Look at your desk. How many pens emblazoned with company names--other than yours--are strewn across it? How about your memo pad? Did you pick it up at a trade show? Chances are, your life is filled with items you've been given as promotional gestures. Bags, T-shirts, backpacks and pens are all popular items, to name just a few. We all know the idea behind them give something to your attendees that that will keep your event alive long after it has ended. But which have the most impact? What's popular now? What's on the horizon?

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Client retention remains solid, too--repeat customers are around 40% of their business--despite the fact that buyers could always go to competing Web sites or local distributors. That's helped by guerilla marketing tactics, the company's "secret sauce" that Kirby says bolsters the brand and creates loyalty among far-flung customers. "With an online business, it's just fascinating," says Kirby. "They seem to be finding us."

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So what puts the hot in tchotchke? Good, old-fashioned staying power. "Most forms of advertising have a very short shelf life," says Dale Kirby, marketing director at Promopeddler.com. "Commercials last about 30 seconds, and newspapers really only see the light of one 24-hour day. Promo items are a completely different animal."

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Two years ago Bill Prickett picked up one of thousands of incentive products offered for his inspection and was puzzled. "I don't get it," he asked. "Where do you put the logo?"

It's a question Prickett, the public relations manager for Promotional Products Association International (PPAI), would be expected to ask. If there's one thing that defines the promotional products industry, it's the ability to put a logo or message on just about anything...

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Within a client organization, you may be surprised by who is responsible for orchestrating an event. Dale Kirby, director of marketing at Promopeddler.com (asi/129990), has worked with secretaries, administrators and marketing assistants, whose laps have been filled with planning duties. Other times, she notes, a full events-planning department or third-party service provider may be involved.

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