Promotional merchandise is an item of advertising nature. It is a product that is given out free of charge to the general public as a marketing tool. Some items are sold at a subsidized price. This practice was first done in the 1970s and has since advanced in leaps and bounds. A promotional item is used to advertise a product or service. Because a usable item is better remembered by its owners, marketers find this a good technique to use in order to increase sales of that particular product or introduce another product or service. Marketers also enhance their company’s repute and image by using promotional items.

The PPAI or Promotional Products Association International was created by like minded marketers and it serves many distributors and manufacturers. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the promotional marketing industry officially came up as corporate advertising and it became more widespread in the 1950s. Before this, companies may have given out small gifts because the industry was not properly formulated.

The explosion of the industry was experienced in the 1970s where many corporate companies realized that there was much that they could benefit from promotional merchandise. During this time, many corporate were also coming up with corporate identity campaigns and they used many gifts that featured their own logos and slogans to cement their identities.

The range of items and products that could be used as promotional goods back then was limited but in the 1980s, the demand for generic products grew extensively. Because the gifts were being left with the customers of the company, more and more items were being demanded. In later years, the catalogs of the products has increased and many producers of the products will also create new items to be branded with a company’s logo.

In the 1990s, the promotional products industry saw the most promotional products sold. Most activity was experienced during festive seasons like Christmas and other times when the activity of exchange of gifts was heightened. During this time, companies were also formalizing their inventive abilities and were using promotional merchandise and gifts throughout the year.

In early twenty first century, roles of promotional merchandise began to change and in mid 2000s, catalogs began to be mailed to individual customers as opposed to the overall postal mailing that was done previously. The catalogs has now become a demonstration of what the company does advancing from being a sales tool.