Effective Novelty Items for Trade Shows

Novelty items are great for increasing brand awareness at a trade show. A good item will be useful, relevant to your business, and easy to distribute. Pens and bags are the bread and butter of giveaways, and while these are still solid choices it can be beneficial to do something a little different.

Here are three items recently received at a trade show which stood out in our minds.

This is about as simple as it comes: chopsticks with your company name printed on them. (Of course the actual name has been removed from the image, but it is printed right behind the black boxes.) I like this because it is appropriate for the audience. Most people attending the exhibition were Japanese; therefore, they use chopsticks. I myself used these right after taking the picture. Also, and this might not be intentional, the exhibition took place a week before Christmas. Very good timing for red and green.

This SIM-to-SD adapter is very relevant the business it represents. It is from a Japanese IoT company, so an adapter like this is perfect for their typical customer. It almost looks like a sample of a commercial product (I’m fairly certain that it isn’t, as I couldn’t find it online). Notice that branding appears on every item included, except for the metal tool. This is great, as it leaves very little room to miss the company name. Although I will probably never use this, it’s nifty enough that I will probably never throw it out.

Of all the items here, this probably has the best utility. Many working class people in Japan carry handkerchiefs with them, on account of most public bathrooms not having towels (and because of sweating in the summer). It’s also likely cheap to produce. But one look at the image and you can see its greatest flaw: there is no branding. Not on the packaging or on the product itself. Stitching would have been perfect, as you’d see the branding every time you dried your hands or raised the cloth to your face.

Are you looking for novelty items for your next trade show? Visit exhibitionsjapan.com and let us know what you need!