Last night I saw the multi Bafta winning ‘Curious Case of Benjamin Button’.  This eye opening film is based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald and is about a man who is born in his eighties and ages backward. Despite the Sunday Times only giving this an underwhelming two stars, it has been nominated for a whopping 13 Oscars.

The leading lady (Kate Blanchett), finally realises her true feelings for Benjamin after years of messing about. What women wouldn’t feel anxious about ageing, while the handsome Brad Pitt becomes more youthful every day? What Kate would have appreciated is some quality promotional beauty products as a corporate gift. A personalised vanity mirror for example, would make a stylish promotional item that any lady could keep with her at all times!

A really cost effective promotional item is lip balm, which can be imprinted with your logo and easily distributed to potential clients. Giftselection has a great range of imprinted manicure & grooming sets, and personalised recovery packs which will appeal to both men and women.

The Brit awards has had a solid track record in providing eyebrow raising television. Whether it be Geri Halliwell’s revealing dress back in 1996 or Kazakhstan’s most famous export calling the Pussy Cat Dolls prostitutes, the Brits has had its fair share of iconic moments.

My personal favourite was when a young Jarvis Cocker paraded his pale cheeks, when he invaded the stage when Michael Jackson was performing Earth Song. Good Times. 

With all this glitz and glamour on the box, it may inspire you to have some promotional awards and trophies made up for your own business. There is a great selection available to the consumer whether it be lead crystal or glass that your looking for. Giving a promotional award or trophy is the perfect way to add some sparkle to your office, and is a great way to represent the achievements of your business or staff this year.

Bob Marley’s name has now been licensed to sell branded products bearing his name. The estate of Bob Marley, who look after the late Reggae stars finances have teamed up with a private equity house to license the singer’s image to retailers.

Hilco Consumer Capital have paid $20m (£13.3m) to acquire half of The House of Marley, in conjunction with Bob’s family. Bob Marley promotional items will include apparel, food and video games.

This new venture will aim to reduce the huge number of bootleg Bob Marley product currently available. It sounds like we could be soon expecting some promotional Bob Marley doughnuts we’jammin…

I’m exciting to introduce to you the…..’St George Made in England Promotional Mug’. To find quality British promotional products is something of a rarity, which is why I’m so please to have found this item.

For those of you who missed the BAFTA’s last night, the new king of The British Academy of Film & Television Arts is Slum Dog Millionaire. The rags-to-riches story, hogged the stage last night at the Royal Opera House, winning seven out of eleven nominated awards.

Interestingly last year, BAFTA was the only precursor to correctly predict all of the acting winners at the Oscars, so it looks like this could be a vintage year for British cinema.

If all the glitz from Covent Garden last night, has got you in the mood for some glamour for your own business, then one could invest in some quality promotional awards and trophies.

Gift Selection has a great selection of promotional awards, trophies and presentation bowls. These eye catching corporate gifts are available in both glass and lead crystal, and can be either engraved or printed. I don’t think BAFTA style masks are available, but a great range of personalised awards are such as globe, iceberg and triangular style awards are.

It seems the snow keeps on falling, to the frustration of millions of motorists around the United Kingdom. The latest victims were around 200 people that had to be rescued by emergency crews in Devon, after spending hours trapped in their snowed in vehicles.

The hostages were stuck at the A38 at Haldon Hill, near Exeter, at about 9:00PM after the weather suddenly took a turn for the worst. With the Met Office predicted that parts of the UK will receive eight inches (20cm) of snow forecast in places, now is the perfect time to roll out your winter promotional products.

Promotional clothing such as embroidered hats, fleeces and scarves would go down a storm at the moment. There is also a lot of potential for marketing your business with really low cost promotional products too. Remeber if you’re comparing prices when looking for promotional clothing, the cost is based on the stitch count. Be sure you’re getting a like for like quote, as stitch counts will vary considerably from one logo to the next.

Or looking outside, one could try something a little more unusual like a personalised ice scraper, as your next corporate gift!

 A few weeks ago I brought you news of an unprecedented marketing campaign by the Atheist Society, who were (and are) promoting their controversial but optimistic message of Atheist propaganda. Well it seems the saga continues, as the three heavy weight Christian groups are set to retaliate with a promotional campaign of their own.

It is the Christian Party, the Trinitarian Bible Society and the Russian Orthodox Church who have organised the campaign which is set to be spread onto fifty of London’s bendy buses. The first message that Londoners will be exposed to is: “There definitely is a God. So join The Christian Party and enjoy your life”, I personally would have appreciated more of a hard sell, something like: “Repent…Or Burn in Hell for Eternity”.As much as I admire the enthusiasm of these Christian groups, I can’t help feeling that there absolutist claims of a God ‘definitely’ existing to be a bit on the dodgy side.

For any unorganised festival lover, I bring you the sad news that this summer’s Glastonbury festival has sold out. The Somerset based festivel has sold out  a whopping four and half months ahead of time, despite having no headliners at all confirmed.

The festival organisers launched an early ticket deposit scheme back in October, with the majority of fans set to complete their payments by a deadline of the 1st of February. There is still hope if you’re still looking for a ticket -as any cancelled or returned tickets will be re-sold on the 5th of April.

This early sell-out is in stark contrast to last year’s festival, when 3,000 tickets were unsold just one day before the gates opened to the public. The confirmed line up will not to be released until June, but it is rumoured to include Bruce Springsteen and recently re-formed Britpop band Blur.

If your business is looking to target music fans with your next promotional marketing campaign, then there are many options available. One business that has many promotional gadgets that would be ideal is gadgets2order. They have a great range of promotional headphones, MP3 speakers and pouches for example that would be ideal.

The London based marketing giant CMW, have posted out a limited run of Cadbury’s Crème Egg direct mail packs, to a selection of respondents from Cadbury’s 2008 digital campaign.

The packaging is humorously printed with “please do not handle with care”, while the outer packaging has a “This way up” label on the back with arrows pointing all over the place.

The wacky theme behind the brands campaign, is that the eggs inside have sabotaged the pack, hoping that carelessness will release their goo everywhere.

This direct mailer of adventurous eggs is part of a broader campaign focusing on social net work sites, mobile, web-based games and interactive online advertising.

If you’re thinking of using promotional products for a direct mail campaign, then there are many factors to consider. One business with more great promotional ideas then they know what to do with is promostore. The chaps there are promotional experts, and will have your business mailing out superb promotional items in no time.

You thought you were spending a mint on promotional products?

Nestle are putting two fingers up to the credit crunch, and are all set to hand out a whopping 100,000 packets of Polos, as part of their new marketing strategy. They obviously have high hopes for the humble mint as this free sample move, is part of a £750,000 marketing strategy.

If your thinking promotional mints would make an interesting marketing tool for your business, then one promotional company that could help you out is sweets2order. They have great range of fully personalised mint cards and mint strips as well as other great promotional confectionary.