Seventeen years ago, Brood V cicadas were just snuggling in for their long nap. These noisy creatures are just a little smaller than your thumb and are completely harmless, if not just a bit frightening to see zipping past you in person. Cicadas like these spend just a few weeks as adults, the males happily chirping away their tune at about 100 decibels1 to attract a mate. The female quickly works to build a home for the new brood, carving out a small section in some tree bark for her young. The young grow quickly, drinking their fill of tree sap before making their arduous trek back down to the dirt and taking their beauty sleep for the next seventeen years.
Skip ahead to today. It’s a lovely day in Pennsylvania, and a lovely day for an extensively well rested cicada to wake up from his nap and greet the world. This cicada has had the privilege of catching some beautiful months in 1999. Maybe he had a chance to go watch the first in the Star Wars prequel Trilogy, The Phantom Menace. Maybe the little audiophile was one of the original supporters of Napster, calling up his friends on his new cell phone to talk about Christina Aguilera’s Genie in a Bottle. Whatever the case, this insect is in for quite the culture shock. Gone are the days of this cicada sporting his favorite color of Nokia 8210 phone, because today, this insectoid friend has a brand new IPhone 6S, with a case customized in his company’s logo. Star Wars will be a big change for the cicada too; now the property of Disney, Star Wars and the Disney brand are on everything from coffee mugs to T-shirts. The cicada might not be able to pick up all the goodies for Rogue One, but why not take the opportunity to explore countless other printing options, maybe some other branded merchandise to give his own children to decorate and sport for their own rest until 2033. And don’t get me started on music. He’ll be using that new phone to tweet all his fellow chirpers about the new song he found on a Spotify playlist, Drake’s Hotline Bling.
That’s all just one cicada’s story, but cicadas don’t usually have their own business to get out there. Technology, music, movies; all have changed over the last seventeen years, but what hasn’t changed is the love of a well branded product that you can share with your customers or with the employees that make your business possible. Branded merchandise isn’t just something that pops up once every seventeen years. They’re the shirts that customers wear with pride when they go visit the movies with their families. They’re the mugs they sip out of to get ready for a busy day at work, or at the end of a weekend long conference. They’re the flashy phone cases they show off to their friends as they share pictures, watch clips on YouTube, or take awkward selfies! Your brands can be with these people forever, and it doesn’t need to take seventeen years to get the word out. Place an order today.