After being back for a week, I’m finally able to take a moment to write about the plethora of freebies, giveaways and tchotchkes (chochkies, chochkees, etc.) available to attendees on the show floor.

We had a fun little prize wheel, from which we were giving away some software to lucky spinners Portfolio 8, as well as Suitcase Fusion or Suitcase for Windows. Alternate prizes were a long sleeve t-shirt or nifty brushed aluminum covered journal.

As far as I know we were also the only people on the show floor giving away those little graphite filled devices used so frequently in elementary schools – pencils! While pens may be more ubiquitous, I find that there’s a definite comfort in knowing that I can hit the original backspace key and erase something that I’ve written in pencil.

So, on to the parade of Ad:Tech tchotchkes!

We’ll start out with the traditional. Pens, pens and more pens. They came in practically every color of the rainbow.

Of course, one pen had to shine above them all, and that honor goes to the fine folks at Casale. It’s a heavy metallic pen that’s filled with a smooth writing ink cartridge. Heck, Casale always seemed to have something else new out on their table when I walked by – hats, notepads, Post-its, etc.

We move on from there to the good old standby freebies, the mug and the water bottle. Microsoft had a decent clear blue bottle, and Rackspace had quite an impressive stainless steel coffee mug (I coveted one, but wasn’t able to talk myself into one. Darn.)

Consumables, can we consider something that you can eat or drink a tchotchke? Why yes, yes we can. The Affiliate Summit was one of about 5 or 6 booths that had a keg at their booth for quite some time. A very polite staffer from Aptimus was kind enough to warn me that the beverages she was offering were spiked with vodka. These booths were, as expected, very popular; typically with hordes of people very chatty people around them. Not sure if those hordes remember much about the products and services that day, but that’s what brochures are for, right?

Speaking of energy drinks, Aptimus wasn’t the only company who was offering a bit of pep in a can. I found at least three companies who were passing out energy drink cans that had been custom-wrapped with their logo and graphics. By far my favorite artwork was the custom pinup artwork on the CPX Interactive can. I can tell you that this did more for their advertising buck than anything else. You could see those pinup cans at practically every booth on the show floor.

Megan was happy that the Chocolography folks (aka www.yourphotoonchocolate.com) had dropped off a sample at our booth. I could see this type of thing taking off, but as a branding item that is pretty much immediately consumed, it’s staying power isn’t all that strong. What a fun way for a quick sugar boost.

They’re always a hit, and ClickPath had them in spades, yes, it’s the light-up bouncy ball. I seem to remember the dot-com days when some of these actually played a little tune. I’m actually glad that this one doesn’t do that. In addition, ClickPath was giving away these fun flapper-style fuzzy hats. Well, since I don’t know my fashion history, I’m assuming that’s a flapper style.

Flip-flops from Starmedia were by far one of the strangest things being given away. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, flip-flops are for locker room fungus prevention, not fashion. Of course, they had other giveaways including lanyards, which are always handy when you’ve got a conference badge to keep from misplacing.

Yet the winner of the strangest of the strange goes to Livemarkets.com. When we arrived at the booth on the second day, everyone in the hall had been tchotchke-bombed with these strange little packages containing a reflective “thingy.” At first, we couldn’t figure out what it was. I saw more than one person prop the thing up onto their head, coming to the conclusion that it was some form of hat that would protect their neck from the sun. It could have been a dashboard protector, but being so small, that surely wasn’t the case. We finally came to the conclusion that it was apparently to keep the sun off the steering wheel.

Since I’m from Oregon, where the sun pokes it’s happy little head out of the clouds a mere three months per year, this one isn’t of much use to me. Maybe if I were from Tuscon. Not sure if they hit their messaging on the head here. The phrase was “It’s time to turn the traditional web marketing model upside down…”. Is the “upside down” part referring to a steering wheel? Or is it because what they’re giving out is just so darn strange?

Here’s a different item, a little tiny chair, about five inches tall. This was given away by eType, and despite their company name, as far as I can tell they have absolutely nothing to do with typography. I think that this chair is meant to make your pet hamster all comfy-cozy, but I could be wrong.

Here’s a great visual messaging device that’s likely headed directly for a child’s toy chest – some foam building blocks. They’re about three inches across, and are spongy like a Nerf football. If it were me, I’d build a fantasy world where there’s a very colorful wall just waiting to be knocked down with my speeding Lionel train. A memorable item from Acxiom Digital.

W3i provided us with many fun things, including snacks and this great little set of headphones. The headphone cords retract into a little spool for ease of transport. For something that probably didn’t cost them that much, it’s definitely something that I’ll be carrying around regularly.

Mints? Did you say that you wanted a mint? Why we have plenty to go around!

And SmartSearch Marketing treated us to little tins shaped like Jelly Bellies, containing what else… Jelly Bellies.

Media Traffic had the best business cards of the show. Each one was a double-side folded piece, and in the inside there was a line drawing of the person who’s card it was. I picked up Advertising Manager Andre Zouvi’s card, and did a double-take because he was sitting right next to me! I also just noticed that he’s on the home page of their site too. Man, that guy’s everywhere!

While this might look like migrating mini-robots, it’s actually a herd of razor-thin LED flashlights from SuperPages.com that are meant to be stuck onto the back of your cell phone. They’re actually very bright, so it could double as something to fend off any attackers by temporarily blinding them. ISEDN.org had a combination flashlight/keychain/screw driver that wins the prize for the tchotchke that does the most number of things.

Need to burn something? Webair has got you covered.

How about a three-winged flying device, boomerang-thingy? UpSellIt had people running around in circles with these flying gadgets.

Can you hack it? Mochila wants you to.

Blackdot had stacks of DVD cases filled with advertising-based video games. What I’d like to be able to do is create a celebrity deathmatch style game where I could choose competing brand icons and have them fight it out. “And the Peanut M&M’s guy has the Cadbury bunny in a headlock… Oh no! Where did Mister Goodbar come from? That’s gotta hurt….”

For those who had perhaps imbibed too many of the free beers & cocktails, our booth neighbor Secure A Quote was giving out these nifty hangover kits.

Everyone loves the electronics. Here’s a little USB hub that fits into the palm of your hand from Rackspace.

So, coming to the end of the bounty, here’s my second favorite item from the show, it’s a lanyard… with a 125MB USB flash drive attached on the end. I love this little guy. It’s something useful from AdOn Network that I’ll have in my pocket every day.

And, finally, here’s the hit tchotchke of the show.

Doesn’t look like much does it? I took a picture of it next to the back of a business card so that you could get a sense of the size of the item. It’s actually a pair of extremely strong hematite magnets. What you do is throw them up into the air slightly separated from each other. When they are drawn together, they slap together rapidly, emitting a quite noticeable buzz. When someone heard the noise, they were inevitably drawn over to find out just what “those things” were.

Kudos go to ABCSearch for coming up with by far the best tchotchke at the show. Even though it’s not very apparent, their logo is lightly engraved on each of the magnets. These definitely drew most of the attendees to their booth, even if the buzzing does get slightly annoying after a while. Keep them away from all ten year old boys, or you’ll be buzzing 24 hours a day.

I’m sure that I’ve only shown you a quarter of the tchotchke items at the show. We definitely had people at our booth who were more of a collector than I am. Frequently with the items above, I was more than happy to leave with just a photograph. After all, how many toys do I need on my desk at work… well, I’d rather not answer that.

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