BPMA 2025 Award Winners: Promotional Merchandise That Stands Out
20/01/2026 16:17:51
BPMA 2025 Award Winners: Promotional Merchandise That Stands Out
Each year, our trade association, the BPMA (British Promotional Merchandise Association), celebrates the very best of UK branded merchandise, and the 2025 Product Awards, held on 11th December, felt particularly significant. Alongside an impressive line-up of winning products, the event marked 60 years of the BPMA, an important milestone for our industry.
This year, quality and creativity really stood out in the products on show. The awards highlighted what businesses can expect when they invest in well-designed, thoughtfully made merchandise to support marketing activity. These winning products are excellent options for brands seeking to enhance campaigns, events, or corporate gifting, helping them stay visible and memorable for the right reasons.
From event giveaways and onboarding packs to premium corporate gifts and sustainable merchandise, the awards covered a wide range of product categories, including:
- Apparel Awards and exhibition
- Bag and folder
- Drinkware
- Food and drink
- Health, travel and leisure
- Stationery
- Technology
- Writing instrument
Across these categories, we’ve picked a few standout winners that we think work well for your next branded merchandise campaign!
Apparel
A versatile and high-impact category, apparel plays a key role in helping brands achieve consistent awareness through branded clothing, uniforms and teamwear. Well-designed garments are ideal for everyday wear, events and customer-facing roles, making them a smart choice for businesses investing in long-lasting promotional items.
Silver Winner: Neutral – Fairtrade Organic Quarter Zip Sweatshirt
Made from 100% Fairtrade organic cotton, this quarter zip is both stylish and sustainable. Supplied by a certified B Corp, the brand holds the highest B Corp score of any company in the EU, underlining its strong eco credentials.
Smart, comfortable and easy to wear, this piece is a great addition to any uniform range or onboarding pack. Add your branding and let it promote your business wherever it's worn.
Awards and exhibition
A category that celebrates the branded products that celebrate others. Awards and exhibition merchandise play an important role at events, from recognising achievements to creating purposeful touchpoints with event guests. These products showcase some of the very best our industry has to offer and demonstrate how promotional merchandise can impact brand experience.
Platinum Winner: Faceted Real Wood Awards
Made exclusively in the UK from solid European beech wood, these awards provide a premium finish. With its natural texture and warm red tones, beech wood provides a unique backdrop for branding, ensuring every piece feels special to those who receive it. Each award is responsibly sourced and made in an ISO-certified UK factory.
Available in 10 unique shapes and in two sizes, this range offers flexibility to suit everything from formal award ceremonies to employee reward schemes.
Gold Winner: Lan-Key RPET Keyring
The Lan-Key RPET Keyring is the first of its kind, made entirely from recycled lanyards. Part of a closed-loop recycling programme, the lanyards are collected after UK trade shows or returned by customers once they’ve been used, then repurposed into a practical, everyday item.
This sustainable promotional merchandise option works brilliantly as an event giveaway, combining functionality with a purposeful sustainability story.
Bag and folder
Branded bags are a popular choice for welcoming new employees or gifting clients with something practical they’ll genuinely use. This category shows just how versatile branded merchandise can be, with plenty of sustainable bag options available to support onboarding, welcome packs and wider engagement campaigns.
Platinum Winner: Wye Recycled Backpack
Made from recycled, water-resistant PU with an RPET lining, this backpack is a great option for branded onboarding merchandise and welcome gifts. With two main compartments, including a dedicated laptop sleeve, it’s a practical accessory that will help new starters feel equipped from day one.
Silver Winner: Coastal Threads™ Repreve® Dual Carry Sling Bag – 9 L
Another sustainable award-winner, this bag is made from durable Repreve® fabric, created from recycled plastic bottles and post-consumer waste. Featuring an integrated iPad sleeve, laptop pocket and an anti-theft zip puller, it’s a versatile everyday bag that works just as well for commuting as it does for events.
Drinkware
A firm favourite for a reason, drinkware is something people use every day. Whether it’s a quick coffee on the go or a long day out, reusable bottles, cups and mugs fit easily into daily routines. As a result, branded drinkware works across a wide range of campaigns, from exhibition awareness and onboarding new staff to fun social media giveaways.
Platinum Winner: The FOAMO Reusable Cup
The FOAMO is a standout sustainable coffee cup designed to perform as well as it looks. Made using patented bubble-tech insulation, its foamed core is filled with microscopic air pockets that lock in heat, keep drinks at the right temperature and feel feather-light in hand, removing the need for a sleeve.
