Top 6 Schwag in my Apt
Reading Valleyschwag‘s blog, (vote for Jonathan & Matt!) realized I could do a little schwag report. So if you are your schwag, I would be a very geekie jock. It’s a sick day, I’m high on sudaphedrine, so endless myopic navel-gazing is permitted, no?
- When my dot-com closed the doors, I raced through the kitchen one day and grabbed these small Ikea bowls. Super fucking useful, and not branded, which I appreciate. In the background: mug with the words “coffee” taken from Wheelhouse kitchen, and a Chinese mug with top and filter from brother-in-law’s Taiwanese vendors. Kitchen supplied by free stuff.
- I’m one of those “pen stealers” who ask for a pen and never give it back. So I got a few of these Apache Con ’05 pens from Cliff, who was one of the creators of Apacheness. Pens can backfire as marketing schwag: if they fail in meeting everyone makes cracks about the durability/scalability/etc of the product. These are durable, though, and have a pleasant transparent look. I would never go to this conference, yet I sport the schwag!
- Geeky t-shirts: WordCamp‘s WordPress t-shirt, was worth all the drama because the quality of the t-shirt is grade-A soft, and a nice off-black. The Linux t-shirt was poached from a co-worker. I do like Linux, have done some linux stuff, but honestly, far too geeky for me. Shirt gets points for cute penguin- translates well with the non-geek crowd. Negative points for being very, very large.
- This red, boiled wool jacket from a Toyota/Schwinn bikes co-marketing scheme. Executive friend of mine passed this on. Proves that besides the huge salaries, they get ridiculously nice quality schwag.
- Non-geeky shirts, aka, marketing shirts. At ESPN there was the usual free-for-all t-shirt plundering when they got a new batch of t-shirts and the old ones had to go. I adore one of my ESPN t-shirts because it is small. At ESPN every man is a giant, I guess, because the smallest size they have is XL. And of course no women read/watch ESPN, oh no.
The Yelp t-shirt, while black, which is usually a good thing, has a strange scrawly image and is very hard to read where it says “Yelp.” Subtle to the point of being pointless, imho. Reflect.com didn’t learn that putting “dot-com” in the name is very over. Funny, company doesn’t exist anymore either. But points for being black, the most versatile t-shirt color. - Technically schwag is marketing items you get for free, but in this case I paid for the privilege of wearing the logo. Dorky! True. Spoon band t-shirt, Nanowrimo (to support the cause, that’s right). Brown nano shirt gets extra points for being a nice fit, and having a pleasing color scheme of blue and brown.
br>
Comment by psb
Posted on August 16, 2006 at 6:43 pm
>not branded
>
“If we are not branded, are we not-schwag?”
–The Merchant of Schwag by William Schwagspeare:
>far too geeky for me.
>
This is nothing.
Geeky is the “No on 53” anti-ATM tshirt.
end2end IP, baby.
>Negative points for being very, very large.
>
one of the greatest lines in the Age of the Internet is:
“By and large, the women at Cons are bi- and large.” [along with “The odd are
good, but the goods are odd.”].
ok tnx.
Comment by banane
Posted on August 16, 2006 at 9:31 pm
Yeah, unless the definition is just “free stuff” from companies- vs. “free marketing stuff from companies/” Forgot to include some very nice wooden hangers, also stolen from a dying dot-com.
Comment by Matt
Posted on August 16, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Very glad to see the WordCamp shirt made the cut.
Pingback by banane » Blog Archive » My Apt. vs. the Ritz
Posted on January 27, 2007 at 4:29 am
[…] No, but I do have a lot of schwag, and no longer seek more schwag. […]
Comment by thinkspace
Posted on August 7, 2008 at 10:30 pm
How funny, I go out and google “cool marketing schwag” and where do I end up, at Banane of course. I should have known to just call you first…
Comment by Peter Chee
Posted on August 8, 2008 at 5:30 am
How funny, I go out and google “cool marketing schwag” and where do I end up, at Banane of course. I should have known to just call you first…