Styling With The Stylus

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When I hear stylus, I often think of the now ancient Palm Pilots (or if you were like me, a Handspring) of the 1990’s.  The stylus’ were what you needed with these devices to take notes and update your tasks (I never did master writing in graffiti).  However with the touchscreen revolution, the stylus’ of yesteryear slipped into the background.

However the stylus has recently re-emerged as a useful tool for smartphones and tablets.  Stylus’ are handy for people who do not like fingerprints on their screens and would rather write and tap with a stylus vs. a finger.  This short video by CNet discusses some of the ways people use stylus’ with their smartphone and tablet devices.

 

As a promotional product, this new style of stylus is on fire.  Many of our partners have added new options and tell us that these are one of their hottest products, not just in their tech product line, but overall!  The new stylus looks much different from the old version.  They are wider like a pen and feature a round soft tip.  There are a number of stylus options to choose from, including metal or plastic, short and long, and versions that dual as a pen.  The pricing for most custom imprinted stylus’ range from around $1 to $5.

So if you want to give out a useful and hot promotional product, consider a stylus.  To see the stylus options that we have to offer, click HERE.

Let us know if you want to see a sample and/or discuss stylus options.  Happy tapping!

by Michael Wolaver, Magellan Collegiate Promotions

Catching School Spirit Fever – Why School Spirit Matters

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How school spirit is created and carried out on a college campus is different campus to campus. While large schools with strong athletic programs may not struggle with school spirit, many public middle-tier and smaller private schools often encounter difficulties getting their students to fully buy in to their school spirit.  Often times you hear school officials and alumni complain about seeing students not wearing any school apparel or worse, sporting another school’s logo around campus.

This is inevitable to happen everywhere as many students have allegiances to schools in addition the one they may be attending.  It is just more noticed when fewer students are wearing apparel from their own school.

Schools want their students to be proud of their choice of school.  When students are proud of their school, they are more engaged, happy and importantly, less likely to transfer.  Retention is extremely important and higher education works extremely hard to keep this stat as high as possible.

There are few easier ways to gauge school spirit than through promotional products and apparel.  Think about it.  Take a tour of a college and you see a large amount of students wearing school apparel and then to another and see few or no school spirit.  Which student population would you think is more engaged and proud of their institution?

Seeing students, staff, faculty wear winter hats, jackets, t-shirts, use water bottles, lanyards and bags with the school logo indicates their school pride.

Promotional products not only create awareness and show pride, but in a sense, endorse the school.  Typically students/alumni do not willingly advertise a school without having a positive connotation about the institution.  So when you see a student wearing a drawstring backpack with a college logo, not only are they advertising the school, they are endorsing the institution.

I recently was at a higher education conference and sat in on a session where they discussed how the student affairs division put together a “flat Stanley” game.  A number of teams were created and used the likenesses of well known staff members for the team mascots.  To create awareness and team spirit, the school handed out logoed sweatbands (using the new school logo).  The sweatbands were effective because they were visible, showed team spirit and were inexpensive use.  The result of the game was a visible increase in school spirit, pride and cohesion among the staff and students.

School spirit is hard to quantify but is key in building a strong ownership of the school among the staff and students.  Promotional products are a easy and effective way to help keep and create school spirit.