Oh boy. The AC’s not working today. It’s 82 degrees in here. The guys are installing a new one. And it’s got me thinking about summer fun. The pool. And listening to Captain and Tennille.

It’s also a great time to remind you about some of the great products we offer for summer promotions! Here are some of my favorites.

Beach Balls - Great for the beach, at concerts, or other outdoor events.

Sunglasses - Gotta stay cool. And look cool at the same time.

BBQ Sets - Love cooking with fire. And they make great gifts.

Stainless Steel Water Bottles - Durable and BPA free, these have become our most popular line of drinkware.

Flying Discs - One of our most popular promotional items.

Coleman Coolers - Great for keeping cold things cold on a hot summer day.

Koozie Can Coolers - Yep. I’m good with drinking a beer on a hot summer day.

Garden Tool Sets - Another fine promotional gift for the warm seasons.

Insulated Coolers and Bags - We’ve recently expanded our line of insulated bags. Some great totes in here!

Thermometers - In case you really want to know how hot it is.

Maybe I should remove the one in my office. Gotta get my mind off the heat!

We’re happy to announce that we’ve added PaperMate Pens to our fine line of promotional pens. PaperMate offers great quality, and a nice selection of Gift Pens and budget-oriented Advertising Pens.

Question: Your website has so many great products, but I’m feeling a little overwhelmed. I work in public relations and help plan themed parties throughout the year to get our company name out there. Where can I get product suggestions for these seasonal events?
Sincerely, Kathy

Answer: You’re headed in the right direction, Kathy! A great way to get personalized recommendations is to Ask Abby. We also offer Marketing Ideas on our website as well as a Blog that’s full of product information and industry tips. Another great way to stay up on the current trends is to check out our company page on Facebook. By becoming a fan of our page, you will be able to browse photo albums featuring the most popular items of the season and receive updates about any current specials.

With all of these tools at your disposal, your next party should have everyone talking! If you still need some guidance, please call our Client Service Department toll free at 866-618-3471. Our representatives would love to help you brainstorm for your next event.

Thanks,

Abby Ink

Eco-friendly products are everywhere. At least that’s what we’ve been told. But it’s hard to know fact from fiction, and there are no clear guidelines for what a product must be to be considered eco-friendly. We’ve seen manufacturers list their products as “green” and wonder about their criteria.

We have developed our own guidelines for our ThInk Green section. One of our ThInk Green product groupings is Reusable. For a product to be considered Reusable, it must be intended to replace a disposable product. A watch or backpack is reusable, but not in an eco-friendly way.

We’ve seen a significant increase in sales the last couple of years in our Sports Bottles. Especially this last year in our Stainless Steel Water Bottles and Aluminum Sports Bottles. If our customers are using these promotional bottles to replace disposable water bottles, then these bottles are indeed very green!

Doing a little research on the need to move away from disposable plastic water bottles, I ran across this article from Pace Butler. Though this article is recommending that we all do a better job of recycling, which I’m all for, I think it would be even better if we would all use reusable Sports Bottles from Absorbent, Ink.!

From one of our industry publications:

Two lawmakers have introduced legislation aimed at easing the mandates of the recently enacted Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). The new bill, named the Consumer Product Safety Solutions Act of 2009, would allow manufacturers and regulators greater leeway in implementing testing, granting exemptions and creating labeling standards on children’s products. “The original bill is devastating small businesses,” says Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), who helped author the new act.

The proposed legislation suggests several amendments to the current law. First, the bill would permit manufacturers to “sell-through” inventory for one year after the lead limits go into effect. Children’s products made after February 10, 2009 would have to meet a 600 parts per million (ppm) standard, while those made after August 15, 2010 would have to meet a 300 ppm standard.

In addition, the bill would allow for component part testing, eliminating the need for third party testing if components are previously certified to meet permissible lead and phthalate levels. Also, the bill creates broader exemption authority for labeling, a significant issue for industry companies.

“This is a difficult question for the promotional products industry,” says Jeff Lederer, vice president of Prime Line, who recently met with government regulators. “In our presentation, we emphasized that the industry strongly supports the objective of tracking labels. That said, many of our products are too small to label under the current requirements of CPSIA and the tracking label has the potential of de-emphasizing our customer’s logo and message. So, we strongly support any revision to CPSIA that will give CPSC the latitude to make labeling rules.”

Designed to improve the safety of children’s products, the CPSIA has drawn sharp criticism for its tight regulations and potential impracticalities. In granting a limited one-year legislative stay in February, regulators said the law was creating “chaos” for small businesses, prompting attempts to change the CPSIA. “Any law that provides an additional level of flexibility is going to be helpful,” says Jonathan Isaacson, president of Gemline. “The original law was poorly conceived with unintended consequences.”

The promotional products industry has seen a significant increase in the sales of Non-Woven Tote Bags this last year. While they’re certainly part of the eco-friendly product movement, these bags have become popular for more reasons than for being green.

Non-Woven Polypropylene Bags are popular because they offer many useful qualities. These bags are soft, durable, water resistant, fire resistant, and have many uses. While many eco-friendly products can be more expensive than their non-green counterparts, Non-Woven Totes are competitively priced, removing the financial barrier to their purchase. These bags have also become more fashionable. Evolving from the early Non-Woven Grocery Totes, manufacturers are now producing a wide range of attractive and trendy Fashion Non-Woven Bags.

