In a survey of 2,400 U.S. consumers, marketing researchers MarketingSherpa found that Americans find traditional advertising channels to be the most trustworthy when making a purchasing decision. Of the 13 channels surveyed, the top five in the results are traditional, including, in ranking order, print, TV, direct mail, radio and outdoor advertising, while the remaining eight are digital. Those include, in order, search engine, online video, sponsored blog posts, social media, online banners, mobile phone ads, ads in podcasts and online pop-ups.

“Promotional products are also a traditional media that have proven longevity and a high trust factor among consumers,” says Paul Bellantone, CAE, president and CEO of PPAI. “A recent study shows that promotional products have the highest advertising reach of any form of advertising and nine in 10 recipients are able to remember the branding from a promotional product received. Moreover, 82 percent of consumers say they have a more positive impression of a brand as a direct result of receiving a promotional product and 83 percent of consumers are more likely to do business with those brands.”

Daniel Burstein, senior director of editorial content at MarketingSherpa explains the challenges facing or digital marketers. “Some of the elements of digital marketing that make the channel so popular—its trackability, targeting and low cost thanks to greater inventory—are also its Achilles heel compared to traditional advertising,” he says. “While the vaunted New York Times features ‘All the News That’s Fit to Print,’ digital content pretty much just stops at ‘All.’ There's very high value online content—even most print publications publish online as well—but that real value is drowning in a sea of mediocrity or worse and, as a whole, it damages consumers’ trust.”

Consumers’ ability to retain the brand name carried by promotional products is what gives them such lasting value as an advertising media and PPAI is working to get the message out. Last fall PPAI introduced the Get In Touch! campaign, a five-year multi-million-dollar branding effort aimed at increasing awareness and enhancing the perception of the promotional products industry, as well as communicating the benefits of working with promotional consultants. The overall goal of the campaign is to direct a larger share of advertising dollars to the industry.

The campaign features an integrated approach and creative assets that industry companies can employ including digital and traditional print ads, social media, research, infographics and video toolkits. These and additional tools are available for download at PPAI.org/GetInTouch. A buyer-friendly web portal, GetInTouchAdvertising.com, features a distributor search tool.

The campaign, coupled with PPAI’s annual Promotional Products Work! Week planned for April 24-28, are designed to increase awareness and drive traffic to regional and industry participant websites, educate buyers and drive business referrals to promotional products consultants. More information and planning tools on the weeklong program are available at PPAI.org/PPWWeek.