Happy Holidays From All of Match-Up

To all of our clients, partners, vendors, friends, family, and complete strangers that take the time to visit our site- all of us at Match-Up would like to wish you happy holidays. We appreciate all the wonderful companies and people we have worked with in 2008 and look forward to a prosperous and safe 2009.

Happy Holidays

We just had our Holiday Party—it was very merry.

Tally so Far...

So far, this holiday season has seen Match-Up produce a very festive order for PUSH and our friends in Antigua, holiday themed bam-bams for the Magic, and new and improved mini “bobbles” for the Lightning. This holiday season has also seen Match-Up producers and employees consume (on a weekly basis) 315,000 calories, 21 glasses of eggnog, 4 fruit cakes, 34 candy-canes, 91 sugar cookies, 49 lollipops, and a few cases of Sam Adams Winter Lager. We have an ongoing experiment on the correlation between caloric intake and product concept generation and we’ll report the results on 1/2/09.

Yawn—more national television exposure

Let's see—past few weeks have seen Match-Up produced products on ESPN Monday Night Football (Titans), ESPN College Football (UCF), The World Series on Fox (Rays), and the NBA on TNT (Thunder). While the publicity is great—perhaps our true claim to fame will be the shirts we are doing for the Nude-A-Palooza. We do not jest- look it up in Google and just know that when the clothes come back on—the shirts are by Match-Up.

BOO

What do you call a dog owned by Dracula? A blood hound.

The Misadventures of Match-Up

We took a break from the rigors of bobblehead producing and attended the annual Match-Up outing at Islands of Adventure. Words used to describe the day..."Excellent" (Heidi), "****** fantastic" (Nikole), "Great" (Jaklyn), "Complete and utter terror" (Adam). Check out all the photos on our MySpace page!

Ok—we'll get serious—for a second

The last couple of weeks have been very hectic at Match-Up...babies being born, Member-Guest golf tournaments, flowers at the office, the Rays beating the accent out of the Red Sox, preparations for the company retreat...but let us put a hold on our mundane activities and hit ya with some knowledge. The PowerPoint found at www.ppai.com/NR/rdonlyres/C030EB75-907C-4C28-A977-0C09B6CF4FC0/0/power.PPT#1 contains enlightening facts and figures (actual validated research) showing end-users exactly how effective promotional products are! And if you don't care for the actual data- remember we have been endorsed by both Senator's McCain and Obama and Beldar (the President of the Planet Melmac- you know, where ALF was from).

Alaskans and Hockey Moms For Match-Up!

We caught up with Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin last night following her debate and asked her if she thought Match-Up was a super duper company to partner with for promotional items. The Governor’s response- "You Betcha!". When asked what the greatest attribute found in Match-Up employees and producers- she stated, "The energy. You betcha I know energy because I come from an energy producing state. Energy is critical." Asked if she could think of any movie character that symbolizes the Match-Up culture...she stated "Maverick from Top Gun. Match-Up goes against the status quo regarding most promotional item provider's views of seeing short-term profit as the overriding goal." You betcha Sarah

Hello Out There

We're doing an analysis regarding our website's reach. Sooo- first person that responds via the "Contact Us" option and includes the double top secret password ("Jennifer Anniston") will get a t-shirt and whatever other goodies we can find in our iron clad sample vault.

Response to Blog

In response to Patrick's testimonial that "we may be the last cool company in Orlando"...uh, yeah! We're as cool as Snoop Dogg after smoking 31...uh, cigars. Oh yeah, Happy Birthday Jaklyn!! And you are not taking WED off.

Top 10 Reasons to Partner with Match-Up

1. We are good spellers 2. We buy dinner—and drinks—and dessert—and drinks 3. We watched the "Cowbell" skit from SNL yesterday 4. Our GM has great hair 5. Baby Braydon is almost here and we are taking creative inspiration from the miracle of child birth 6. We work with FSU, Georgia, and UF—like Obama, we are a uniter and not a divider 7. We will save you money. Like McCain, we've cut out the excess "pork" around here. Speaking of pork—the BBQ pork sandwich from Sonny’s is really tasty. 8. We laugh at stupid jokes. A neutron goes into a bar and asks the bartender, "How much for a beer?" The bartender replies, "For you, no charge." 9. The new "90210"? Yeah, we hate it too. 10. Our clients really, really love us. Really!

Endorsements

Just this morning- we received the following endorsement in the mail. "With the critical need for a service driven branded merchandise provider, we unanimously recommend Match-Up Promotions, LLC. It was signed by Barack Obama, John McCain, Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. Hey- who says we can't find some common ground?

Labor Day

To all of our valued clients—we hear you are taking Monday off. We should take Monday off to? Really? Well, ok, if you say so. We'll be at the beach pondering how we can better service you on Tuesday

Fay—Do Not Stay—Please Back Away

Like the shepherd said to the other shepherd- "Get the flock out of here!” On another note- plenty of proposals flying out the rain soaked door at Match-Up. Stay tuned to see what we are up to next and if you happen to see some RED Umbrellas on television at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN...rest assured, they are of Match-Up quality!

