yeah I've never seen a dev board or anything like that given out as tradeshow swag. Typically stuff that is given out in volume needs to be under $1ea in cost, maybe a few dollars for something like a shirt that they give out a lot of but not as freely as something like a pen or ruler. More expensive items could be given out as prizes to a handful of people chosen in a drawing, or sold at a discounted price at the booth. It's unrealistic to expect expensive items to be given out in large numbers, thousands of people will line up to grab a free dev board and probably 90% of them will end up on a shelf somewhere or flogged on ebay.

[coppercone2]

I find it amusing that they deal with the trade show, the lavish meals for the staff, the first class travel, pre meetings, meetings, post meetings, work hours lost, alcohol etc, then split hairs over a barrel of crap

Its like you replaced the first satellite put in orbit with a 'we were here' paper billboard. Just unfurl some soviet pop art in space rather then sputnik

[Gribo]

Keysight gave a ruler with RF PCB filters and other nice things (PCB antennas etc). I won't take any USB dongle, the chance of getting malware is too high.

[james_s]

Keysight gave a ruler with RF PCB filters and other nice things (PCB antennas etc). I won't take any USB dongle, the chance of getting malware is too high.

I would think the chance of something from a major company containing malware is pretty slim. These days all of the computers I use regularly are on Linux which so far doesn't have much malware targeted at it either.

[Sal Ammoniac]

Yeah I've never seen a dev board or anything like that given out as tradeshow swag. Typically stuff that is given out in volume needs to be under $1ea in cost, maybe a few dollars for something like a shirt that they give out a lot of but not as freely as something like a pen or ruler. More expensive items could be given out as prizes to a handful of people chosen in a drawing, or sold at a discounted price at the booth. It's unrealistic to expect expensive items to be given out in large numbers, thousands of people will line up to grab a free dev board and probably 90% of them will end up on a shelf somewhere or flogged on ebay.

You must not have gone to the same trade shows as I have because I've gotten plenty of dev boards over the years. Free dev boards at the shows seems to have dried up about a decade ago, but before then they weren't uncommon.

Another common tactic was to give out a free dev board to those who brought a competitor's board to trade in.

[james_s]

You must not have gone to the same trade shows as I have because I've gotten plenty of dev boards over the years. Free dev boards at the shows seems to have dried up about a decade ago, but before then they weren't uncommon.

Another common tactic was to give out a free dev board to those who brought a competitor's board to trade in.

I've only been to software trade shows, and I went to a lighting trade show with my dad when I was a kid, one of the reps did give me a couple of fancy new light bulbs.

[daqq]

Typically stuff that is given out in volume needs to be under $1ea in cost, maybe a few dollars for something like a shirt that they give out a lot of but not as freely as something like a pen or ruler.

I was just at embedded world, ST was giving away proper devkits. Not like just take them from a pile, but after a quick chat they'd give one to you. Though I'm pretty sure that they were trying to fix their image in the eyes of the public after the whole chip crisis thing.

[RoGeorge]

We don't sell MCUs

OK, then what are you selling, or at least say the activity domain and the allowed cost per swag item.

By your username and assuming your company is into metrology, maybe offer a $1-2 reference part, a resistor/capacitor/voltage reference.  If not, usually techie items are more valued by men, fabric items by women.

For example, a branded (with your company logo) screwdriver for a man, an embroidered scarf for a woman.

[tooki]

Like others have said, I prefer useful things. Low-quality examples of otherwise useful things also don’t make the cut.

Some of my favorites:
Post-it notes
Strong magnets
Good keychains
Product samples

One of the cleverest keychains I encountered was at a job fair, where Skyguide (Switzerland’s air traffic control operator) had heavy, embroidered canvas keychains designed to look like the “REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT” pitot tube covers, but that say “CONTACT BEFORE FLIGHT” instead.


I think the biggest goodie I ever got was when I was at Macworld Expo 2008 (to work at the Apple booth), and on a day off I checked out the rest of the expo. I ended up talking to a Shure guy, and mentioned that I wasn’t thrilled with the ~$150 SE210 in-ear buds I had bought recently. He told me to wait a sec, and went to the back, then came back and handed me a case and said “see if you like these better” — a set of the $300 SE310 (which were indeed vastly better).