The value of the giveaways varies from company to company. There are some companies that believe in low-value giveaways, and hand out products like pens, caps, notepads etc to visitors. However, there are several companies whose giveaways are high-value items. These companies are more selective about visitors, and give gifts to only those visitors who are likely to buy their product.

Even the strategy adopted by companies in displaying the giveaways is different. The companies that use giveaways to build brand name and improve brand recall stack the products at the edge of the booth. This makes it easy for the booth officials to hand over the products.

In contrast, there are companies that make the tradeshow visitor spend time on their booth listening to the sales pitch before handing over the product. These companies generally reward their visitors with better gifts.

However, irrespective of strategy all tradeshow giveaways are branded with the company name and logo. Many of them come in company colors, and can be identified with the company. The most common giveaways are pens, calendars, T-shirts, caps, coffee mugs, calculators, key chains, desk accessories and bumper stickers.

The biggest advantage of tradeshow giveaways is the traffic that they generate. There are several visitors who throng tradeshows just to pick up giveaways. To most, these visitors may be non-serious visitors and any money spent on them may be a leakage. However, this is not always true. Research shows that one-third of recipients can recall the company name six months after the tradeshow is over. This should be a matter of satisfaction for any company that enters a tradeshow to improve brand recall.

The giveaways are also useful for those companies whose products are not crowd pullers. Such companies can use tradeshow giveaways as a powerful means to attract traffic. The booth officials can then take over, and make a powerful sales pitch. Companies that avoid investment on giveaways loose a useful opportunity to harness visitor goodwill.