Whether it’s a stadium that can fit thousands of people, or the local field 10 minutes down the road from your house, cheering on your favorite team is always better with the use of promotional products.
How many rally towels, T-shirts you caught from a cannon, or foam fingers have you saved from games?
Products like these enhance the overall experience. And right now, providing a long-lasting experience for clients and customers is the ultimate goal, or touchdown, or home run—whatever floats your sports metaphor boat. And even if you don’t make it out of the parking lot for the tailgate, that’s OK, because fan status doesn’t just start and end at the stadium.
Enhancing The Experience
Lisa Bascom, president and owner of Amerifoam in Brooklyn, Michigan, believes that nothing can compare to the experience that tailgating brings to a sports fan. After all, depending on how the game goes, sometimes the tailgate is the best part.
“From littles to adults, from family to friends; the comradery of fun, relaxation, food, drink, and games make the ‘pre-game’ party one to remember,” Bascom says. “Tailgating is not complete without the promo products at the center. Decorating tailgate vehicles with flags and balloons adds an extra touch to the atmosphere of the sport, and simple sports-themed food and snacks incorporating imprinted napkins, toothpick flags and foam fingers top off the décor aspect.”
And what’s great about these products is that they don’t just have to be used at the stadium. Bascom says she’s increasingly seeing people utilizing products such as apparel (jerseys, T-shirts), coolers, chairs, tents, magnets, grills, paper products, can coolers, foam fingers, pom-poms, tattoos, flags and banners for their at-home sporting experiences.
Julie Aaronson, director of marketing for Lane City, Texas-based Pepco Poms, knows that fans also want something that feels special to them. She says that Pepco’s products are fully customizable, making it an all-around more exciting experience for game-goers who want to show off their fanfare.
“Since the products for tailgating and sporting events can be customized for specific teams, it adds additional excitement and fun for the fans,” she says.
Becoming Keepsakes
The key to a great promotional product is when it can be used after the event and doesn’t wind up in the garbage or the back of the junk drawer.
Jesse Ament, senior director of marketing for Abbeville, South Carolina-based Pro Towels says that being from Pittsburgh, he’s at the “epicenter” of rally towel culture, and he believes that Pro Towel’s rally towels and blankets are the ultimate products for a sporting events and tailgates.
“So where I’m from, it’s the home of the Terrible Towel, and I have Terrible Towels all over my house,” he says. “They’re under my sink, but I also have them autographed like on my wall, and it’s a memory I can cherish forever. All this to say, towels have a second life beyond just cheering for this game. They become other things; they have longevity.”
And even though sports and sports-related memorabilia is maybe seen as a “guy’s thing” Ament explains that the beauty of products like towels is that they are unisex, and don’t necessarily adhere more closely to one audience than the other — they’re a sort of “one size fits all” promo product.
The same can be said for actual games as promotional products. When it comes to tailgates, Bascom believes that some great promo products are games like cornhole, or even beer pong, which can be played with branded plastic cups (and drinks other than beer). And even after the tailgate ends, products like that will still have a chance to see the light of day for other tailgates to come.
Plus, if a game of beer pong can bring the biggest of rivals together, i.e. an Eagles fan and a Cowboys fan, then that’s a magic you don’t want to miss out on creating.
“Many tailgate products will be taken home and reused again and again for years to come, bringing fans mentally back to the amazing time spent tailgating with friends and family,” Bascom says.
High Quality Decoration
Nothing takes the wind out of someone’s sails like realizing something you just received is clearly cheap and not well made. Ament says that’s why taking the time to embroider or embellish products to enhance that quality is very important.
“Our bread and butter is screen printing and embroidery, but even adding things like emblems and patches,” Ament says. “Those are just some of the added enhancements that allow people to elevate a product and give it that special touch, you know, say, like a grilling spatula with a leather handle and your favorite team’s logo embroidered on there.”
Try to Plan Ahead
Given that sports all have different peak times of their seasons, it can be hard to try and plan around that.
However, Bascom urges distributors to think about the future as much as possible.
“During the peak of each sports season, the supply chain and production lead times are longer. It is sometimes easier said than done, but if distributors are able to coordinate and plan ahead with their customers, it will make the buying experience for sports/tailing products much smoother,” she says.
