This week at Sonic Promos, we're working on...

... baby bibs for Sitter City with tagline- There's a Nap for That.

... full color calculators for summer interns at the Macy's office in New York City.

... and tournament T-shirts for the Mid-Atlantic Cup at the Maryland Soccerplex, Saturday June 8th through Sunday June 9th.

"This Week at Sonic Promos" is a regular feature on our blog.
Read all past posts here.
Check in every week to see some of the work that's going on in our office.

This week at Sonic Promos, we're working on...

... tote bags and T-shirts for National Family Planning.

... lots of colorful T-shirts for several Jewish communities participating in J-Serve, the international day of Jewish youth service, this year on April 28th. Every year, Sonic Promos partners with BBYO to organize a national T-shirt design and fulfill orders for communities across the country. We are thrilled to have assisted 14 cities this year.

... and various gift items for Wilmer Hale.

"This Week at Sonic Promos" is a regular feature on our blog.
Read all past posts here.
Check in every week to see some of the work that's going on in our office.

Here's a fun case study for you today. Have you heard of Allie the Ally?

Allie the Ally was created by a student group from James Hubert Blake High School in Silver Spring, Maryland called Allies 4 Equality. To spread awareness about LGBTQ issues and to give hope to kids struggling with acceptance, both from themselves and others, the group developed a colorful paper doll named Allie. What began as a local high school initiative quickly became a national campaign, thanks to the group's active Facebook page. Allie has now traveled across the United States and to four different countries. Supportive fans post photos of themselves with the doll, along with a brief message. Many schools and religious groups have gotten involved with Allie; even the Governor of Maryland has participated.

The students have even been honored with a national award for their efforts.

Recently, Allies 4 Equality came to Sonic looking for a way to sell Allie the Ally T-shirts to school communities across the country.

The T-shirt features a 7-color front/1-color back screen print. With so many colors involved, we knew printing the shirts individually was not going to be a cost-effective option. To keep costs down, we worked with the students to develop an online store with an ordering window of three weeks. This allowed us to print all the shirts in one run and net volume price breaks.

The ordering window for this round of shirts has closed, but be sure to keep up with Allie's travels by visiting the students' Facebook page regularly. You can find them on Twitter and Tumblr too.

Thanks for the opportunity to get involved with this movement, Allies 4 Equality, and keep up the great work!

How do you feel about lollipops?

I have to admit, they're not my favorite candy. As a kid, Blow Pops and Tootsie pops generally littered my Halloween pumpkin well into April. Mounds Bars, Almond Joys, and Whoppers had priority, in case you wanted to know.

Despite my indifference to Tootsie Pops, I never failed to check the wrapper for a hidden star. Everyone knows that a star-marked wrapper is gold in your hands. Hello, free lollipop!

I never really thought twice about this promotion until my coworker Michael sent me this article last week.

Apparently, it's a total myth, and no one is entirely sure how or why it came to be.

The full illustration shows a boy dressed as a Native American chief shooting an arrow at a five-pointed star. It's said that roughly one third of Tootsie Pops are wrapped in this print, so the star is neither rare nor special.

Check out the full article to read more about how the company responds to letters and crinkled wrappers from kids hoping to redeem their freebie.

Pretty neat how a little 3 inch square piece of coated paper can cause such buzz for a candy company!

Have you seen this video yet? If not, please take three quick minutes to watch it now. You won't regret it.

I find so many things interesting about this video.

First, it's incredible how accurate she is. Some brands throw her, like Monster- "Those are little... squirgs"- and Boeing- "an outside space", but for the most part she's pretty spot on!

Based on this one child (although a sample size of one would not be permissible by any statistician), we can assume brand recognition begins at a very early age. The way she talks about some brands, you might even argue she exhibits brand loyalty. Now, I don't mean to say that this 5-year-old understands the concept of brand loyalty in the same way that we do as adults. She's not making any purchasing decisions, but it is interesting to hear her use language that indicates preference.  

She doesn't identify the Starbucks logo as "Starbucks", but rather "THE coffee logo". BP is deemed "gas" and Pepsi is "the pop". Most likely she heard her parents or other adults express their brand preferences at one point, and she absorbed their loyalties in turn. We learn that her grandpa works at GE, and I bet you her parents are Mac or iPhone users.

Other brands that are specifically targeted to her demographic, like Disney for example, are recognized immediately. "That is the Disney." I'm sure McDonald's beams with pride to hear her correctly identify their golden arches and even associate it with french fries. Their branding strategy is clearly effective. 

I also got a kick out of her brand confusion. Big companies work SO hard to distinguish their brands, but when it comes down to it, some of them just looks really similar. Greyhound, Jaguar and Puma are all deemed "cheetah". I feel you, sister. Big cats and dogs are hard to keep straight.

I could talk about this little girl all day long. Don't even get me started on the fact that she seems to have picked up on Pizza Hut's relationship with Pepsi. She's one smart cookie!

To close, is anyone else astounded that she knows what a chili looks like?! I don't think I had ever even seen a chili until I was at least 10 years old, and even then I probably just identified it as a pepper. I wonder if this is a regional thing? I was just about to say she must live in the Southwest, but then I remembered the "[soda] pop" comment. 

What are your thoughts on this video? If you have children, do you catch them responding to marketing?