Sometimes They Travel

Dimples in Brentwood is one of our favorite Sunday destinations.  Along with some friends, we're there every couple of weeks for lunch after church.  With 6 of us to feed, Dimples gives us a lot of different choices from waffles and eggs to all kinds of great sandwiches.  Rose works the register on Sundays and always says hello and knows my name (which they call when my food is ready).  They can be busy on Sundays, just like they are every day of the week when the Maryland Farms folks stream in looking for lunch and soft serve ice cream.

A couple of weeks ago, we stood in line to order like always, going over our options, making sure the kids get the right drinks, generally testing Rose's patience with all of the different orders we have to make.  After my wife and kids had moved on out of line to find an open table, I set about paying for lunch.  Rose ran my debit card as usual and I searched the countertop for a pen to sign the receipt.  She usually has a white pen with a black cap on it that she hands over to customers.  On this Sunday, things had changed.  Instead of offering over her pen, she motioned next to the register where a pen had been taped to a chain and secured to the register.  Apparently, their pens had been walking away and now they resembled a bank counter without the deposit slips.

As I reached for the newly secured pen, I noticed, being the product nerd that I am, that the new pen on the chain was a Bic Clic Stic, green barrel with navy trim.  "Huh," I thought, "we ran some of those a few years back for our company in those colors."

As you can see from the picture (click to enlarge), it should have looked familiar.  My own logo (old and now discarded) was looking up at me from my hand.

Here's the thing:  it's been over two years since I handed one of those pens out.  Until I saw it in my hand, I had forgotten that we had even run them for a self-promotion piece.  We had given them to clients during meetings, handed them out at tradeshows, and used them ourselves in the office.

But I never gave one to Rose.  I never carried one with me on Sundays that might have slipped out of my pocket at lunch.  As I signed my receipt, I wondered how it had arrived there.  Who had given it away (or lost it, or loaned it) so that it wound up on this counter top two years later?  I snapped a quick picture with my phone, telling Rose that it was my company's pen, and moved on with lunch.

Promotional products, if simply by their inherent usefulness, tend to stick around.  We know that.  What I had to be reminded of is that often times, without intending it or knowing it, they pass from one user to another, exposing completely unintended audiences to their message.  

For a period of weeks, every single customer who paid with a debit or credit card, at a busy restaurant in Brentwood, saw our company name in their hand.  I couldn't have anticipated that a couple of years ago when I offhandedly handed that very pen to a client or friend.  And yet here it was.

So now you know.  Somtimes promotional products DON'T stick around.  Sometimes they travel.