Office (Ad)space

Workaholics. Office Space. The Office. All modern office-themed TV shows and movies lauded for their workplace accuracy, but also all with sets missing one major detail—promotional products.

It’s true, just take a second to picture it. Sure, Office Space has the red stapler, and The Office had a handful of jokes about decorated mugs, but overall, where are the logoed items? Where are the pens, the notepads, the travel mugs? The folders, lanyards and calendars? The company letterheads, uniforms and mailing boxes?

Nowhere, that’s where. Whoever was responsible for set design on those properties left out one of the most critical design details of making them feel real, because a real office is absolutely packed with promotional products. A handful of decorated pens picked up from a sales conference two years ago. Some magnets from the pizza place across the street that have somehow spread to most of the company’s filing cabinets. Five or six stress balls rolling around desktops, gathered up from last week’s employee health and wellness meeting. Promotional products are always there in one form or another, whether Hollywood set designers realize it or not. Thankfully, there’s no need for us to follow in their mistakes.

Looking to add a little promotional realism to some offices? The next page holds a handful of pointers on selling items into office spaces.

Sticky Notepads

A sticky notepad is a cornerstone office product, especially in markets where there’s a lot of paper workflow that’s often annotated, such as publishing, research or academics.

There are a couple of things you should look for when picking sticky notepads for your clients. “[A] balance of properties is a key issue, so that a note removes cleanly and can stick and re-stick to a variety of surfaces the first, second, third times, then six months later,” said Tim Mogck, national sales manager for St. Paul, Minnesota-based 3M Promotional Markets. “The additional uses are what provides additional advertising.”