Promotional Umbrellas – Top Trends for 2016

Promotional umbrellas can be a great way to stand out and promote your brand in all types of weather. They are a popular item for brand exposure. In addition, umbrellas are a very popular promotional product to give away to customers and clients. The good point of this promotional product is that its fully custom.

Top promotional umbrellas.

Colour changing umbrella: This unique type of umbrella reacts to the weather around it. Depends on how it is exposed to the rain or the sun – the umbrella change colours!

Glow-in-the-dark: This umbrella uses a special type of fabric which activates at night. When it is dark, the umbrella will light up and shine for all to see.

Gradient umbrella: This umbrella has a great gradient colour. This means you can incorporate different colours which mould into one, creating a really beautiful effect.

Lover’s umbrella: This superb design is a fusion of two separate umbrellas that have come together to make one large one. With this design, two people will never have to fight for room under the umbrella again!

Five folding umbrella: The umbrella folds perfectly into a small and concise case. Perfect for when you don’t have a lot of space to work with. Additionally, there is plenty of room on the case for company logos and branding.

Sports umbrella: Perfect for sports companies looking to push their brand and keep to their industry. It’s suits to sports fans! The umbrella can have any sport ball on it. If you are looking for more sports related items, be sure to look at our previous sports merchandise blogs.

Children’s Umbrella: These umbrellas are designed specifically with children in mind. The materials used to make these are very safe and child friendly. In addition, providing a child with an umbrella with their favourite character or cartoon on, it is sure to make them smile!

So these are our favourite designs of umbrella that we have seen. Using one of these designs to make your promotional umbrella is guaranteed to attract some attention. Combine your brand logo with them and suddenly you have a strong marketing tool at your disposal.

Different types of branding.

When it comes to branding umbrellas with your logo, there are numerous ways in which to do this. Here are the most popular and effective choices that we offer:

Silkscreen printing:

Screen printing is a printing technique whereby a mesh is used to transfer ink onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil.

The stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink as a clear image. A roller or squeegee is moved across the screen stencil, forcing ink past the threads of the woven mesh in the open areas, and printing onto the layers underneath. There are a number of advantages to using screen printing:

• You can print on plastic, clothes, metals and many other materials.
• Good printing thickness for clear logos.
• Good light resistance.
• Able to print over big areas, up to 3-4 meters.

Heat transfer printing:

This type of printing involves transferring a desired pattern via heat onto a substrate. First, the print machine is heated to a certain temperature, before being pressed with a significant amount of pressure for a certain amount of time onto the umbrella. It is then simply released and your printing in complete! This way of printing holds a number of advantages:

• One of the primary benefits of a heat press machine when compared with other graphic printing devices is the speed with which businesses can produce finished products.
• Great for multicoloured printing.
• Photographic material can be pressed using this method.
• If in larger quantity, it is more cost effective than silk screen printing.
• The process is mess-free.

Heat printing allows you to reduce your setup time hugely. The only main concern is its cost as it is not as economical compared with other print methods for mass production.

Digital printing:

The final method in which umbrellas can be printed on is digital printing. In digital printing, an image is sent directly to a printer using digital files such as PDFs from graphics software. The benefits of using digital printing are that:

• It has a much shorter turnaround than other methods.
• Eliminates the expense of plate-making and setting up the presses.
• Is easier to make last minute changes to a print job or print multiple variations.
• File preparation can be less complicated for those unfamiliar with commercial printing methods.

These are the 3 main ways in which you can brand your umbrella. They can all be fully customised. Make to meet your branding requirements, so it fits to your logo and company.  Moreover, contact information can be printed on the umbrella to help increasing brand awareness.

What handles can you choose from?

These are the classic manual opening and increasingly popular auto-open umbrella.

• Manual: The manual opening is the more commonplace option, and obviously it is the more cost effective option of the two.
• Automatic: The more modern approach to umbrellas handles is to have an auto-opening mechanism. Automatic umbrellas offer improved functionality over manual ones, and are a much higher end gift. They do come at an extra cost however.

The image to the right is an example of how an auto-open handle looks on an umbrella.

The latest trend in marketing umbrellas is a custom handle. When it comes to the design of handles, you have many more options to choose from. They come in  a variety of shapes and sizes, and the image below shows just two of the options you can choose from.

Benefits of promotional umbrella.

Brand recognition:

As we have highlighted above, umbrellas offer fantastic opportunities for branding.  In addition, ut of curiosity to what information is on the umbrella, people may be coming closer for a better look. An umbrella is a guaranteed way in which to increase you brand recognition.

Practicality:

Umbrellas are an essential item when it comes to unforeseen weather. As a result, people have high-perceived value of umbrellas as marketing gifts. As umbrellas are handy products that everyone would definitely get use out of, people feel that companies who give umbrellas are generous with their gifts. This encourages customers to hold positive connotations towards your brand.

Customer retention: 

Having a durable umbrella will aid brand recollection when they are in need of something that your company offers.

The fact is that mostly everyone uses umbrellas. There is no substitution for this product, and we will always find a use for them in good or bad weather. With summer approaching and winter weather at the moment, why not sort offer an umbrellas as one of your promotions now?

Minimum Order Quantities

In most cases, the minimum order quantity for these promotional umbrellas ranges from 1,000 – 3,000 depending on designs.

Here at ODM, we have significant experience in product design, product sourcing and product manufacturing. We can help you utilise your 2016 marketing budget in an effective manner. Be sure to check out our ever-expanding gift with purchase portal in order to find out more case studies.

Don’t hesitate to contact ODM and ask for quotation with a reference to the code below:

967, 968, 969, 970, 971, 972

Contact The ODM Group

Promotional umbrellas are so popular, so the ODM group has recently taken time to examine this topic. With our team of designers and specialists we’ll help you to wow your customers with new custom designed umbrellas. Contact us!

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A promotional gift is a great way to give your brand a good reputation. The complementary red bag which comes with the purchase of an umbrella stands out from the rest!

This POS display gives an inviting effect. Allows all the variety of colours to be clear.