We love our favourite brands, and they love us, as we faithfully part with our hard earned cash for certain companies and their logos. But who was the first to recognize the importance of branding?

 Bass & Company, the British brewery, claims their red triangle brand was the world’s first trademark. Lyle’s Golden Syrup makes a similar claim, having been named as Britain’s oldest brand, with its green and gold packaging having remained almost unchanged since 1885. Another example comes from Antiche Fornaci Giorgi in Italy, whose bricks are stamped or carved with the same proto-logo since 1731, as found in Saint Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.

Cattle were branded long before this; the term “maverick”, originally meaning an unbranded calf, comes from Texas rancher Samuel Augustus Maverick who, following the American Civil War, decided that since all other cattle were branded, his would be identified by having no markings at all. Even the signatures on paintings of famous artists like Leonardo Da Vinci can be viewed as an early branding tool.

Remember if you want to put your brand out there via the medium of products, contact the experts over at Gift Selection.

Flicking through the latest issue of ISP magazine, I came across news of news of their Spring Graduation. Nearly 50 graduates of three ISP educational courses, alongside representatives of the agencies or brands many of them work for, friends and family, gathered in the MPs Dining Room at The House of Commons last February.

The audience listened as Clive Mishon, chairman of the ISP, and John Greenway MP, the ISP’s representative in Parliament, explained the importance of the highest levels of professional education to the survival of the UK’s self regulatory system for advertising and marketing.

Chris Bestley, the ISP’s director of education, pointed out that the fact that a small but significant number of students who had started out on all three courses had actually failed was evidence of the hard work those who passed had put in. John Sylvester a director of motivation company PM&M and one of the main men in establishing the diploma, said the course was as challenging and as relevant today as it was when it fist ran in 2005.

If you’re involved in the promotions industry, you may have come across the fascinating design insights that I’ve come across recently from Martin Lindstrom, author of ‘Buy•ology’.

Lindstrom, through a study of the human psyche, throws light on the subconscious mind and how that plays a major role in deciding what the buyer will buy. In doing so, Lindstrom breaks a number of existing myths related to advertising and promotion.

An interesting theory of his, is his idea of a “smashable” product. In 1915 the Coca-Cola company decided that it needed to do something about the design of its bottles, as they felt there straight-sided containers weren’t distinctive enough. The result was that the Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana, proposed the swirling, curved “contour” bottle, which remains, one of the most recognisable and loved brand icons.

Why did this happen do you think? In 1915 the designer of Coca-Cola’s bottle was given a simple yet brilliant brief: design the bottle systematically and so distinctive that, if smashed, a single piece of glass would be recognizable as, and signify the Coke brand. As Martin says himself; “The Coke bottle story is fascinating from a brand building perspective. In theory, all brands should be able to pass this test. So, working on this principle, if you removed the logo from your brand, would it still be recognizable?”

Remember if you would like any free branding advice, contact the friendly promotions team over at Gift Selection.

Browsing over the ever informative marketingmagazine.co.uk, I now know that branded-goods manufacturers spend £25.6 billion annually on sales promotion activity within retailers, according to the Institute of Sales Promotion.

It’s not just promotional products that businesses use to increase sales. Over 50% percent of that total, £14.4 billion, was spent on retailer promotions such as BOGOFs n the 2007/8 financial year. That compares with £18.6 billion spent on above-the-line ad spend in 2008. The research is the first project overseen by retail industry researcher Colin Harper, who was recently named as the ISP’s first head of insight.

‘People only tend to notice the obvious marketing spend, on above-the-line advertising or obvious Point of Sale (POS) activity, for example. But sales promotion is a bit like an iceberg — there is far more going on below the surface than immediately meets the eye,’ Harper said.

Consumers place price as the top factor influencing their purchases but are increasingly prepared to consider a brand’s record on carbon reduction. It’s not exactly surprising that people but price first, but that fact people are interested in the environment is encouraging.

A survey by the Carbon Trust of more than 1,000 consumers found that almost two-thirds (63%) were more likely to buy a product if they knew action was being taken to reduce its carbon footprint. Furthermore, some 58% of consumers said they valued companies that were taking action on carbon reduction but only 12% think they are doing enough to cut carbon emissions and tackle climate change.

‘Environmental concerns’ were highlighted as being more influential than ethical and the country of origin issues when it came to buying electronic goods and cars, but not for clothing and shoes and food and drink.

At present few big brands carry the Carbon Trust’s Carbon Footprint Reduction labels on their packaging and marketing material. PepsiCo, through its Tropicana, Walkers and Quakers brands, and Tesco are two of the first to have displayed the Carbon Reduction Label since its launch in 2007. But this week Tate & Lyle announced it intends to carry the logo on pack to inform consumers that the carbon footprint of its cane sugar is 380g per 1 kg bag.

If environmental issues are important to you and your customers, then eco friendly promotional products, will be important marketing tools. Ecoproducts2order has a full range of eco friendly corporate gifts to choose from.

They sell promotional products made from materials which would otherwise be destined for landfill sites. They use recycled paper, card, wood from sustainable forests, recycled plastics from car parts, recycled tyres, jute and organic cotton. Not to mention stocking promotional gadgets running on water power and solar power!

