In the promotional products industry there is no industry standard for classifying and certifying eco-friendly products. How promotional product suppliers do have the opportunity to be certified by other organisation’s standards.

There is a vast array of certificates awarded to supposedly eco friendly organisations; such as awards for product material, energy consumption and workers rights for example. Below is a list of well known organisation who play a role, in making the world a greener and fairer world for us, who logo’s you may see on many promotional products from www.giftselection.com and www.ecoproducts2order.com.

Carbon Reduction Label

Given by the Carbon Label Company in conjunction with the U.K’s Carbon Trust, a government funded organisation, the label represents total greenhouse gas emissions from every stage of the product’s little life.

www.carbon-label.com

ECOCERT

Europe-based ECOCERT works to promote organic products through its control and certification activities in more than 80 countries. ECOCERT is accredited for National Organic Program (NOP) certification.

www.ecocert.com

Forest Stewardship Council

FSC certification guarantees wood based products with this label were produced with materials from sustainably managed forests. FSC-accredited, independent third-party certifiers assess forest management using the FSC’s principles, criteria and standards, and each certifier uses an individual evaluative process.

www.fscus.org/faqs

Green Seal

Founded in 1989, the non -profit group Green Seal provides science-based environmental certification standards for products to help end users make responsible choices that positively impact business behaviour and improves quality of life. Their wide range of products spans over 40 major product categories.

www.greenseal.org

USDA National Organic Program (NOP)

THE USDA National Organic Program regulates the standard for any farm, wild crop harvesting or handling operation that wants to see an agricultural product as organically produced in the US. The NOP develops, implements and administers national production, handling and labelling standards for organic agricultural products, and it also accredits foreign and domestic certficying agents who inspect organic production and handling operation to certify that they meet the USDA standards.

Probably the most popular sorts of eco friendly promotional gifts are those with claims to being recycled. However the promotional product industry lacks a certified standard, so please ask your corporate gift supplier if you are unsure – the friendly green experts (their not literally green) at ecoproducts2order will be able to answer any queries you may have.

Prêt a Manger those lovely people who supply city workers with their dolphin-friendly tuna sandwiches, has revamped the design of its Pure Prêt sparkling juice drink cans, to draw on its use of natural ingredients.

The range features variants such as Grape & Elderflower, Ginger Beer and Yoga Detox Bunny. The cans carry the strap-line ‘absolutely no nasties’ and are now white in colour. Each variant features a different image on the can, created from the ingredients themselves.

Grape & Elderflower features an image of a flower made from grapes, Ginger Beer features and image of a dog made from ginger root and Yoga Detox Bunny features and image of a rabbit made from avocado and French beans.

If you think using a drink would work well to promote your business, then www.sweets2order have a range of promotional drink items that are bound to draw people’s attention.

They have a range of traditional promotional water bottles and promotional fruit juices, which are especially great if your brand is associated with a healthy life style. However my favorite promotional drink item is the award winning ‘Drink Bax’ (pictured).

The personalised bottle comes in soft packaging, made of silver aluminium composite foil. This promotional drink has a range of styles and flavours. If it’s a promotional drink to use a mixer for cocktails, or an energy drink to have in the gym, or a soft drink to enjoy in the sun, the Drink Bax is the promotional drink to suit all tastes and occasions.

Please note that the minimum order quantity for the promotional Drink Bax is: 504 pieces when digitally printing, 504 when flexo-printing between 1-3 colours, and 1008 in 4 colours.

Now here’s some promotional products that really take the biscuit (sorry). United Biscuits UK is set to launch a £2m marketing campaign across; McVitie’s Digestives, Jaffa Cakes, HobNobs and Penguin themed around the search for the UK’s favourite biscuit.

Their new marketing campaign kicks off in August, and is inspired by the good old British public’s love of biscuits. Their novel plan is entitled ‘Bonkers about Biscuits’, it comprises an eight-week daily giveaway of £5,000 backed by a TV ad campaign and targeted radio.

The promotional packs will be available from 16 August for a limited period. To enter the daily prize draw to win a share of £5,000, consumers have to enter a bespoke code from the back of a promotional pack along with their favourite McVitie’s biscuit on www.bonkersaboutbiscuits.com to be in with a chance to win. The great thing about this fun promotion, is that they will keep track of the votes via a game show themed creative.

If you see on their bonkers about biscuits promotional mugs around, and you like the quality of them, then The Mugstore are the clever chaps supplying them. If you’re looking for promotional mugs to promote your brand like McVities have, then give the friendly team at Mugstore a ring.

Obviously they wouldn’t reproduce what they had made for McVities for your businesses, but having your organisations artwork on the same promotional mug would be no problem at all.

I love these little branded tins of sweets, as there both an effective and a delicious marketing tool. The aptly named Best Value Box from sweets2order, is one of their most popular promotional confectionery items.

These branded best value boxes are professional looking pieces of promotional confectionery, that are fun for all kinds of organisations. A branded best value box from, has approximately 65g of sweets inside, and is available from as little as 200 pieces. When ordering these branded boxes of confectionery, your price will be determined by your choice of personalisation method.

