The creativity of the promotional products industry hasn’t suffered as a result of the bad times – this is the conclusion that can be drawn after inspecting the 289 products submitted for entry to the Promotional Gift Award 2010. In total the judges awarded the coveted prize in four different categories to 39 products. No trace of a crisis: The jury was spoilt for choice – the entries included a wide variety of imaginative promotional products.


On December 10, 2009 the jury of the Promotional Gift Award 2010 met up in the “Altenberger Hof“ hotel , near Cologne and were faced with a mammoth job: They had to pick out the best of the best among 289 products from 184 companies. The entire palette of articles that characterise the promotional products industry were submitted: From smart give-aways through to high-class premiums, from everyday items of strong design through to complex custom-made products. The award-winning candidates included classics such as writing instruments, calendars, USB products, textiles, bags, porcelains, sweets or care products as well as trend items for instance on the theme of the 2010 World Cup Football. Noticeable: This year there was an extremely high number of interesting further developments of all known products – one of the industry’s strengths, being able to reinvent ideas in the product area in order to create new interest for their standard products. So there were a few wow effects especially in the writing instrument, cup or office item sectors.

Verifiable criteria

A fifth of the Promotional Gift Award entries were sent in from abroad: 35 international companies and 149 German companies entered the award. Ten firms from the Netherlands had submitted products, seven from Austria, five from Sweden, four from Switzerland, three from Belgium, two from Turkey and one apiece from Russia, Hungary, Italy and Slovenia.
Manufacturers or importers, but also distributors and agencies were able to register their products for one or more of the four different categories: As a Give-away, Premium Product, Custom-made Product or Communicative Product. Each product could only win in one category; however several winners were possible per category. In total eleven Promotional Gift Awards were presented in the category Communicative Products and also eleven in the category Give-aways. Nine products were awarded in the category Premium Products as well as a further three in the category Custom-made Products.
Furthermore, five special prizes were awarded: Two entries submitted received a special prize in the category customising techniques, which pays tribute to novel or particularly innovative customising technologies. One product was distinguished with the special Innovation prize, which honours excellent, trend-setting novelties and concepts. One product received a special prize for a sales promotion (for the especially successful implementation as a haptic sales and explanatory tool for complex products) and another product convinced the judges as a Promotion Product (for a particularly striking and innovative product for promotions or special events).
In order to ensure as far as possible that the decision-making processes are not based on personal tastes, but instead on verifiable criteria, each jury member had to assess each product according to five basic criteria: Product idea, design quality, quality of the realisation/production quality, safety and ethics as well as communicative potential.
So that the jury weren’t face with the mass of the 289 submitted products for the first time on the day of the judging process, they had been provided with successive information material on each product in the weeks prior to the judging session. This allowed them to inform themselves comprehensively in advance about products that required explanation, whose strengths would have otherwise perhaps been overlooked due to the high number of products to be inspected.