• 10/04/2021
• admin
• 1

If you were a kid in the 1990’s, you will remember the free promotional gifts you would find inside cereal packets, crisps and a whole bunch of other products! Every morning, many siblings around the country would often race and fight their way down the stairs to find out what goodies lurked inside their favourite cereal. Often there would be gifts to collect, encouraging kids to keep on purchasing the same brand of breakfast cereal in order to complete the collection. It’s a great promotional marketing technique and also the bane of many parents trips to the local supermarket. Below is a selection of prizes that you very well may have won yourself!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

If you were a kid in the early 1990’s, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were the biggest thing going! The merchandise released during its build up was epic; every angle was covered in marketing to the legion of loyal fans. Does anyone remember the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pizza’s that were available with a variety of lovely toppings such as apple and custard? They tasted vile, but I still ate them, (I might have been the only one). Above is a picture of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pencil toppers which came inside a pack of Shreddies as a free promotional gift. I remember having many a pencil battle with these at primary school and remember you needed to have all four to have the complete set!

Kelloggs Bike Reflectors

Every kid I knew had a Kelloggs reflector on their bike, they many not have been the most exciting free promotional gift to receive but they were well used! Often you would have 3 or 4 of the Kelloggs reflectors on the spokes of your bike, improving your visibility on the road and adding extra “street” credibility to your persona, (debatable!). I used to love the stickers you would receive in Cheerios and Frosties, which came in lovely, garish, neon colours and covered my bike almost from head to toe. I couldn’t find an image of these but if you have one, please send it in.

McDonalds Free Promotional Gifts

I think the real king of free promotional gifts has to be McDonalds! You got a free toy with every happy meal. Every kid who is under ten is going to choose McDonalds over Burger King just because they got a free toy! Above is an image of some of the early 90’s promotional free toys McDonalds was distributing, and the brilliant thing is that they are play versions of their own promotional products! The kids went home after visiting McDonalds to play with McDonalds merchandise and were subsequently reminded of the brand all day long.

In Conclusion…

Simple and effective promotional products are the key to a successful advertising campaign. Even after 20 years or so I can recall which prizes I won with which brands, and it really proves that promotional merchandise sticks with your customers and your company message or branding will remain with them.

If you have any questions regarding promotional products or this article please get in touch with our dedicated sales by contacting us on 0113 322 1010. Alternatively, you can email us at sales@promoparrot.com.

This article was written by Sean Devlin, Website Manager at Promo Parrot.