Top Eleven Trends for 2018

Q1 is when the best and brightest start to implement their marketing strategy for the fiscal year. By this time your business has jumped head first into 2018 and you’ve begun to establish the image you want your customers to remember you by. The most common question we get year in and year out, is what’s new, what’s different? From going to trade shows, to leaning on factory reps and experts, we’ve spent months gathering what we believe to be some of the latest and greatest promotional ideas to hit the industry. Here are the top 10 trends that will knock your customers’ custom dye sublimated socks off!

1. Light-Up Advertising:

There are no two ways about it. These LIT promos are some of our favorite promos for a multitude of reasons. Whether you’re promoting a music festival, or a fun gala, these are arguably the most eye catching promotions in the industry. Typically pretty easy on the marketing budget, there are more ideas than you can shake a light up motion activated cheer stick at.

2. Wireless and Bluetooth Technologies:

For the last few years you’d be hard pressed to argue that many of the gifts with the highest perceived value are high quality Bluetooth speakers and headphones. Some of our favorites rival anything available to you at retail, yet still give you the ability to attach your name to them. Some of our favorites allow you to print as many colors as you’d like and have no minimum setups, which has always been a challenge with some of the higher priced promotions.

3. Vacuum Sealed Travel Tumblers:

For the last couple years you’d be hard pressed to find a higher perceived value item than the vacuum sealed travel tumblers. With the emergence of the Yeti™ brand, the industry has come up with comps that perform side by side. We’re all aware that some folks really like a name brand, and we can certainly accommodate you there. We have offerings in YETI™, RTIC™, IGLOO™ to accompany the many comparables the industry has. One of our personal favorites, that acts as not only a vacuum sealed tumbler that will keep ice or keep that warm drink warm for hours, but also act as an insulating can cooler is the Urban Peak 3-n-1 insulator/tumbler. We like to make you aware of opportunities that put your brand front and center throughout the day, and this 3-n-1 tumbler may be one of the best offerings on the market to do it.
There you have it on the top trending promotional products! Treetop Enterprises predictions are in, and you have the inside look at the biggest trends for 2018. These are trends your company should get behind to start building your brand, so you are the company people are talking about in the year ahead.

4. Bold Colors:

Take a look around and with the exception of everyone staring down at their phones, you might think it was the late 80’s and early 90’s with all of the big, bold color choices in fashion right now. Our thousands of apparel options keep pace with everything at retail and allow you to maintain a contemporary image with your brand. Many vendors have also taken steps to lessen the costs of printing multicolor on promotional products themselves. Ask your in-house specialist about product offerings that will allow you to have some fun with colors in your promotions.

5. Marketing for a “Cause”:

More and more studies show that the new generation of business up and comers want to do more with their advertising and promotions than make money. They want to serve a cause. They want to positively affect their community. We have multiple suppliers with similar goals. Not only would we love to help you plan your next promotion with purpose, but we would like to match you up with products from suppliers who will also donate proceeds to bettering the world.

6. Kitchenware/Housewares:

Most promotional products professionals would agree that perhaps the best place you can put your promotions are in the kitchen. If you can give someone a handy kitchen gadget that they didn’t even know they needed, you’ll get impressions on that promotion for years to come. The kitchen might be the most valuable piece of promotional real estate, and unique kitchenware is a way to attach your brand name to something that is solving a small problem in your customer’s life.

7. Retro Works & Daring Patterns:

Brand recognition is important. Showing people your brand is current, maybe even more so. Whether it’s super soft tees with a distressed print, or eye-popping retro patterns on shopping totes, there are so many ways to take your classic logo and throw it back to the future. The idea is to give people something they want to wear and use, not just some boxy, scratchy t-shirt that will be worn once and thrown away. Pair trend seven and trend four together to give your clients a design they want to wear always and turn them into your hip little billboards.

8. New Twists on Stress Relief:

Who could forget the fidget spinner craze of 2016/2017? It took the industry by storm, and by the time the factories could catch up with demand, it seemed like it was over. Or was it? Serving an actual purpose, these items were shown in scientific studies to drastically reduce anxiety and stress in some subjects. Sure the fidget spinner is still out there, but now their accompanied by fidget cubes and fun sticks. Imagine, your logo in someone’s hand, throughout their entire day. We like the return on investment with those kinds of impressions.

9. Safety/Security:

Some of our favorite items are in the safety and security sector. A perfect gift for business with dark parking garages, or for young students on a college campus, these keychain safety alarms have been a great seller so far. All of us hope to never find ourselves in a situation wear our safety is at risk, but it’s always best to be prepared. No one ever plans for their battery to be dead on the side of the road, or to have a blowout, but a kit like this when it’s most needed with your name on it, will almost certainly gain you a customer for life….at the very least you can feel good that you were there in your customer’s time of need.

10. All-Natural Wellness:
More and more technologies are making a more sustainable and natural approach to wellness possible. Arguably the best promotional product for the money, all natural lip balm, could pound for pound give you one of the highest impression rates while simultaneously offering one of the industry’s least expensive costs per unit.

11. Wearable Tech:

Wearables are still a rising trend throughout the industry. Companies are installing wellness programs, as healthier employees are not just more productive, but they’re typically a lot happier and less expensive to insure. Pedometers and Bluetooth health trackers are all the rage as well as a new line of beanies with Bluetooth headphones built in.