From a marketing standpoint, Tote Bags are incredibly useful promotional tools. Tote Bags are used over and over again, providing repeat exposure for your logo and promotional message. Non-Woven Tote Bags offer one of the best CPI’s (cost per impression) among all promotional products.

Non-woven polypropylene is made of spun bond polypropylene which can be recycled, naturally decomposes, and incinerates without any production of poisonous pollutants. While we list our Non-Woven Bags as recyclable, not all communities have recycling centers that will accept these bags. Many of our Non-Woven Bags are also made from recycled content, adding to their eco-friendly qualities. And of course, these promotional bags are reusable. By offering an alternative to disposable plastic bags, Non-Woven Tote Bags will show how green your company is, while leaving a little green in your pocket.

Question: I am a wedding planner that coordinates several weddings a month. My brides are always looking for new and original ideas to make their big day extra special. Any suggestions? Thanks, Stephanie

Answer: That’s a great question, especially since we’re in the middle of the peak wedding season! Absorbent, Ink. carries items for every budget and every theme, including great alternatives to the traditional standbys. Looking for something a little more upscale than the usual Beverage, Luncheon, and Dinner Napkins? We offer super-soft Almost Linen Napkins that look and feel more like hand towels.

When it comes to drinkware, we offer several sizes of the standard Plastic Cups. If your bride wants something formal, we recommend any of our glasses such as the popular 5.75 Napa Champagne Flute. The couples’ names or monogram can be printed on any of the glasses in their wedding colors or in silver to create an etched effect. And for any of those fun-loving, modern brides out there, we offer Light-Up Drinkware that will turn the dance floor into a night-club!

Most guests expect to receive favors when they attend weddings, so how can brides surprise them? Simple! Put a photo of the couple on one of our Short Bread Cookies or onto the wrapper of our Eros Chocolate Bars. Another great idea is to include one of our Small Aromatherapy Candles at each place setting so that the favor doubles as decoration. Planning a destination wedding? Order the Plastic Luggage Tags with Full Color Imprint and include a photo of the destination or the bride and groom. Of course, we also carry popular favors such as individually wrapped Wedding Mints, Foiled Chocolate Hearts, Wedding Matchboxes, and Wine Stoppers.

For more ideas or for help with pricing, please contact our Client Service Department at 866-618-3471. Our team of promotional product experts would love to help make your wedding a success!

Thanks,
Abby Ink

An update from one of our industry newsletters concerning upcoming regulations and product safety: 

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has voted to grant a limited one-year stay on legislation meant to tightly regulate the manufacturing of children’s toys and other items. Concerned that the law was creating “chaos” for small businesses, the CPSC expects the reprieve to allow time for rules to be more clearly defined and exemptions to be granted.

“The action we are taking puts in place a limited ‘time-out’ so that the Commission and Congress can address the issues with the law that have become so painfully apparent,” says Nancy Nord, acting chairman of the CPSC. “The stay will give the CPSC time to develop and issue rules defining responsibilities of manufacturers, importers, retailers and testing labs.”

If the CPSC had not granted a stay, a segment of the legislation would have gone into effect next Tuesday. Passed with near unanimous congressional support last August, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) is designed to require mandatory testing of any items that might be used by children. The testing and subsequent certification process would ensure children’s products and the materials used to make those products are safe. The CPSIA applies to a broad range of items, including apparel, toys, books and sports gear, but is saddled with gray areas. “I think the stay is a good thing so we can truly understand how the law affects our industry,” says David Nicholson, president of Leed’s (asi/66887). “There are some areas that are unclear, so this is a positive step just for the sake of clarification.”

Some suppliers, though, believe the enforcement delay might create unintended problems. “I’m concerned that this stay is only making things more confusing,” says Jeff Lederer, executive vice president of Prime Line (asi/79530). “If you don’t test, how are you going to know if you’re in compliance? Top suppliers in the industry are already complying.”

Not included in the reprieve – which is focused on testing and certification of products – is a ban on lead in paint, new limits on lead in jewelry and approved standards for cribs and pacifiers. The stay is expected to be lifted on February 10, 2010. For more information on the legislation and the one-year delay to some of its components, visit the CPSC Web site at www.cpsc.gov.

The Poynter Institute recently conducted a study to find out exactly what where our eyes are drawn to when we read. Using eye tracking glasses containing small cameras for recording movement and location, researchers tracked the eye movement of over 600 test subjects while they read the daily news. The study focused three types of news organizations: tabloids, broadsheets, and web sites.

What did they find out?
- Online readers read 77% of a text story they chose to read, on average, compared to 62% and 57% for broadsheet and tabloid readers, respectively.
- Print readers tend to visually focus first on headlines and photos, whereas online readers’ attention immediately went to navigation bars
- Color photos received more attention than black and white photos, and documentary photos drew more attention than staged photos (including pictures of columnists).
- In broadsheet ads, half-page to almost full-page ads attract just as much attention as full-page ads. The editorial content next to an ad may actually increase the odds of a viewer taking notice of the ad.

Click here to see more results from Poynter’s eye tracking study and to check out their video of the eye tracking in action.

Head on over to AbsorbentPrinting.com and check out the changes we’ve made.  You’ll notice an orange navbar that highlights our Green products, our products that are made in the USA, our clearance section, our newest products, and our unique products.  You can now shop by brand, as well!