Personalised pens have always been a firm favourite amongst promotional gift buyers but never moreso than at the moment. There are two main reasons for this:

1. Recessionary pressures have driven down prices across the business gift industry as marketing budgets are cut. In addition, there is a trend towards cheaper promotional items and personalised pens certainly fall into that category. There has been a drop in demand for the more expensive promotional products, such as, clothing, stress toys, mugs and mousemats and this has helped stimulate demand for plastic personalised pens.

2. Companies are under increasing social pressure to demonstrate their stance on issues such as corporate & social responsibility, fair trade, equal opportunities and environmental sustainability. The latter category has helped drive sales of recycled promotional products and in particular, recycled plastic pens because of their low price point and the bewildering choices of style and function currently available. However, there is an increasing credibility problem with recycled products as false claims abound about the pedigree of the recycled plastic used to mould them. Lack of legislation and official monitoring has certainly not helped and consequently there has been little incentive for large institutions to get behind projects to produce a form of plastic material that is truly post-consumer and verifiable. However, Tetra-PakTM and The Lecce Pen Company have changed all that by developing a revolutionary new material from recycled drinks cartons and they have called it 'EcoAllene'. Many products are now being moulded from this material, including writing instruments and this new material is proving to be a real shot in the arm for the sales of personalised pens in particular. There are three main reasons for this:

• The material is fully post-consumer as it is manufactured from drinks containers that have been collected from waste disposal sites.

• It is a fully certified and verifiable material, backed up by two world brand leaders.

• It is the material used in the manufacture of the first-and-only truly recycled ballpoint pen refill present in several new personalised pens on the market.

Despite the downward trend in overall sales for promotional items many business gift distributors are capitalising on the sales potential of this new and revolutionary material, EcoAlleneTM and consequently this is helping to create demand for finished products. Personalised pens loom large in this area and with many more exciting new product emerging by the month it is providing a welcome ray of light to a beleaguered promotion's industry.