One of the all time classic promotional products are promotional baseball caps. Not only do caps provide an effective protection from the glare of the sun they have become fashion items and the addition of a logo it a styling bonus for most caps rather than an example of undue commercial focus.
Donald Trump's rise in the Republican Primary race in the USA is fascinating on many levels and for promotional marketers it provides insights into the power of a classic promotional item, branding and the visibility a simple and low-cost product can provide if utilised the right way.
"Make America Great Again" is Trump's slogan and there are probably few people who have an interest in US politics who are not aware of it. And one of the prime ways in which this effective branding of the Trump campaign has been promoted is using the simple expedient of a $5 baseball cap bearing nothing but the embroidered words "Make America Great Again".
Trump started by wearing a red cap with white embroidered text at his campaign stops and the attention they received was increased when different celebrity supporters were seen wearing or in possession of one of the caps. Tom Brady, the NFL's most popular quarterback was an early convert and a picture published in the US media of his locker containing a Trump baseball cap was a talking point which caused tens of thousands of individual blog entires and newspaper articles to be published. Who would ever have guessed in the high pressure, big stakes world of American politics that billionaire could successfully utilise a humble $5 promotional baseball cap to generate millions of dollars of free publicity.
Trump is onto something in the USA as evidenced by his continual rise in the polls and early primaries success. His "Make America Great Again" baseball caps are an example of the great advantages promotional products hold for the canny marketer and if nothing else Trump has certainly been proven in this election cycle to be a canny marketer. While the free publicity and media attention Trump receives is not available to the average small business the same principle applies when engaging in any marketing activity. Get your message right and deliver it in a cost effective, highly visible way. And for politicians, as for all people looking to promote themselves or their products promotional baseball caps are proven promotional winners.