Thanks to their practicality and great value for money, printed pens are easily the most popular promotional item of all time. Promotional pens are somewhat easier to design that many other promotional items such as coffee mugs and mouse mats?when it comes to pens, you only have to choose the pen, and then add some simple text information to be printed on the pens, and perhaps your company logo as well.
Essential Information
There are a few key pieces of information that most buyers of promotional pens will consider essential. This includes, of course, your company name, and perhaps a logo. You will usually want to add contact information as well'a phone number, physical address, and web site address, for example. This will depend on the nature of your business. An online company will definitely want to add their web address, but may not need to include a physical address or phone number.
Should you add a Slogan?
Slogans can be added to pens that are intended for almost any purpose. The only time you shouldn't add slogans to your promotional pens is when they're intended as corporate gifts. For example, if you're giving a more expensive, high quality pen or pen set to a client or employee as a special gift, it is definitely not appropriate to add a slogan to the items.
Creating an Effective Slogan
Adding a slogan to your promotional pens should be done with care. It's not very useful to add a generic slogan that could be applied to any business of any kind?this will not help people remember your business. If you add a slogan, it should be one that says something relevant about your company, to help people remember what products or services your company can provide them with. If your slogan can help reinforce your brand identity by using the name of your company or products, it's particularly useful to do so, but is not strictly necessary.
Good slogans often make use of language technique such as alliteration and puns to create a humorous or memorable effect'if you can make people laugh or think about what your pen says, they'll be more likely to remember you.
Check out the following examples, which use techniques such as alliteration, coined words (words that are created especially for the slogan), and puns.
Britain's Best Business Bank (Allied Irish Bank)
Don't Dream it. Drive it. (Jaguar)
Dream. Dare. Do. (Girl Guides)
Innervigoration (Gordon's & Tonic)
WotalotIgot! (Smarties)
British Steel: British Mettle (British Steel)
Brilliant cleaning starts with Finish (Finish Detergent)
Nothing fitz like a Ritz (Ritz crackers)
You just can't help acting on Impulse (Impulse deodorant)
The key to creating a great slogan is to make it memorable. Alliteration is particularly useful for this purpose?people are more likely to remember slogans that use this device. Keep it under ten words for maximum effect?for a pen, you'll need to keep it short due to space constraints, of course.