Promotional Products Incorporated

Promotional Products are becoming a welcome occurrence at business forms trade shows.

The annual Southwestern Graphics Trade Show has graced the Texas area for more than 50 years. Targeted strictly to the printing, forms and graphic arts industry, this well-established exhibit has recently incorporated promotional products into its fold. For the past four years, Barry Dobb, vice president of DinoMar, a sales and marketing consulting firm in Golden, Colo., has been coordinating the promotional products pavilion at the show.

"We're seeing that the quick-print and business-forms industries are the fastest growing groups of new promotional product distributors," said Dobb.

Just how fast? Well, if Southwestern Graphics is any indication, promotional products will be an unyielding presence in the business forms industry.

In fact, Dobb has secured 26 exhibitors for this year's show in San Antonio, held the first week in June. That is almost a 25 percent increase from the eight vendors who set up shop in 2000—the first year promotional products exhibitors participated. This year's number of vendors is also up by two from 2002.

"The promotional products pavilion is kind of its own trade show existing within our trade show," said Laura Bates, show coordinator for Southwestern Graphics—which is owned and operated by Texas Graphic Arts Educational Foundation, a non-profit organization comprised of Litho Clubs in Austin, San Antonio, Dallas and Houston.

"The promotional product suppliers have their own area on the show floor that's been set aside for them for the past four years. They even hold their own seminars," noted Bates.

Connie Gardner, publisher of Printers Exchange—a regional magazine based in Fort Worth, Texas that sponsors and conducts sales and marketing for Southwestern Graphics—added, "When wandering the floor, it's apparent that the promotional products pavilion is the busiest area of the show."

Why is this pavilion receiving so much traffic at a trade show dedicated solely to distributors of business forms and print products?