SWAG... What exactly is SWAG?... Is it all capitilized or is it Swag?... I don't really know, but what it is is freebies that you get or receive from employers/venders/clients... Stuff like coffee mugs, or t-shirts, or pens... Whatever it is, everyone loves getting swag if for no other reason than its free... The standard for a long time in the entertainment industy was the t-shirt... They still do it on some of the concert tours, but its less common as they try to squeeze more profit out of the show... It started with a great idea... They would give each department one color, so you could identify who was on what crew very quickly... Great idea!... Too bad they're getting cheap... You used to be able to stock your entire work wardrobe with these t-shirts, so you didn't keep ruining clothes at work...
Well now I'm out of the concert work business... I do mostly corperate events now, and the reason for the swag has changed for me... I now hand out company hats, and really nice black polo shirts with my company logo on them, so my crew looks neat and uniform in front of the high priced clients... We are doing very nice fleece jackets this year too... They're going to my best clients, and my staple employees... Sort of a thank you for the work, and hard work respectively... Not to mention that I wanted a new fleece jacket myself, so that was what made the decision as to what we got made... ( I swear half my wardrobe is going to have the company logo on it soon, since I can write it off now)
Other companies use different things... My lumber yard does really good chocolate chip cookies, pencils and pads... Some of my bigger clients give out PDA's, or even laptops... (damn am I hoping for one of them some day) Steel supplier did clock/calculator/desk alarm deal... My sister's company does coffee mugs (seems to be the thing to do in engineering firms, as I have a nice set from all the different firms she's worked for since she doesn't drink coffee or tea)
Most companies do some simple things all year (hats, shirts, and pens for me) and then in December, they dole out the higher priced stuff... Makes for a nice end of the year deal...
Happy Holidays!
Posted by Backstage at December 14, 2003 06:16 PM