The ever popular branded Sparta mug is now available as a budget version. The printed Sparta mug has long been an industry favourite, and now The Mugstore is running a special budget Sparta mug option!

If the credit crunch is biting, then our budget Sparta mugs are corporate gifts that won’t break the bank. As long as you give us 10 working days, we can produce razor sharp budget Sparta mugs for your businesses. Just because a Sparta mug from The Mugstore is cheap, doesn’t mean its poor quality. Promotional Sparta mugs offer exceptional value for money, and they work well for practically any organisation.

Promotional Sparta mugs are available in a large selection of attractive colours, and are highly customisable. Promotional budget Sparta mugs are hard fired for increased durability and therma-glazed for razor sharp colours. Our budget printed Sparta mugs are both dishwasher and microwave safe too.

These cheap Sparta mugs are only on offer for the rest of the month, so save even more money on these branded Sparta mugs while you can. When ordering budget Sparta mugs, please allow 10 - 15 working days for them to arrive. We can produce cheap printed Sparta mugs quicker, but not for this rock bottom price.

In the grip of the recession, coupon style offers are as popular as ever. However the ISP is collecting examples of coupon misuse from brand owners, agencies and service providers, due to complaints against retailers. The ISP is taking advice from lawyers, to establish whether retailers can be taken to court for allowing or even encouraging coupon misuse.

The law at the moment is certainly a grey area, but I can certainly sympathise with brand owners, as surely retailers shouldn’t be just allowed to dictate the cost price of the items there buying in.

Peter Kerr the MD of coupon handling house MRM and chairman of the coupon committee says there is plenty evidence of coupon misuse. He told ISP news “to gain a competitive edge. Some brands owners have been presented with bills for tens of thousands or more for coupons that should have been rejected.”

If you have witnessed coupon misuse by retailers and wish to anonymously say so, feel free to at coupon@isp.org.uk.

In the recent ISP Awards, Mancunion Blue Chip Marketing won the coveting Agency of the Year 2009 – so congratulations to them. Probably their most successful client is Kellogs, which they have created various campaigns for.

Their taking their latest launch; ‘Nature’s Pleasure Muesli’ on the road, with their interactive sampling campaign that runs until September. This novel campaign uses a range of techniques to get people to try various types of muesli. They will be at various high profile events, including the BBC Good Food Show in June, and the Hampton Court Flower Show in July.

If you’re partial to some cereal, then your business could use promotional cereal  bars to market themselves with. If you have a health conscious sort of organisation, then promotional printed cereal bars make a change from typical corporate confectionary. If your interest in having some personalised cereal bars made for promotional purposes, contact the friendly team at sweets2order.com

Sweets2order has gone a bit silly over promotional lollies recently, by developing its range of bespoke 2D lollies. These fun confectionary items make mouth watering corporate gifts, especially as their available in a wide range of delicious flavours.

When sweets2order design your bespoke logo lollipops, great care is taken to add sophistication, quality and appeal to a typically mundane child’s treat. Forget just putting a sticker on a plain lolly. We’ve taken things a step further, with our bespoke 2d lolly pops. With these promotional 2D lollypops having a diameter of approx 3.5 inches, you really will get more marketing for your lolly.

The friendly team at sweets2order will be happy to create a visual for you – so you can clearly see what your new promotional 2D lolly will look like. Just send them your logo for a proof design, and they will quickly create a bespoke visual for you.

These promotional lollies are skilfully crafted into an eye catching, mouth-watering, tasty treat which will tickle your taste buds and give a long lasting flavour!

As people are becoming more aware of climate change, biodegradable promotional products are looking increasingly attractive. Ecoproducts2order have just started selling completely bio degradable promotional drinks bottles. They have taken the retailing challenge of producing a 100% eco friendly bottle.

Their branded bio-bottle is 100% biodegradable, but yet maintains the same appearance and physical performance, as the other branded drinks bottles you’ll have seen elsewhere. The bottle is made of at least 20% post industrial recycled plastic, polyethylene and a revolutionary additive which makes the polyethylene bio-degradable!