People have been going mad about Twitter, but is it all media hype? ‘Micro-blogging’ still remains in the hands of the few according to Harvard research. Despite the fact that where constantly told the whole world is tweeting about everyone else just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content.

Estimates suggest it now has more than 10 million users and is growing faster than any other social network. However, the Harvard team found that more than half of all people using Twitter updated their page less than once every 74 days.

And most people only ever “tweet” once during their lifetime, the researchers found. “Based on the numbers, Twitter is certainly not a service where everyone who has seen it has instantly loved it,” said Bill Heil, a graduate from Harvard Business School who carried out the work.

However one could argue that Twitter is made up of two groups of people. There are individuals who use it to network amongst their friends, or  businesses looking to promote themselves to the masses. If the study removed the organisations looking for promotion, then the results may mirror other social networking sites.

Its unprecedented growth has become the poster child of social networking sites, particularly among media companies, which I think needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. This isn’t to say social networking should be taken lightly by any means. After all if Facebook was country it would be the eighth most populated in the world.

Are big and flashy TV ads set to be a thing of the past? According to The7Stars, 75% of ‘consumers’ (I hate that word) think these ads are wasteful. What’s more, over than a quarter of consumers plan to reduce or cancel their satellite or cable TV subscriptions.

One should perhaps take these results with a pinch of salt as only 700 people where surveyed, but a sense of the economic downturn is perhaps showing in our’ media consumption. Of those asked, 46% said they would stop buying their current newspaper if the price increased.

Jenny Biggam, founding partner at The7Stars, added: “There is a huge debate over whether consumers should be paying for media and newspapers. In the last five to 10 years, consumers have become more motivated towards free media…Media companies like newspapers and television, already suffering from a downturn in advertising, need to understand this new reality and make sure they engage their audience.”

There are of course other promotional outlets for every business that are deemed to be much more cost effective – promotional products! Giving out cost effective corporate gifts, certainly work well alongside more traditional media outlets.

One quality supplier of such promotional items is Gift Selection, who supply branded gifts to organisations all across the world. If you have any questions about which promotional items would work best for you, then give their friendly team a call.

A recent study carried out by Soc­ial Media Affairs (SMA), found 19 per cent of bloggers identified as Conservative Party supporters, compared with 16 per cent each for the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats.

With perpetual PR disasters for Gordon Brown and his cabinet, I’m surprised that the deficient isn’t double this. However Labour bloggers have refuted this claim, with one of their parliamentary candidates Lucy Powell hitting back: ‘I thought we’d moved on from social media in politics being about how much traffic one blog gets versus another and towards how we actually adapt to a completely new social environment.’

As far as the actual councillors, it is the Liberal Democrats who are the happiest to type away. Amongst all Liberal Democrat bloggers, 55% are councillors, compared with 19% of Conservative bloggers being councillors and 18% of Labour bloggers…

Leading market research analyst Mintel has shown that sales of ethical clothing have more than quadrupled in the last five years, reaching a healthy £175m in early 2009. If your business has cottoned on to the trend of organic and ethical clothing, then ecoproducts2order has a range of quality items.

The market for ethical clothing is going from strength to strength, as consumers continue to seek out clothing that takes into consideration the impact of production and trade on the environment and on the people behind the clothes we wear.

My particular favourite is the promotional organic baby clothing!You may be surprised to learn that regular cotton accounts for only 3% of the world’s farmland but uses a massive 25% of the world’s pesticides. Also organic cotton is gentle to the environment as it takes less fuel and fewer green house gases to produce it.

Promotional organic clothing is a great way to market your brand, in an ethical and effective way. Whether your looking for promotional organic caps, hats, T shirts - what ever it is ecoproducts2order can source it.

 In a few hours Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th and first mixed race president of the United States. At least two million people are expected to attend the inauguration, with an estimated one billion people watching the event on their televisions. Mr Obama will take the oath of office on the historic President Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural Bible at 1200 local time (1700 GMT). He will be sworn in on the steps of the Capitol building looking across the city towards the iconic White House.

Mr Obama has played an interesting role in the world of marketing and promotional products, with many brands making ongoing efforts to align themselves with Obama, and his message of hope in particular. The new Pepsi logo and the Obama campaign logo are similar, both  of which use swirls of red, white, and blue. While Pepsi have launched a new website called RefreshEverything.com. The site is dedicated to “the man who is about to refresh our nation”, and invites people “help us refresh America” by uploading a video message to the soon to be President.

Pepsi of course are not the only ones. Ikea have become the new champions of America despite being Sweden’s most famous export. They have been compiling a “WELCOME OBAMA!” guestbook, to kick of the start of his presidency. While Facebook has joined forces with The New York Times to launch a Presidential Suggestion sub-site.

Also according to the 2008 Presidential Image Power Survey from branding firm Landor Associates and research firm Penn, Schoen & Berland, apparantely Barack Obama is particular associated with brands such as BMW, Target, Google and Samuel Adams, while John McCain conjured up images of Ford, Wal-Mart , AOL and Budweiser.