Seventy-one percent of all Americans own a grill, and 74 percent use their grill at least once a week, according to the 2012 Weber GrillWatch Survey. Are they using custom BBQ gifts featuring your company’s logo? They should be.

With the summer season upon us, you can bet grill masters will be out in full force, flipping those burgers and juicing up that chicken.

Come Memorial Day, an estimated 71 percent of grill owners will fire up their backyard grill for some flame-kissed fare, a 10-percent jump from last year.

“We continue to see a rise in the number of people grilling for nearly all major holidays, including Memorial Day, the Fourth of July (90 percent), Father’s Day (53 percent) and even birthdays (76 percent),” Brooke Jones, director of marketing for Weber-Stephen Products LLC, the world’s leading manufacturer of outdoor gas and charcoal grills and grilling accessories, said in a press release.

In honor of it being National BBQ Month, we polled our fans at www.facebook.com/epromos to find out your favorite grub for grilling. The results are in:

• 50% love burgers
• 29% choose steak
• 14% prefer fish
• 7% enjoy hot dogs

If you love grilling out, chances are your customers do, too. Equip them with promotional BBQ tools to enhance their grilling experience and to get your brand, logo and message out there.

Promo know-how tip: Now’s the time to give custom BBQ gifts—don’t wait until the end of summer. We have a full lineup of promotional BBQ accessories, from logoed aprons to custom grilling gift sets.

Move over mints—the fresh-breath item du jour is chewing gum.

The $2.6 billion chewing gum industry has gotten creative in its battle against declining sales, with top brands offering gum in magnetic sealing packs and pellet-sized gum inside mini bottles.

Also on the shelves: Gum that disintegrates into a fine powder, vegan gum that’s made with natural sweeteners, energy gum that’s made with caffeine and taurine, and gum that boasts individual designs on each stick.

Olympic snowboarder Shaun White even has his own gum flavor: Whitemint. Clearly, chewing gum has never been cooler.

It’s also a great way to give your brand a boost. Recipients can tuck custom gum in their bag, and bring it out later to share. It’s perfect for tradeshows, conferences and even restaurant promotions.

People are talking about custom gum, and paying attention to the kind they chew. Pop some of this custom gum into your next promotion:

Recipients can consider this vitamin custom gum a chewy supplement to their daily multivitamin. It’s offered in three formulas, and features nutritional info on the back, and your logo on the front.

Your logo will look bright and fresh on this full-color tube of sugar-free promotional chewing gum. Each tube contains 15 pieces of gum.

Maximize the reach of your message with stick custom gum. Your company’s contact information or logo pops on a white paper wrapper.

Promo know-how tip: In the U.S., people chew an average of 182 sticks (or the equivalent) per year. Make sure they’re chewing custom gum that features your logo by offering your customers logoed gum at every visit, appointment and event.

With March Madness in full swing and the Final Four just a couple weeks away, now is a great time to run a March Madness themed promotion for your business. Your company can capitalize on the excitement with logo souvenirs and basketball-themed items that will put your brand in the spotlight as NCAA buzz reaches its fever pitch! If you’re looking for some fun and effective March Madness promotions, check out this list put together by the Advertising Speciality Institute. It features 11 different products perfect for companies, bars, restaurants, sports teams, and more:

ASI‘s 2012 March Madness Hot List:

• Video-playing basketball. Users upload any video, making it a perfect prize for top performers in the office pool.
• Logoed spatula. Relive tournament highlights this summer with spatulas die-cut with a school or booster club’s logo.
• Device wraps. Users upload their own picture and wrap their favorite device with college mascots and logos.
• Basketball net skull cap. Tie into the tournament with pop-a-shot contest between games and give winners fun items like a funky cap.
• Basketball jersey. Companies can host three-ball competitions and giving away adult-sized moisture-wicking jerseys to organizers and winning teams.
• Square ball stress reliever. Perfect for squeezing during down-to-the-wire games.
• Mini backboard and ball set. Businesses can send reps armed with great giveaways for clients to encourage them to join office pools.
• Basketball helmet. Beverage companies can use as an on-pack promotion for college kids or to reward employees during a company appreciation event.

You can watch the March Madness episode of The Joe Show to see these products in action!

The Tampa Bay Rays baseball team, like most MLB teams, is giving away a different promotion for each of the team’s home games this year. Yesterday, the official 2012 Rays Baseball Promotional Calendar was released, and it looks like most of the items are typical: game schedule magnets, collectible t-shirts, a Rays youth hat, some Joe Maddon sunglasses (will they be a rehash of the glasses promo from 2006?), bobbleheads of some of the Rays players (of course), a koozie (yawn), and a few other baseball promo items that might be more interesting – like the ice cream bowl and spoon set…and the Zim Bear. Especially the Zim Bear.

The Zim Bear

What on earth is the “Zim Bear”, you ask? Well, it’s not exactly “cute and cuddly”. It’s basically a teddy bear with a human face on it – the face of Don Zimmer, the Tampa Bay Rays’ senior advisor and former coach. Why would someone want this monstrosity? We don’t know – but it’s sure to be a Tampa Bay Rays collectible due to it’s uniqueness.

One thing is certain: this is a very unique baseball promotion, and it’s one of those items that people will talk about and remember for quite some time. (When Tampa Bay’s WTSP did a piece on this giveaway the caption was “Zim Bear: Cute or Creepy?”) You either love it or hate it, and there’s no way to not have an opinion about it.

In the world of baseball promo marketing, it’s apparent that the Tampa Bay Rays have hit a home run.

If you’re into Apple promos, particuarly Apple apparel, be sure to head to your local Apple store on Friday, where a special, all-night event will include free promotional t-shirts!

When I tell people what I do, the often ask me what cool products we have. This is a legitimate question, but in some ways, it misses the point of what we do. Sure, we have some unique products, but most promotional products are things you’ve probably already seen before. That’s one reason why they’re effective – people use them. The key to a great promotion is taking a product and turning it into an interesting piece of advertising that is relevant to your business and your customers. For example, the butcher paper below is literally just a piece of paper, but with a pan printed on it, it’s also a clever piece of advertising that people will remember: