T-Shirts to Talk About

Causes that fire up emotions in people can bring out the best in what promotional products can do.

In October, about 4,000 people will walk in the Hartford Heart Walk in Connecticut to raise money and awareness for heart disease. T-shirts will be the vehicles of expression for the countless teams participating, many supplied by The Perfect Promotion, a promotional products distributor in West Hartford, CT. Staff members at the distributor will sit down with the groups to design and silk screen the shirts based on individual team requests. That’s where the real creativity and passion comes out.

Here’s an example. The Perfect Promotion also supplied a host of products for a Susan B. Komen Connecticut Race for the Cure event held in June in Hartford, CT. One fertility doctor’s team, called the “Good Eggs” sported T-shirts showing sperm chasing an egg in a race. Another shouted, “Boobs are us!” and “Save the Tatas.”

“A T-shirt is a walking billboard, so that before, during and after this walk people will be talking about the walk and what it represents — and that’s what promotional products do,” says Jody Ferrer, president of The Perfect Promotion.

Back at the Hartford Heart Walk, for the first time, a “Clothesline” will be part of the experience. Team members can hang their shirts on the line near the registration area, where judges will award the prizes to the best designs. “The Clothesline will increase participation and creativity and add an overall buzz to the walk,” Ferrer says.

Ferrer’s company is a sponsor of the event and will brand the clothespins used to hang the T-shirts on the clothesline.

“It’s a fun way to liven up the clothesline,” she says. “Something is going to have to hold up those T-shirts so it might as well have my logo on it.”

Ferrer is donating 10% of revenue from the sales of the promotional products to the American Heart Association. She was recently appointed Circle of Red co-chair for Go Red for Women and the American Heart Association.

Other products that helped promote the June Hartford Health walk included embroidered tote bags that team captains used to carry posters and other items as they walked around town. Flags, co-sponsored by Pro Health, a physicians group in Hartford, were supplied for walkers so they could add the names of loved ones and then plant them around the grounds to decorate the area. Staff members wore “Ask Me” T-shirts and aprons, and lapel pins were distributed as collector’s items to commemorate the event. A radio station donated 200 shirts to people who called in to join walking groups.