There are no printed promotional items more practical and used more frequently than deskpad calendars, and for very good reason. Along with other types of printed calendars, they beat every other advertising and promotional medium with an impressively low cost per impression, providing a great return on investment.
Even in the digital age, people continue to rely on printed calendars every day. For this reason, deskpad calendars make total sense for businesses that want to keep their brand at top of mind and constantly before their target markets.
Recent research shows that despite the growing prevalence of smart phones and digital calendar applications like Google Calendar, the vast majority of businesses and homes in the U.S. still rely daily on printed calendars.
The Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) revealed in two recent studies, Calendar Usage in the Workplace and Calendar Usage in U.S. Households, that the popularity and use of printed calendars has changed surprisingly little in the past 30 years. The PPAI compared findings of its 2011 studies with the findings of a 1981 study conducted by the Calendar Advertising Council.
Following are comparative statistics from the 1981 and 2011 studies:
- 98 percent of homes had a printed calendar in 1981, compared to 79 percent of homes in 2011
- Nearly all businesses had printed calendars in 1981, while 30 years later, in the midst of extensive advances in workplace technology, 78 percent of businesses continued to use deskpad and other types of printed calendars
- In 1981, 70 percent of calendars in homes were advertising calendars, compared to 61.4 percent in 2011. The comparative decrease in the percentage of promotional calendars in businesses was even smaller – just a 4 percent drop, from 80 percent to 76 percent over the 30-year period.
- And homes and businesses continue to use multiple copies of printed calendars. The average for homes in 1981 was four calendars, compared to three in 2011. The average for businesses, on the other hand, decreased by an average of half a calendar, from 2.5 in 1981 to 2 in 2011.
In terms of the number of times they are seen by potential customers, deskpad calendars and other printed calendars have one of the lowest costs per impressions in the advertising industry. In a 2008 study, the Advertising Specialty Institute found that printed promotional calendars have a cost per impression of three-tenths of cent, compared to the promotional product average of four-tenths of a cent.
And that by far beats the cost per impression (CPI) of other media. Citing Nielsen Media data, the ASI study reported that the CPI for an ad in a national magazine is 3.3 cents; a newspaper ad, almost 1.3 cents; a prime time TV ad, 1.9 cents; a cable TV ad, seven-tenths of a cent; a syndicated TV ad , six-tenths of a cent; and a spot radio ad, five-tenths of a cent.
