"Part of the focus of corporate marketing is to establish brand name recognition that the company is trying to promote. There are many ways to establish brand name recognition, and one of the more unique yet effective ways to support that effort is through unique promotional items. If a potential customer sees an advertisement in a magazine for a company and then looks up to see someone using a umbrella with the company logo on it, then that act helps to reinforce the brand name recognition.

Reinforcing the marketing attempt to make the company popular is the main drive behind creating and distributing promotional products, but in some cases there can be a promotional product that offers many different angles to it and can have a rather large return on investment. One promotional item that is truly unique yet is also extremely useful is a promotional umbrella.

Personalised Promotional Umbrellas

To many marketing people the point of creating and giving away promotional umbrellas seems to be a money losing proposition, but umbrellas are that neutral item that people rarely hate but many people are happy to see when they need one. If you give away promotional pens that run out of ink quickly, then you have given away a promotional item that people may never use again. The overall reinforcement of the company image that was desired is now lost. Using a good quality promotional umbrella has much less of a tendency to have that kind of effect on people as people only judge their umbrellas by how well the umbrellas keep the people dry. If a company invests in good quality promotional umbrellas, then the umbrellas will serve their purpose for many years and spread good feelings to the user that translates into reinforcement of the company image. It could be argued that promotional umbrellas can only spread this good feeling one person at a time and in inclement weather, but this is not the case. When someone opens a promotional umbrella, everyone around them will see the promotional company information on the umbrella and be affected by it. People may even ask why the person is carrying a corporate umbrella, and the response that it was a promotional gift could generate good will in those other people as well. When people are not using their umbrella, it is usually stored some place where it is readily available and constantly seen by people walking by. Well placed graphics on the promotional umbrella can insure that this particular marketing item is always reinforcing the company marketing plan, even when it is not in use."