B-Loony has sold more than 10 million of its eco-friendly, plastic-free balloon stick. The Buckinghamshire-based printed promotional balloon company launched the invention in January and has seen global uptake. B-loony, whose clients include McDonald’s, Costa Coffee and the Hollywood Bowl, developed the new cardboard BalloonGrip balloon holder ahead of the ban on plastic balloon sticks in the Single-Use Plastics Directive due to come into force in 2021.
The PenWarehouse and digital printing company, Snap Products, have launched the Mood Collection, a contemporary lifestyle selection of retail standard premium drinkware, notebooks and writing instruments for the promotional sector.
PF Concept’s Superheroes concept has added new styles for the Fall/Winter season. Superheroes, which was launched in April 2019 gives customers rapid decoration and delivery from a range of stock clothing items.
With Merchandise World 2020 looming in February, it’s time for the industry to show what’s best in merchandise with the sector’s top product awards. The BPMA is pleased to announce the rebranding of the Merchandise World Promotional Product awards. These will now be known as the BPMA Product Awards at Merchandise World.
Recently, I was asked if we could supply ‘vegan leather’ and was sent a link to a website by the distributor. We discovered that vegan leather is actually made of water-resistant polyurethane and not leather, and is therefore made from petrochemicals, with associated environmental questions. If a distributor makes a claim for a product that isn’t correct and the end-user finds out, there could be huge ramifications, including legal ones.
Briman members are demonstrating greater sustainability, says Mark Alderson.
The BPMA is pleased to announce that the formally known awards Merchandise World Promotional Product awards have now been rebranded to BPMA Product Awards at Merchandise World.
Making more from less: The Swiss brand Prodir is now offering its QS01, QS20 and QS30 models in a new variation called “Stone”. In this version, the casings are produced with a mineral-enriched material that reduces the amount of plastic by 60%.
The BPMA would like to warn the industry of a potential scam.
This scam or series of scams are underway pretending to be universities and we are aware of examples including Nottingham University, King’s College London and East Anglia University but do be on your guard with other universities.
Merchandise World smashes it again!
576 of the promotional merchandise industry’s top distributors attended Merchandise World at the MK Arena on the 11th September 2019. Almost every major UK distributor company was there, alongside many other significant and professional distributors. The hall itself was buzzing and vibrant as 125 exhibitors created an excellent array of colourful and innovated stands to present their eco, new and top selling products.
TheMagicTouch is offering its image transfer process to decorate and personalise trendy vacuum bottles that many consumers are using to cut down on their single-use plastic consumption. Using the latest in white-toner technology together with the established CPM transfer paper, full-color designs can be applied using a traditional mug press.
Hardly a week goes by without another announcement about how companies, governments, and organizations are seeking to leave less of a footprint on our planet. Intercontinental Hotels recently pledged to remove the 200 million miniature plastic toiletries it uses annually, by 2021. Brewers, Carlsberg and Guinness are just two of the beer companies who are getting rid of plastic rings that hold four-packs together.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and merchandise companies are innovating with alternative products. Bagco currently has a range of recycled cotton, which is made from recycled cotton and rPET (recycled plastic bottles). All samples are sent in paper bags with minimal packaging for orders – one cardboard box and this is the box that the goods are packed in from the factories. The company also makes a donation to Plastic Oceans for every recycled bag sold.
Process improvement
The Leather Business has just launched a new range of recycled leather products, The Reco Collection featuring 10 of the best-selling lines manufactured in a unique way. Natural latex avoids using chemicals to stick fibers together. As well as using biodegradable poly bags, when despatching orders, the company reuses all of the packagings and avoids foam or other non-recyclable materials.
As the BPMA launches its sustainability group, Andrew Langley looks at some of the tough questions merchandise has to ask
Let’s be honest, our industry faces a major challenge to convince some, that we don’t just make products that are disposable, ending up in landfill or requiring expensive and specialist (and often unavailable) recycling.
Suppliers and distributors got their just rewards at PAGE group’s awards event
As it enters its 20th year, the catalog group recognised outstanding industry performance.
Pinfold Promotions hosted an end-user event in Nottingham, with 14 key suppliers showcasing their latest promotional merchandise.
Guildford merchandise company, AMT Marketing, has won the Queen’s Award for International Trade for Outstanding Short-Term Growth.
Shell turned to a promotional media approach when it needed to boost sales and awareness of a key product. The result was an award-winning campaign
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