Most people assume digital advertising is the more sustainable marketing choice. But a new industry study suggests the story might be more complicated. This week on 2 Regular Guys, we welcome Theresa Hegel, Executive Editor for Special Projects and Sustainability at ASI, to discuss the findings from a major CO₂ impact study commissioned by ASI and PPAI. The research looked at the carbon footprint of promotional products compared to other forms of advertising and uncovered some surprising results around longevity, memorability, and environmental impact. Theresa walks us through the key findings, explains how the study gathered and analyzed the data, and shares what these insights could mean for the future of sustainability in the promotional products industry. Join us as we explore the data and discuss how decorators and distributors can think differently about the environmental impact of branded merchandise.

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There’s January 2nd… February 2nd… March 2nd…

Promotional Products vs Digital Ads

Aaron: Welcome to the show as a guest. We have been loving having you bring us news on a regular basis from your work with ASI. Give us the quick rundown of who you are and what you do.

I’m the executive editor of special projects and sustainability at ASI. I’ve been at ASI for 12 years, and I write about a variety of topics, with a focus on apparel, apparel decoration and sustainability. I started out in daily newspapers – highlights of my career include writing about a bedbug-sniffing dog, profiling a legally blind art teacher and following a local ghost-hunting group on a research trip to a cemetery at midnight.

Terry: Let’s start at the beginning. What led ASI and PPAI to commission this CO₂ impact study in the first place?

Promo products often get a bad rap as “trinkets and trash,” and we’ve seen some “anti-swag sentiment,” particularly on social media, with people complaining about promo’s perceived carbon impact. But up until now, there hasn’t really been any concrete data showing how promo stacked up compared to other forms of advertising.

In order to combat people’s misconceptions about our industry, it’s important that we arm our members with real data they can use in sales conversations or when establishing themselves as thought leaders online. ASI and PPAI have always done a good job with gathering and crunching other kinds of data (ad impressions, state of the industry, etc.) but in some ways, sustainability-specific data has been a gap.

Also, it was important for us to use a third party to conduct this study for impartiality. We knew the results might not be exactly what we wanted to hear, but we were prepared to share them whatever the outcome was.

Aaron: Before we get into the numbers, can you give us the big picture? What question was this research trying to answer for the promotional products industry?

The big picture is that we needed to establish an industry baseline. Until we measure how carbon intensive promo as a whole is, how can we address the impact? As I mentioned before, we also wanted to give our members some concrete data they can use to answer questions and concerns about the sustainability of the promo industry.

We compared promo to five other advertising mediums: out of home (billboards and signage); digital advertising; radio; TV and print advertising, and looked at factors such as carbon impact per memorized impression (brand recall tied to a particular advertising channel), carbon impact per media campaign and carbon impact per dollar spent).

Terry: What were some of the most surprising or headline findings that came out of the study?

We didn’t really know what the study was going to say, so it was really exciting to find out that by most measures promo had the second-lowest carbon impact of all advertising channels. Billboards and other “out of home” advertising were the only channel with a lower carbon impact.

For instance promo generates .56 grams of carbon equivalent per memorized impression, according to the combined U.S. and European data we gathered, whereas out of home is just under that figure with 0.54g grams of carbon equivalent per memorized impression. Digital advertising is 4.57g of carbon equivalent per memorized impression – 8 times higher than promo.

(Grams and metric tons of CO2 equivalent is a standard unit of measure in carbon reporting. Though carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas, there are many others associated with climate change, so to streamline and simplify reporting, all emissions are generally converted into that “equivalent” figure.)

Aaron: One of the stats that really stands out is that promo’s carbon impact per memorized impression is eight times smaller than digital advertising. Can you unpack what that actually means?

Yes, I think that’s something that surprises a lot of people. After all, promo products are physical, tangible items and digital advertising is decidedly not. So the natural assumption is that promo would have a higher carbon cost associated with its production.

However, digital advertising has hidden energy costs, particularly with digital media’s increasing reliance on energy intensive AI and the data centers necessary to power cloud-based computing the storage. When you’re calculating the carbon impact of a digital ad, you have to think about the energy intensity of every phone and computer that’s used to view it as well as the initial carbon cost to create it.

Terry: That result seems to run counter to what a lot of people assume about digital marketing. Why does promotional merchandise perform so favorably in that comparison?

Think about the last digital ad you saw. Or the last sponsored video you watched on social media. Can you even remember what it was? There’s so much digital noise out there. Messaging gets drowned out so easily.

Promo products, on the other hand, promote strong brand recall. These are gifts that are given out by companies. They’re useful and fun. People remember and keep them. A TikTok ad is 10 seconds; a favorite branded hoodie you might have for 10 years – and each time you wear it evokes strong feelings and memories.

(Doesn’t even have to be an expensive item. I have a friend who recently told me about a branded jar opener she got from her insurance agent and has kept for years, and it’s the only way she remembers who her insurance agent is. … that’s effective, right!)

Aaron: For listeners who like to understand the “how,” can you walk us through the methodology? How did the researchers calculate the carbon impact across different forms of...

Promotional Products vs Digital Ads: The Surprising CO₂ Impact Study