However, recent research has suggested that unless brands are willing and able to invest in more memorable forms, their budgets could be being spent in all of the wrong ways. How do audiences react to different forms of marketing, and where can promotional items fit in?

Digital bludgeoning in decline

Whilst many marketing professionals are heralding the digital age as a welcome reform for promoting brands and businesses, it appears that the consumers being targeted are becoming much more savvy about being sold to. ‘Traditional’ digital advertising using television adverts, with each second on air sold for hundreds of pounds, could in fact be costing businesses much more than they realise. Recent research suggests that up to 72 per cent of all viewers ignore, mute or change channels when television adverts are played. Despite audiences stating that TV advertising may be more memorable because it is seen more often, these high figures of customers switching off suggest that only a small percentage of all adverts will actually break through to the audiences they are trying to reach.

Unfortunately, the face of internet advertising tells a similar story. Almost three quarters of respondents found banner advertising to be the most annoying marketing medium. If you want your brand to succeed, you need to reach your audience in a more effective way

Objective memorability

What was revealed by the survey, unsurprisingly, is that audiences who are repeatedly exposed to a brand are much more likely to remember it. Unfortunately, with so many people switching off to television adverts, repeated digital exposure comes at a significant cost. Naturally, wise marketers have worked out that the best way of putting their brands in front of audiences is to turn back to the physical world. By using branded promotional merchandise, companies are able to find their way to the desks and homes of audiences. Whether it’s a calendar or a calculator, promotional products that remain within sight of audiences have that special something that makes them more memorable.

Finding a keeper product

One essential key to ensuring that your brand is remembered has to be in choosing the right promotional product. When products are kept for more than six months, a whopping 94 per cent of those surveyed remembered the advertiser such promotional merchandise was gifted to them by. Furthermore, almost 50 per cent of people admit to keeping these useful physical promotional products for over a year.

In order to make your brand memorable, you need to make sure you choose the right products for your brand. Bespoke promotional merchandise can be very effective, though generally useful office equipment such as business card holders, nicely branded umbrellas, highlighters and other stationery proves useful too.

Related: The benefits of promotional products for small businesses