- I worked my college summers as a Marlboro Gear Van Representative. My job was to give people schwag after they bought cigarettes and to survey them in the process. What a motherlode of schwag it was, my friends. I still have towels, denim shirts, keychains, umbrellas, sunglass pouches, the works. When I was an exchange student in England I actually sold several “rare” Marlboro Zippos that I had acquired while working “the Van.” The English were way behind on schwag.
- At Christmas, our family likes to gift each other schwag. I have some awesome golf shirts embroidered with various mutual fund logos and I wear them proudly. I do not believe that my brother owns a single golf ball that is not emblazoned with some 3rd party logo.
- I used to have schwag giveways at my summer parties. I’d collect as much schwag as I could throughout the year than have an absurd drawing toward the end of the party and give it all away. One year I gave a 7′ (2m) inflatable red-white-and-blue Budweiser rocket (that looked a lot like a penis) to this crazy geek kid that was a busboy where I worked. He was thrilled and every time I saw him he mentioned that gigantic rocket. That is the power of schwag.
- I worked for Apple one summer as an in-store representative at Circuit City. The job sucked pretty bad but they had these awesome pens and I also got a “Think Different” watch that ran backwards.
- Getting married generates a lot of schwag. Various businesses such as caterers, DJ’s and florists are eager to press their schwag firmly into the palm of your hand. Accept this token. Unfortunately, the token is too often a spoon with a Hershey’s Kiss tied to it with ribbon or a miniature bubble-blowing toy. But, one of the finest wedding schwags is the food. Taste away, my friend, taste away.
- After I graduated from “the Van” and entered the big time as a Territory Sales Manager for Phillip Morris, my entire concept of schwag was redefined forever. PM meetings were virtual schwagfests – I recall once they actually set up a faux casino in the hotel for everyone to play with tickets to win schwag, then, they gave away a lot more schwag. After the casino prizes came a leather jacket, hikers (in my size), oxford shirts, umbrellas and duffle bags for the guys and purses for the girls. I still have the leather jacket – it has a bright-blue satin lining with “You’ve Got Merit!” embossed in the fabric. It always makes me feel better when I read that lining; both because of the affirmation and because it’s schwag.
Tell the world about your Joy of Schwag. Shout it from the rooftops … or the comments area.
Comments
2 responses to “The Joy of Schwag”
Daily I work with the schwags. I guess you would say the schwagers purchase schwags from my company. I go to schwag trade shows. In January, we are going to the grand trade show of them all, Las Vegas. I am new to this, so I have more schwag then you can imagine. I hope to get the great things like your watch, but for now, I score only the smaller more popular items. Thanks for sharing!!
I too know the wonders of schwag. Schwag has essentially kept me clothed for the last four years. As demonstrated by my utter lack of wardrobe variety, I possess a blinding hatred of clothes-shopping. Perhaps it’s because I never find pants that fit properly (my top-to-bottom-body-ratio must be out of whack), perhaps it’s my Id begging me to crush the evil tyranny of clothing, or maybe I experienced some unspeakable trauma in a dressing room once (if so, I hope hangars weren’t involved)…whatever the cause, the aversion is real, has been and always will be. Obviously, this presents a problem given our culture’s insistence that when in public, we remain clothed, not to mention the finite nature of any piece of clothing’s wearability (if my Maiden tees weren’t too small or full of holes, you can damn well bet I’d still be wearing ’em). Enter schwag. One of the perks of being in a traveling band is that you typically travel with other bands and all of you have oodles of merchandise because this is your only hope of making any money whilst on the road (club payments are rarely more than enough to pay for travel expenses). Part of the “road code” is that said merchandise be given freely to members of fellow bands upon request. Thus it is that I possess an unseemly number of t-shirts promoting bands that no one else has ever heard (e.g. Each On Set? Close Down? Assaulted Nuts [alright, I stole that last one from David Cross]?). Throw in a few sponsorships from legitimate clothing companies (e.g. Split), and you’ve got yourself a wardrobe! But, alas, those days are gone…onward to Marshall’s I must go…