The Cole Papers, Freebies, August 1994

Cache crop: The booty as collected by Santa NEXPO's little helper.

Christmas in June for the freebie patrol

LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Ho, ho, ho!Hi there, boys and girls! I'm Santa NEXPO, here to dispense supplier freebies to all you good little conventioneers (we have some cheap junk and dull literature for you bad little conventioneers, too.)

The economy is definitely picking up: Our elf got a tableful of all kinds of goodies just by going from booth to booth, posing alternately as a waif or a Serious Customer.

Here she comes now, clutching her bag of -- wait a minute! That's a Dewar bag -- the same old thing for, what, four years now?

Santa is not amused. As we've said before, the newsboy bag was prize-winningly functional at one time, but lost its cachet in Year Two. Sorry, rules are rules: The Dewar bag is hereby banned from consideration.

Speaking of rules, we note that freebies have two origins: Above-the-counter, which were there for the taking, and below-the-counter, for which you had to ask, if not wheedle.

Want a baseball cap? We have four or five here. Editor & Publisher set the standard two years ago with a classy cap with a leather backstrap. Alas, this standard was too high even for E&P, which was reduced this year to handing out copies of its magazine.

But this year's trophy in the Below-the-Counter Apparel Category does go to a baseball cap: ECRM's, whose classy 25th anniversary goodie was the real thing -- cloth, vent holes, everything but the leather backstrap.

Above the counter, Industrial Noise Control had the loudest caps. Made in fluorescent yellow, one plopped on your kid's head makes her easy to find in a crowd.

Elsewhere in the apparel niche, T-shirts were hard to come by, but our elf snagged a nifty one from SCS with a Tyrannosaurus Rex on it.

Hey, you want a cup of coffee while we rummage through the goodies bag? You could get mugs at seven or eight booths, but the best came from Autologic, a hefty job bearing the legend "No Chemicals" -- just perfect for that morning jolt of caffeine.

Speaking of caffeine, many booths had a cuppa joe for conventioneers, but only TV Data Technologies had a cappuccino machine and attendant to make you a fresh mocha, brimful with whipped cream.

(Santa would offer you a chocolate poker chip from Transportation Consultants Inc. or a fortune cookie from Rycoline, but they, uh, got lost on the way to the goodies bag.)

Need a pen or pencil? Many were called, few were chosen:

Autologic's below-the-counter fake Mont Blanc ballpoint pen, which tended to fall apart in mid-year, was improved and made retractable. We'll see how it holds up.

Huge, fist-sized pens came from Brainworks Inc. and North Coast (which also gave out a plastic pencil grip that keeps you from getting those unsightly writing-implement callouses).

Above-average Pilot and BIC pens were dispensed by ECRM, PrePress Systems, EAE and TV Data Technologies (motto: "We'll saddle you with so many freebies you won't be able to walk").

Graph-X dispensed an industrial-strength hi-liter.

Two weird items fall into the Most Unusual category:

A pink, snake-like, six-foot absorbent sock for mopping up pressroom spills came from Veratek. It looked cute, ridiculous or obscene, depending on who was carrying it -- and how.

Among the 20 or so keychains, one made from rejected circuit boards was set out by environmentally conscious Marco Memory Products, which couldn't bear to toss them into a landfill.

And now, the Best of Show Freebie Awards (with canvas bags from You Know Who in which to tote them home):

The Cole Papers staff has been whining about the merits of the Associated Press's handy cardboard literature box, but Santa knows that's only because everybody had to send home a bale of propaganda to sustain another year of writing. Despite its utility, the AP freebie merits only runner-up.

Top under-the-counter freebie was the hard-to-get comics umbrella from Hot Off the Press Promotions, which offers to silk-screen your paper's name and comic strips on beach towels or any other fabric. If your readers clamor for these like people at NEXPO did, you'll have the Promotion of the Decade on your hands.

The top over-the-counter award? It goes to Alta Graphics Inc. for its simple idea: A Convention Relief Kit containing Alka-Seltzer, aspirin, gum and even a plastic bandage for comforting the occasional convention-floor blister.

Innovative, clever and practical, it was almost as refreshing as the flight back home.

-- John Bryan

Christmas in June for the freebie patrol

From THE COLE PAPERS, August 1994, Copyright (c) 1994, All Rights Reserved.