Product Hub January 20, 2025
4 Trends From the PPAI Expo Show Floor
Sustainability, hands-on experiences and outdoor-focused promo were among the trends at the Las Vegas show.
Key Takeaways
• Getting Hands On: Suppliers at the PPAI Expo embraced interactive activities to engage visitors, such as creating beaded friendship bracelets or personalizing journals with foil embossing.
• Sustainability Initiatives: Eco-friendly products took center stage, with brands showcasing items made from recycled or sustainable materials and featuring traceable supply chain technology.
• Outdoor Focus: Highlights of outdoor-focused promo included multifunctional folding chairs and custom pickleball sets.
• Innovative Twists on Classics: Suppliers introduced updated versions of classic items, such as baseball caps with notches to accommodate sunglasses and tumblers doubling as noisemakers.
There were plenty of trends to spot on the show floor at last week’s PPAI Expo, held from Jan. 12 to 15 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. The show, covering around 1 million square feet with nearly 1,000 exhibitors, attracted more than 10,000 distributors and featured everything from hands-on experiences to elevated homeware to the latest in sustainable gifting.
Here are four trends from the show floor:
1. Hands-on Experiences & In-booth Activations
Half a decade ago, live event decoration was a trend picking up steam. COVID-related shutdowns put a damper on such activities, but in the last couple of years, hands-on experiences have been making a comeback. That was evident at the PPAI Expo in spades.
A long line snaked around the Leuchtturm1917 booth, with distributors eager to get one of the German company’s journals personalized with foil embossing. BCG Creations, part of Counselor Top 40 supplier HPG (asi/61966), evoked pop stardom, setting up a station where distributors could make their own beaded friendship bracelets, à la Taylor Swift’s Eras tour.
Signage instructed distributors to grab a bracelet string bag, then choose a custom word or phrase as well as colored beads – 42 to 45 beads made for the ideal bracelet size, according to the instructions. After building the friendship bracelet, HPG encouraged distributors to post their creations on Instagram and tag BCG for a chance to win a 1,000-piece self-promo. (For the less creatively inclined, the supplier also offered a sample pack of pre-created bracelets.)
Counselor Top 40 supplier Outdoor Cap Co. (asi/75420) married AI and promo at its booth. Thanks to a virtual photo booth, visitors could insert themselves – wearing a cap, of course – into beloved films, like Forrest Gump or Back to the Future, then grab a real sample cap to match. Kristina Davis, a senior sales account executive with Brand Advantage Group, part of Counselor Top 40 distributor Deluxe/Safeguard (asi/316203), chose scenes from Barbie and raved on LinkedIn that the experience “wins my vote for best booth engagement.”
2. Sustainability Is in the Bag
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More of a movement than a trend, sustainability was evident throughout the show floor. Bag companies like Day Owl (asi/48696) and Certified B Corp GOT BAG showed off functional bags made with lower-impact materials.
“I started the company because I wanted to give as many people in low-income areas jobs as possible,” said Day Owl CEO Ian Rosenberger. The company works with the First Mile program to help support and improve working conditions for people around the globe collecting recyclables like plastic bottles. Among the new products was a large cord pouch made with recycled plastic bottles and interior foam “made from algae skimmed off lakes,” according to Rosenberger.
Case Davis, vice president of operations at GOT BAG, explained how his company controls its products’ materials, noting that its recycled ocean-impact plastics all come from its own cleanup operation in Java, Indonesia. “We engage with 19 different fishing communities to collect plastic from mangrove forests, coastal waterways and, of course, the ocean itself and take that plastic and inject it directly into our supply chain,” he said.
Also of note, six promo suppliers showed off products featuring Aware traceability technology – Counselor Top 40 suppliers Gemline (asi/56070), Goldstar (asi/73295) and Hit Promotional Products (asi/61125), as well as Terry Town (asi/90913), Gordon Sinclair (asi/57800) and Numo (asi/74710). Dutch company Aware, which also had a booth at the PPAI Expo, uses blockchain technology to help create traceable sustainable supply chains and digital product passports.
Koen Warmerdam, co-founder of Aware, said 2025 marks a turning point of sustainability in promo. “These forward-thinking brands are leading the way in transparency – showcasing not only what their products are made of but also where they are produced,” he said of the suppliers.
3. The Great Outdoors
There was an abundance of products aimed at sports and other outdoor leisure activities. Parkit, for example, was a folding chair with an incorporated cooler under the seat that could also be folded up and worn as a backpack for easy tailgating.
Custom pickleball sets – and accessories like bags – were also prevalent. The show floor even had several dedicated pickleball courts, complete with branded paddles and a person dressed in a pickle suit, so distributors could give the game a go when they were tired of strolling the aisles.
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Also popular were golf-related products. Brett Sapp, founder of Bird Darts, showed off premium branded bamboo golf tees, boxed to look like a pack of cigarettes. “A logoed golf ball is a little bit of an outdated marketing tool,” he said, noting that most golfers are very particular about the brand of golf ball they use. Custom tees, he added, “are a much more agnostic product for golfers” and the clever packaging offers “much better brand exposure.”
4. New Twists on Classic Items
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Suppliers also put new spins on several product categories. Notch showed off its patented baseball caps with a subtle notch cut out of either side of the brim. Paul Cunningham, founder and CEO, explained that he had always been frustrated with baseball caps that would push his glasses down his nose. The notch, he added, ensure your hat and sunglasses “don’t fight with each other anymore.”
Another innovation was The LoudCup – a seemingly innocuous insulated tumbler that doubles as a noisemaker. The product is ideal for soccer moms and other sports fans, according to Brian Campbell of The LoudCup. “It’s taken off in the marketplace,” he added. “This was introduced about a year-and-a-half ago, and it’s just gone through the roof.”
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