The innovative eco friendly promotional item, works by a brilliantly simple process. The biodegrading process starts once a product reaches its final destination in a Landfill (litter, composting facility, home composter). It is not affected by heat, sunlight or moisture so there’s no need to be afraid of the product starting to bio-degrade on the shelf! (That would certainly be embarrassing for everyone involved.

Printed promotional USB drives are popular corporate gifts for all sorts of businesses. If you’re planning on giving lots out, you probably won’t want to spend a fortune on an individual USB.

Bracelet USB drives are one the cheapest promotional flash drives available, but their quirky appeal means despite their low cost, they are still popular. A younger audience in general I think would approve of a printed bracelet flash drive, as it’s a promotional gadget that they can really get to grips with. The beauty being that silicon branded USBs are extremely hard wearing – which is ideal for kids.

Silicone wristbands are available in a few different styles, and if ordered in quantity can even be pantone matched. A quality supplier of promotional Silicon USB drives is gadgets2order, who have a full range of memory sizes available.

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!

With the golf season well under way, it’s that time of the year when many workers are treated to a corporate golf day. I sympathise with anyone having a corporate golf day today, as the weather isn’t exactly pleasant.

Any golfer shouldn’t be without a promotional umbrella even if it is June. There are a range of branded golf umbrellas available on the market to suit all tastes and budgets. The imaginatively named ‘Budget Golf Umbrella’ from Gift Selection, can be picked up for less then a fiver. Despite the low cost this branded golf umbrella still features a; steel frame, twin fluted ribs, a wooden handle and is available in 15 attractive colour ways.

Printed umbrellas lend themselves to the promotions trade because they offer; great branding potential, a high perceive value and can be customised in lots of different ways. There are a surprising number of designs to choose from, like the more unusual Spectrum Quadbrella (pictured).

For a wider choice of promotional golf umbrellas, the UmbrellaStore offers unrivalled choice. My personal favourite is the Fibrestorm range, which can be printed in stunning full colour. The only problem is if your promotional umbrella is going to draw attention to yourself, you better make sure your on good form.

Anyone who has ever used an E-mail, thinks Spammers are as popular as Nick Griffin in a Mosque. No matter how many times you ask me, I will not be tempted to buy Viagra from Singapore (at least not for a few years). Similarly in my business E-mails, I’m not tempted to by ‘best price USB’ from Hong Kong, when Spam E-mails are written in pigeon English.

If you’re a fellow blog writer and are non to impressed by spam mailers, check out http://www.stopforumspam.com, which is a very useful website. The site was created to be used as a central database for known forum spambots – so well done guys. There search facility, which lets you browse I.P addresses particularly useful.

Here is some sound advice from the BBC: Don’t act too fast - some responses might just make matters worse. Here are some golden rules:

• Don’t reply, ever!
• Never buy anything from a spammer. Don’t make spamming worth the effort - plus you’ll get even more spam once they know you’re willing to buy.
• Think twice before forwarding chain-letters or petitions. Mass-mailings like this still constitute spam and the lists of addresses on them are later used by spammers.
• Don’t ‘mail-bomb’ the spammer who seems to have singled you out. The address included in the spam is probably forged or belongs to a mailbox the spammer ignores.

The humble promotional pencil has seen a new lease of life, by being modernised via new eco friendly versions. You’ll be surprised how many eco friendly promotional pencils are out there – ecoproducts2order are on supplier who can provide the full range.

Firstly decide if you want a recycled regular pencil, or a more up market mechanical pencil. Printed recycled pencils are great fun as there available in various colours, depending on what they used to be. As standard they have printed on the side what they started life as, such as ‘I used to be a paper cup’.

Promotional recycled pencils can be made from such quirky things as; paper cups, CD cases or aluminium foil for example.

If you’re looking for something a bit more expensive then there are a range of eco friendly promotional mechanical pencils are around too. These fall into three camps; those made from sustainable wood, those made from other biodegradable materials like corn starch, or recycled mechanical pencils.

For advice on any eco friendly corporate gifts, get in contact with the friendly team over at ecoproducts2order, who will be able to help you out.