Scientists as usual are busy researching random things, looking for antidotes for the world’s problems, with the latest discovery being found in the chilli pepper.

The chilli is helping in the creation of a new sort of painkiller, as a substance similar to capsaicin, (which is what gives them their heat), is found in the human body at sites of pain.

Dr Kenneth Hargreaves from, senior researcher at the Dental School at the University of Texas said; “This is a major breakthrough in understanding the mechanisms of pain and how to more effectively treat it. We have discovered a family of endogenous capsaicin-like molecules that are naturally released during injury, and now we understand how to block these mechanisms with a new class of non-addictive therapies.”

You can even use chillies as part of your next marketing campaign. Giftselection can supply chilli based promotional items, that can spice up your corporate identity.  Promotional packs of chilli seeds may sound like a wacky idea, but used as an affordable mailer, they can make for a unique corporate gift that can really stay in people’s minds.

There are many kinds of branded seeds and promotional plant pots available, but the chillies are my favourite. If you would like more information about promotional chilli plants, contact the friendly team over at Gift Selection.

We love experimental marketing here, with my favourite of recent times being Pot Noodles travelling Kebab Shop. Lucozade, despite being at the other end of the health spectrum, is targeting students in a similar way, by travelling around fourteen universities across the UK, with students being eligible to take part in the promotion by buying a bottle of Lucozade Alert Plus.

The game, devised by RPM gives students the opportunity to have ‘One Shot’ to bounce a ping pong ball along a series of obstacles into a final target to win prizes of up to £250. GlaxoSmithKline unveiled Lucozade Alert Plus, its first energy shot in the UK, last autumn, backed by a £13m marketing investment over 15 months. Lucozade’s selling point is their products aid focus, concentration and give rise to peak mental performance.

Nadia Moussa, a brand manager at Lucozade, said: “The activity will encourage students to try the product in order to participate in the challenge and test out the benefits for themselves. I’m looking forward to seeing the long term impact on the sales figures for this product at the targeted universities.”

If you want to promote your businesses along these lines, you could invest in similarly related promotional products. Quality promotional product distributers like sweets2order can offer branded multi vitamin tablets, branded energy drinks, branded cereal bars – there are all kinds of promotional material available.

If you want to energize your brand with the health and well being based promotional products, contact the friendly team over at sweets2order today.

USBs, data sticks, flash-drives, memory cards these are all popular names for the same thing, but many people don’t know much about them, despite being a very important product for all kinds of industries.

What is a flash memory?

In your promotional USB stick, you will find a flash memory chip, which is a component of almost every electronic device. This memory is super-portable, and importantly is constantly powered. This allows the user to program or erase data safely and quickly, without requiring outside power to maintain date stored on the chip.

Why is there often no prices on promotional product distributers website?

Branded USB sticks vary in price because the memory chip inside varies in price. Why would there price fluctuate? Flash memory is treated as commodity product, as only a couple of manufacturers (Samsung, Intel etc) supply the entire world. This leads the supply and demand ratio open to easy manipulation, as there can be a very large demand from only a few organisations. Apple Computers for example is responsible for buying 20% - 30% of the entire market.

How long will my promotional USB last for?

Branded USBs are extremely robust, leave one in your jeans while there in the washing machine, and they’ll still probably work (I said probably, don’t sue me if it doesn’t). Partly because they have no moving parts, they aren’t prone to wear and tear.

There is some disagreement over how long your USB flashdrive will keep running for. Some say they will last forever, but I would disagree. It is safe to say that for all intents and purposes your USB won’t break down on and you, and will very likely last longer than you.

The sun has been shining for the last few days, with many Brits daring to dream of BBQs and dig out their khaki shorts once again. With spring seemingly ‘leap-frogged’ by Summer, what could be more British then watching cricket?

I suppose by watching British cricket? OK, you’ve got a point there, but for now the popular IPL is capturing the imaginations of cricket fans worldwide. Not all is well though, as India’s cricket board has suspended IPL chief Lalit Modi over corruption allegations, in what as described as “the worst crisis to hit the Indian game this century.”