If you want your branded best value box printed, then choose between one, two, three, four spot colours or have them printed digitally in razor sharp in full colour. On the hand you may wish your promotional best value boxes to be engraved, which would be particularly stylish if your logo is only in one colour anyway.

Just to complicate things, there isn’t just one set price for engraving these promotional sweet tins. In a nutshell the more you have these best value boxes engraved, the more expensive these promotional mint tins will be.

For professional looking confectionery that is something a little out of the ordinary, these branded sweet tins are well worth considering. For more information regarding branded sweet tins, contact the friendly team over at www.sweets2order.com.

What could be more innocent then a promotional lolly pop - a fun piece of corporate confectionery, that you would have to have a heart of stone not too enjoy. What sweetso2rder doesn’t know about corporate lollypops isn’t worth knowing. They can supply practically any kind of promotional lolly you could think off.

If you know exactly what you require, then ring the friendly team up at sweets2order and bark your order down the phone, and they will quickly prepare it, faster then you can click your fingers. On the other hand, maybe you’re a new comer to the exciting world of promotional lollies. Well they will talk you through the wild and exciting possibilities open to you and your organisation.

You can have your promotional lollipop branded in so many different ways, the possibilities are practically endless. You can have the packaging branded or the lolly itself branded. Now when I say the packaging, I mean either printing the cellophane wrapping directly or a have sticky label stuck on, or some cardboard behind the lolly, or maybe a card box that goes over the top of the lolly. Still not enough choice? OK what about printing the foil that wraps around it, or the cardboard stand that they sit in…

For corporate lollies in all shapes, sizes and flavours – contact www.sweets2order.com – you’ll get more advertising for your lolly.

If somebody gave me some branded ballotin chocolates, I personally would be a happy chap. The problem with branded ballotin boxes is that they can often be too expensive, for many organisations.

However help is at hand from www.sweets2order.com, who have recently launched some more affordable branded ballotin chocolate boxes. They have a two chocolate and four chocolate version (obviously I think the four chocolate version is the way forward). Some more upmarket bars and hotels make use of branded ballotin chocolates as a neat little marketing tool, that should give off the right kind of impression to new and existing customers alike.

If you’re interested in some branded ballotin boxes, depending on your budget you can choose from three personalisation options. The cheapest option is to have it simply printed in spot colours, while if you have tints and tones in your logo you can have it printed in full colour. My favourite method is to have the chocolate box foil blocked, which is only a little more expensive, and I think will make your brand will appear in a great light.

Who would have thought car insurance would have made such a viral sensation, especially in the form of a Meer Kat in pyjamas. Price comparison site Comparethemarket.com last weekend unveiled its latest television and viral ad starring billionaire Meer Kat Aleksandr Orlov.

Aleksandr explained: “Despite many fans of previous advert, peoples still making mistake. New ad will let peoples know about my Meer Kat business, not other website, Comparethemarket.com, which is for humans searching for cheap deals on their car insurance.”

Created by creative agency VCCP, the advertisement has been an outstanding success. According to the company the introduction of the Meer Kat character has boosted quote activity on the site by 80%. The popularity of the ads matched with the quirky nature of British humour, has even led to an increased interest in the animals as pets.

I know a good friend of mine has since developed an addiction to Meer Kat Manor, a potentially hilarious programme which follows the trails and tribulations of a group of Meer Kats. Disappointingly none of these Meer Kats seem to have the same entrepreneurial mind set as Aleksandr Orlov, but they are entertaining none the less.

The loveable little Meer Kat man is even on Facebook and YouTube, or you can buy his ring tone if you wish here too.

My favourite promotional product these days is still the branded USB men.  I’ve been spending probably too much time of late, living in my own little fantasy branded USB men land as you can see. The fact that I mainly pull their body parts off, probably doesn’t reflect well on my character, but there you are.

In our office we have a range of branded USB men taken from the standard range. If you’re not interested in splashing out on a completely bespoke USB man, then you’ll want to know what standard branded USB men are available. My favourite branded USB man is the surgeon (pictured), but there is quite a range of other characters. Giftselection are one quality supplier of branded USB men, and if you give them a call they will be happy to send you images of what is available.

When ordering a standard branded USB man, the minimum order quantity is only 50 pieces. While the USB men are available in every memory capacity up to 4Mg, and can be printed in up to four spot colours - but only the chest area.

If you require a sample of a branded USB man, contact the friendly team at Gift Selection or call 0845 481 8090 for more information.

Remember when I reported news about Hula-Hoops requesting the public to send in videos of their fingers messing around with their favourite crisps on them?

Well they have recently launched their TV add to encourage us to get filming, which features two would be YMCA stars. Helen Warren-Piper, marketing director of Bagged Snacks at UBUK, said: “This new TV advertising campaign, along with the on-pack promotion and Hula Hoops website will drive further consumer engagement with the brand providing retailers with increased sales opportunities.

“Some brands are the keepers of undeniable truths. Hula Hoops is one of those brands — anyone who tells you they can eat a bag without first putting them on their fingers and giving them a wiggle, is a big fat fibber”.

If you have way too much time on your hands - visit their website to see people’s latest efforts and size up your competition.