Taster’s Choice

BITE-SIZE CHOCOLATES

With chocolate, bigger isn't always better. Smaller chocolates, like chocolate poker chips or miniature bars, can offer a similar promotional impact at a lower cost than their larger peers. The key lies not only with the cultural perception of chocolate as a luxury item, which allows a little bit to go a long way, but also remembering to make careful and thoughtful use of packaging. Rebecca Wexler, marketing director for Mid-Nite Snax, Mineola, N.Y., provided an example.

"The goal of a particular promotion was to find a creative and elegant way to promote the top destinations of a well known, chic hotel chain," she said. "The hotel was looking for an edible promotion with their printed material inside to leave in the hotel rooms of their guests to inform them of their various top locations. We were able to create a custom box filled with individual chocolate pieces, each with a custom wrapper. This provided the upscale look the hotel was looking [for], which fit perfectly into their budget."

BROWNIES AND OTHER BAKED GOODS

Combining the two fantastic foods of chocolate and cake, brownies and other chocolaty baked goods have a lot to offer as promotional food item. Not only do they offer the added perception of thoughtfulness that only a hand-baked treat can provide, baked chocolate items can save you cash on shipping during the hotter months as well.

"Ground shipping of brownies can offer huge savings as compared to chocolate that requires air shipment to many locations during the warm-weather months," said Tom Riordan, president, Maple Ridge Farms Inc., Mosinee, Wis. "This is because the chocolate has been 'pre-melted' when the brownies were baked at 350 degrees."

Chocolate-covered items

Like chocolate baked goods, chocolate-covered items such as pretzels, cookies and potato chips offer a chance to provide end-users with a home-baked touch. They have a few other interesting perks as well, like being unusual enough to really grab a recipients attention. After all, how often to you see chocolate-covered dried fruit? Or Oreo Cookies? They also offer a chance to work some interesting metaphors into a promotion ("J&B Consulting: We make the great better" on a tin of chocolate-covered potato chips would be one example).