Promotional Gifts - Every Ash Cloud Has a Silver Lining

The news today has stated there is going to be a second ash cloud passing over the UK. News reports say that another Volcanic eruption in Iceland has caused the problem. The question we need to ask is, how will this affect the promotional merchandise industry?

News reports have stated that ash cloud projected from the Grimsvotn Volcano in Iceland is expected to reach the UK later this week. Although the cloud this time round seems to be on a much smaller scale than last time, it is due to cause flight disruptions, rather than cancellations.

The last ash cloud had a huge effect on many industries last year, people weren't able to get to meetings, and stock wasn't getting delivered by air freight, last time round businesses saw their turnover drop by over 50% just because of this ash cloud. Considering the Promotional merchandise market, many of the promotional products sourced are from the far east, so being able to air freight this objects in wasn't an option, thus many businesses were left without their promotional merchandise orders, due to them having to be sea freighted instead which takes a lot long.

Every ash cloud, fortunately, has it's silver lining, some companies managed to identify a niche in the market that became exposed. That nice is bored waiting potentially aggressive passengers. If airport companies could find some way to make them happy hopefully it would distract them from their current situation. What a better way to distract people then with free games and free promotional products.

Last year with the ash cloud, there were severe disruptions and flights were cancelled for days. But this time round basic disruptions are expected where people could be waiting in the airport for several hours waiting for a flight. If the air authorities distributed promotional gifts or used promotional items to play games, hopefully the passengers will see that this passing cloud is not their fault and the airport is only trying to do its best to make the passengers feel comfortable.

Theoretically speaking a company could even build a marketing strategy around the "Every Cloud has a silver lining." The way they could embrace this is to distribute silver plated or silver orientated promotional items. Due to cost effectiveness maybe you could even have competitions and raffles for these promotional products. By introducing a winning option not only do you have a useful way of distributing these high value promotional items in a useful way, but you are engaging the passengers so they don't think about their flight delays. The main point of using promotional merchandise as a marketing strategy is so the item gets as many impressions as possible. You can only imagine the amount of impressions that prize will gain when the victor shows his "trophy" to all his friends and family. In this way you not only are presenting a piece of promotional merchandise, but you are giving a coveted trophy.

When it comes to business in general, you must always see the best side of a bad situation. If you only concentrate on the bad, how are you meant to learn and grow as an organisation? Many industries including the promotional merchandise industry aim to grow and go with the times, so the best way to do this is see every cloud, even ash clouds, with a silver lining.

BTC Group was founded by Francis Murphy & Peter Beirne in 1977. They have a production facility near London Heathrow airport that is the envy of the Promotional Products industry. To see how they brand more than 1 Million Promotional Items