At an emergency meeting on Monday the Indian cricket board, the BCCI, named an interim chairman and said it was searching for “missing” IPL documents. Mr Modi, who is being investigated by tax officials, denies all allegations of wrongdoing.

If watching the cricket has inspired you (to play cricket I mean, not to embark on a career in corruption), then supplying corporate sports and cricket clothing in particular is no problem for Gift Selection.

Quality brands such as Slazenger, are available from Gift Selection. It is not just promotional clothing that they can supply, if you require the right volume, branded bags, branded bottles – any promotional item you can think of is possible through them. If you’re holding a corporate sporting event, less obvious promotional items can work well too such as branded lip balms.

Promotional rosettes, awards, trophies – if you want to congratulate someone, then Gift Selection can supply the perfect promotional product.

If you’re planning a corporate golf day, then having a few crystal awards are a great way to round of the event. Don’t limit yourself to giving one award for the lowest round, be creative and congratulate those for the longest put or even for hitting the most bunkers!

Awards don’t have to be expensive, having engraved tumblers or whiskey glasses don’t cost the earth, but can still make the recipient really feel valued. As usual, Gift Selection and the Mugstore can supply exactly what you’re looking for. Want a large engraved crystal tankard? No problem! Want a low budget printed tumbler? You know who to call.

There are all kinds of weird and wonderful courses and activities the Great British public take part in. Now students are getting the chance to study fishing at the UK’s first angling academy. Young people from the ages of 16-19 can also get an NVQ-level training in football and golf. I’m not sure how people studying to play a bit of football, is going to help record numbers of youth unemployment, but hey I don’t make the rules!

We’re all up for some self promotion here, one way another, you can get your message across. It doesn’t necessarily mean it will be well received though, as the Senegalese people will tell you.

Senegal has inaugurated a new monument, higher than the Statue of Liberty, costing a bargain £18m. The 49m (160ft) Monument of African Renaissance has been unveiled in Dakar as the highlight of the nation’s 50th anniversary of independence, but has drawn huge criticism over its cost and symbolism.

The Soviet-style bronze statue, built by North Korean workers, is the idea of President Abdoulaye Wade, who not one to miss an opportunity, said he should take 35% of the revenue generated by the monument because it was his idea.

Nineteen heads of state, including Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo, attended the statue’s inauguration, which coincided with the country celebrating 50 years of independence from France.

Deputy opposition leader Ndeye Fatou Toure said the statue was an “economic monster and a financial scandal in the context of the current [economic] crisis,” AFP news agency reported. Not only that, but now most of the Muslim community has got the hump, as scholars have labelled its scantily clad figures un-Islamic, while others said it was a waste of money and ‘idolatrous’.

On the eve of the celebrations, the Reuters news agency quoted a leading imam, Massamba Diop, as telling worshippers at a mosque in the capital: “We have issued a fatwa urging Senegal’s imams this Friday to read the holy Koran in the mosques simply to ask Allah to preserve us from the punishment this monument of shame risks bringing on Senegal.”

Apart from that, the ceremony went down very well. If you have a budget of £18m, or even less, talk to the promotion experts at Gift Selection who will share their expert advice.

Internet leaders Google have implemented a feature dubbed ‘remarketing’, which enables advertisers to tailor online ads based on users’ web habits. The feature works by detecting when users visit a brand’s website, and then targeting them with ads for that brand on other sites they visit within Google’s Content Network. It seems like the first significant step, to the futuristic scenes in science fiction, with adverts talking directly to individuals.

Center Parcs (that isn’t a typo), are one well known brand who’ve adopted this strategy. For example, they give a visitor to their site a price for a holiday. If that person subsequently browses elsewhere, Center Parcs can run ads via the Google Content Network offering a discount on the original quoted price as an incentive to return to its site and book.

Someone else who like the idea is Paul Holden, chief marketing officer of Samsung, who said it was committed to using re­marketing after a trial campaign for its Behold II mobile handset. He added that the activity had reached more than 100,000 users when it ran on YouTube’s homepage.