Show us your swag!

At a trade show, swag can both lure attendees to your booth and be a keepsake that warms them up when you pitch them post-show. At the recent NRF show in New York, we waded through a sea of tchotchkes to find exhibitors who were putting the swag back in swagger.

Interviews have been lightly edited and condensed.

Light saber

Bright Data

Kasey Johnson, field marketing and event manager: “Our Bright Data logo is on here, and we’re giving light, so we have these cool light sabers. You extend them out, you press this button, and they change colors…People just really enjoy playing with them for something different. We probably had about 200 and we have three now.”

Head massager

LiquiDonate

Disney Petit, founder and CEO: “We care a lot about not producing things that are just going to end up in the trash, but we also know that we have to have something catchy in our booth. What we finally landed on was a head massager, because we want people to understand that they can relax and they can donate all of their excess inventory and unsellable goods that have been giving them a headache all of this time.”

Mini massage gun

Omnissa

Amy Young, senior product marketing manager: “You can use it to soothe your muscles, which is important when you’re at a trade show. You’re on your feet all the time, so your muscles are going to get sore. We’ve created a tagline around this: ‘Retail therapy starts with Omnissa.’”

Polaroid camera

Toast

Morgan Berman, field retail marketing manager: ”Today we’re running a raffle for a brand new Polaroid camera in our booth. Toast is all about bringing community to your door, so that’s what we’ve done…If you stop by our booth, you scan your badge, and then we shoot a photo of you in our booth, pin it up here on our bulletin board, and then we pick from these and someone’s walking away with a brand new orange Polaroid camera.”

Lego kit for a retail store

Zipline

Chelsea Mentado, event marketing manager: “Lego is a customer of ours, so that’s kind of where the inspiration came from for the Lego kit.”

Luna!

Spangle.ai

Karen Moon, founding COO and CCO: “Our swag is Luna, our chief guardrail officer. Everyone wants to give her a little bit of a pet or a cuddle because they miss their own pups—or they just love her.”