Smart Gifts

In early April, attendees were sent a pre-arrival package that included a welcome note and a metal luggage tag.

Stackable Sensations' Saviour Universal USB Charger ($8.60 each for 50) can charge two devices at once and includes a logo display.

Booze is a surefire hit as a take-home gift. Pinhole Press can create custom-branded bottle labels ($10 for nine; bulk pricing available) for wine or any other type of beverage.

Toast's engraved wood iPhone covers ($30; bulk pricing available) can be customized with logos and brand names.

The retro-style phone receivers ($30; bulk pricing available) from Native Union plug into most cell phones. A logo can be placed anywhere on the handset.

The flap of the classic canvas-and-brown faux leather bags ($28.40 each for 24; additional bulk prices available) from Pinnacle Promotions can be debossed with a logo.

GelaSkins offers cases (from $15; bulk pricing available) for a whole slew of tech gadgets. Simple logo designs can be ordered through the Web site; for orders or more than 100, GelaSkins' designers work with clients to create customized layouts.

Fluf makes durable, reusable lunch and snack bags (from $18; bulk pricing available) that can be customized.

Bikn ($130 for the set; bulk pricing available) from Treehouse Labs is a new tech-savvy lost-and-found system. Just place a tag on anything you don’t want to lose, and your phone finds it.

A branded leather luggage tag and passport case ($83 for the set; bulk pricing available) from Graphic Image comes in several colors and embossed finishes.

Earbud headphones ($6.82 each for 100) from Empire Promotional Products come in a customizable container.

Baggu offers a range of carryall bags, including the recycled cotton canvas Duck tote ($24; bulk pricing available) that can be screen-printed.

After picking up their totes, attendees headed to an area to be assigned their groups for the lunch roundtable and dinner dine-around. They selected a poker chip at random; each chip was printed with the name of one of the dinner locations.

Continuing with the gambling theme, guests also selected a playing card (designed by Tricia Hay) that revealed the number of the table at which they’d be seated for the luncheon and which speaker would be hosting the table. “Like at any meeting, people tend to want to stick with who they know,” says Rebecca Grinalls. “So doing a blind pull like this helps create organic opportunities for networking with new people without making it feel forced.”

Guests received a minibar kit that included recipes for three cocktails and the ingredients needed to make them, like Red Bull, Goldschlager, and candy drink stirrers.

The welcome totes also included a trifold vanity kit. Each day of the conference had its own corresponding pouch of items. The “Get Ready” section included bath salts, an aromatherapy candle, and a box of matches. The “Engage” pouch had a tube of mints, lip balm, and massage cream. The “Glow” pouch featured items intended for use at the gala event, like nail polish, a mirror, and a portable kit with Band-Aids, blotting papers, and fashion tape.

At the end of the first night’s poolside welcome party, everyone was given a “Hydrate and Chill” kit designed to help them beat the Vegas heat. The package included a fan, a water mister, a bottle of sleep-inducing Dream Water, and an insulated cup.

In the presentation room, each seat held a “Bento Box” of items intended to optimize their experience.

The boxes included pencils, sticky notes, a journal, mints and candy, and “Thinking Putty," a Silly Putty-like product to keep guests’ hands engaged. “We wanted to make all of the gifts as lightweight as possible so that people would be able to take them home in their luggage,” says Susan Arak-Turnock. To that end, the boxes were made from thick paper board.

Flexible branded paper cubes served as easy decor throughout the conference. Custom USB cards included event information as well as all 250 attendees’ contact information, which avoided the need to pass out business cards.

Name badges doubled as an icebreaker: the number of crystal charms on the tag identified how many times the badge-wearer had attended an Engage! conference. Veteran attendees had nine balls, while first-timers had only one.

Kristy Rice of Momental Designs created programs featuring watercolor illustrations detailing the conference's various events.

On the last evening, an “After Glow” kit was placed on guests’ pillows during turndown service. The pouch included a gel eye mask, a foot soak, and a box of hangover remedies like Tylenol, Alka Seltzer, eye drops, and ear plugs.

After the conference, Engaging Concepts sent every attendee a thank-you gift of fortune cookies; the fortunes inside were printed with quotes from conference speakers.

There was also a post-conference Twitter contest that asked guests to write a haiku that summed up their experience at Engage!12. Winners received a “Withdrawal Kit” that included detox drinks, candies, and a countdown calendar to the next conference. (The lid of the container was printed with the winning tweets.)

VivaTerra’s office-friendly wall art, $59, grows plants including the Oncidium Twinkle. The tiny orchids bloom yearly, and only need to be sprayed or watered once a week.

Superior Business Solutions offers eco-friendly umbrellas, from $14.98. The customizable rain accessories are made from 100 percent recycled materials.

S’well offers sleek, reusable water bottles, from $25, made from nontoxic stainless steel. The bottles keep water cold for 24 hours or keep hot drinks warm for 12 hours.

RuMe is a lifestyle brand that focuses on using less and reusing more. Its customizable (and, of course, reusable) tote bags, $12.95, hold as much as 50 pounds.

Moxie Pear offers cute, customizable pencils made from recycled paper. Available in a wide range of colors, the pencils come in sets of five or 10 for $5.25 and $11, respectively.

Handmade treats from Katherine Anne Confections contain no artificial preservatives, flavors, or colors. Truffle boxes, from $9.50, are filled with chocolates, marshmallows, and caramels in seasonal flavors.

Gifts for the Good Life creates customized soy candle gifts. The sets, from $28, contain four hand-poured candles, matches, and lip balm.

Factory Direct Promos has double-ended barrel pens, from $0.51 each, composed of recycled paper and plastic parts made from natural corn fiber. The pens can be imprinted with corporate logos.

Ethically Engineered creates vegan soaps including the “no bottle” shampoo bars, $18. The gear-shaped soaps produce large suds and come in lemon and lime scents.

Crafthouse Cocktails offers pre-batched cocktails, $19.95, in recyclable bottles. The mixologist-created drinks come in flavors such as Moscow Mule; they’re also gluten-free and made with natural ingredients.

Botanical PaperWorks has customizable “plantable journals,” from $7.80 each. The books, which are embedded with wildflower seeds, contain 75 pages of postconsumer stock paper.

Beelove is an all-natural line of raw honey and honey-infused personal care products. The Travelers Collection, $32.50, contains two-ounce bottles of lotion and shower gel as well as lip, hand, and foot balms.