Match-Up Goes Global

We are proud to announce that Match-Up has secured our first client based in Europe. That's right- our friends from the Derby County Football Club (that's soccer for you Americans) have reached across the pond to do some business. Rest assured- our commitment to service knows no geographic bounds. Let's put another shrimp on the barbie! We know, that's from Austria...ok ok, we really know it's a phrase originated from series of television advertisements by the Australian Tourism Commission starring Paul Hogan from 1984 through to 1990. Crocodile Dundee that bit of knowledge!!

Double Top Secret Project

From the inner sanctum of the Match-Up braintrust (i.e. Adam and Sean are not a part of it)...comes a developing self promotional package that will have customers and prospects "pumped" up! Be on the lookout for personal delivery of the packages within the month. In other news- we just ate some cookies and they were very tasty.

Rays and Marlins

If you have not been following MLB action for the first half of the year...(1) why not? and (2) you're missing some excellent baseball being played by two of our long-term clients, the Rays and Marlins. We personally feel that MLB could go ahead and alleviate the futile efforts from the other 28 teams, let the players see their families, let A-Rod hang out with Madonna, and just go ahead and begin the World Series next week with the Rays/Marlins. Who will we be rooting for?? The team from Florida!

Happy 4th!

We want to wish all of our clients, partners, friends, and family a great 4th! Where to find Match-Up? We will be diligently looking for great new promotional product ideas in Cape Cod, New Smyrna Beach, Cocoa Beach, Jacksonville Beach, and at BBQ's across the state of Florida. We'll report our findings to our clients on Monday.

Match-Up and AD2 Orlando

We would like to thank our friends at AD2 Orlando for allowing us to participate in the annual AD2 Auction. Final tally: AD2: a set of Nike golf clubs and a round of golf at Alaqua for 4. MATCH-UP: press release donated by Push, gift certificate to a local watering hole, a BIG BAR TAB last night at Bliss...and finally, 3 people not feeling so hot at work on Friday. Ahh- partnership in action.

Our Clients—Everywhere!

We believe that while our clients spend 99% of their time focusing on how awesome Match-Up is ( well, most clients think we are really awesome but a few may only believe we are partially awesome)...they manage to get a lot done with the other 1% of their time. The Marlins and Rays are battling for first place (Coincidence they are both clients?? We think not). Our friends at Travelers are hosting their annual stop on the PGA Tour. The fine folks at Anheuser Busch keep making great beer. And last but certainly not least- Push just signed on about 99 of the top 100 restaurant chains in the U.S.A. for advertising services. Have a great weekend- like the shepherd said to the other shepherd- "Let's get the flock out of here."

Friday the 13th

Don't believe in bad luck associated with Friday the 13th? As of 8:23 this morning, we have had a laptop infected with more viruses than we can count, an office workstation destroyed by lightning, a rodent invasion at Nikole's place, a Celtics win, and the fridge is out of adult beverages...setting up to be one of those days.

Florida Weather This Weekend

Weather report: Today: It's Hot. Real Hot. Miserable hot. Tomorrow: Continued hot with the occasional afternoon storm with deadly lightning. Sunday: Even hotter with continued 100% humidity. Repeat for the next 90 days and you can save yourself 10 minutes and not watch the weather report. What can you do instead? Surf around on matchuppromotions.com of course!! Hey- it is our website.

Good Week

If we do say so ourselves- we've had a good week. Indiana Jones comes out, Travelers folks are very considerate of Match-Up, Sean's moving back to the Orlando office for a few days a week, new clients continue to keep us busy, it's Nikole's birthday celebration (not on work hours of course), and the sun is shining. As the wise sage Jack Handy once said- " The next time I have meat and mashed potatoes, I think I'll put a very large blob of potatoes on my plate with just a little piece of meat. And if someone asks me why I didn't get more meat, I'll just say, "Oh, you mean this?" and pull out a big piece of meat from inside the blob of potatoes, where I've hidden it. Good magic trick, huh?" Have a great weekend!

Happy Memorial Day

Yes—there are the dedicated few Match-Up employees that have not jettisoned off to Longboat Key, the Caribbean, New York...etc. We're not bitter—really. If anybody is looking for that last second one of a kind holiday outing- we could really use some temporary help on Monday so come visit us in Longwood. Hours are 8-8 and we'll even pay for lunch and throw in some classic LL Cool J tunes (who doesn't like "Round the Way Girl"). Oh yeah- you'll be the only one here!!! Happy Memorial Day to all!!

Welcome to the New Match-Up Promotions.com!

After years of market research…tracking trends, analyzing user statistics, maximizing web analytics to the extreme—we are happy to present our clients, our suppliers, our employees, Britney Spears, Warren Buffet, President Bush, Jessica Simpson etc with our new website. We feel the new site exemplifies our commitment to our clients' marketing success while maintaining our renowned ability to enjoy what we do and how we do it. Please- surf around, drop us a line, find us on MYSPACE, order some more products etc. We hope that the new website presents a better glimpse of Match-Up and the performance that has led us to phenomenal growth since our inception in 2002. To quote Ron Burgundy..."we're kind of a big deal" Thanks again and please let us know what you think!