Produced using 70% plant-based materials, this branded cup is an excellent choice for event merchandise, helping brands spark conversation while clearly showcasing their eco-conscious values.
The FOAMO is also a Product of the Year award winner, recognised for its innovative design and sustainable performance.
Food and drink
Easily one of the most popular categories, food and drink, never fails to go down well. Edible branded merchandise appeals to the senses and creates an instant connection; after all, who doesn’t love a tasty treat? Promotional food is a simple but effective way to make your brand memorable, long after the last bite.
Platinum Winner: Eco Vegan Treat Pack – Custom Sweet Cubes
This vegan treat pack includes a crowd-pleasing mix of Millions®, Fizzy Cola Bottles, Skittles®, and Vegan Bears. Each pack is presented in zero-plastic packaging, using sustainable kraft or white card, making it a responsible choice as well as a satisfying one.
Perfect for event giveaways or customer gifts, this option shows how sustainable merchandise and yummy treats can work together.
Health, travel and leisure
This category is all about practicality. The winners here show how branded merchandise can fit into everyday life, proving that the most effective promotional products are often the ones people genuinely use. With usefulness front and centre, these items highlight how well-chosen merchandise can keep brands visible long after a campaign ends.
Platinum Winner: WalletMate Collection
The WalletMate collection brings together a range of clever, compact tools designed to be kept close at hand. Made up of four original products:
- Mini Cutlery Kit
- Protractor
- Phone Stand
- Golf Kit
Recent additions such as travel trolley tokens, plant markers and guitar picks have expanded the range even further. Designed to slip neatly into a wallet, these pop-out tools will be used time and time again, helping brands stay front of mind in a simple yet practical way. With so many options, there really is something to suit everyone.
Silver Winner: Bamboo Ice Scraper
With cold winter weather returning year after year, an ice scraper is a seasonal essential for many drivers! This bamboo ice scraper combines everyday usefulness with a clear sustainability message.
Designed and manufactured 100% in the UK, it’s made from bamboo and naturally biodegrades at the end of its life, leaving no trace behind. It shows how sustainable merchandise can also be highly functional!
Stationery
There’s a common assumption that promotional merchandise begins and ends with pens and notebooks, but this category proves there’s far more to it than that. While stationery remains a staple, today’s branded stationery includes genuinely sustainable options that feel relevant to audiences.
Platinum Winner: Maxton Sugarcane Notebook
Made using sugar cane bagasse, a by-product of sugar, this notebook offers a great eco-conscious alternative to traditional paper. Sugarcane paper is chlorine and acid-free, food-grade safe and fast regenerating, helping reduce deforestation while supporting sustainable recycling.
It is a suitable option for brands promoting sustainability-led campaigns, offering a simple way to communicate these values through everyday use.
Gold Winner: Castelli 2026 Castelli Appeel ‘Ortisei’ A5 Daily
Diaries remain a necessity for the new year, and despite being well into January, many businesses continue to order them throughout Q1. This sustainable range mixes design with responsible materials, offering a premium feel without compromising on sustainability.
The Ortisei diary features a distinctive leather cover made from apple peel and vegetable fibres. Inside, pages are printed on soft ivory FSC® certified apple paper, with a contemporary burgundy and grey layout. Practical finishing touches, including perforated corners and a ribbon page marker, make this diary as functional as it is well designed.
Technology
Modern and innovative, branded technology continues to be one of the fastest-growing areas of promotional merchandise, with new ideas appearing every year. These products are particularly popular with forward-thinking audiences and work well when welcoming new starters or gifting clients with something useful.
Silver Winner: Branded Tile
Who hasn’t misplaced their keys or bag at some point? Branded Tiles are Bluetooth trackers designed to help locate everyday essentials quickly and easily. Compatible with both iOS and Android, they offer a simple, stress-saving solution that people quickly come to rely on.
Writing instrument
While pens are often seen as the default option when it comes to branded merchandise, this category shows just how much more there is to offer. As with many of the winners this year, thoughtful design and sustainability play a key role in helping these products stand out.
Gold Winner: Seashell Ball Pen
Made from repurposed shell waste and recycled ABS, the Seashell Ball Pen combines everyday practicality with genuine social impact. It offers an effective way to display your branding while supporting a good cause, with 5p from every pen purchased donated to Seashell Trust, helping children and young adults with complex needs.
Ideal for event giveaways, corporate gifts or exhibition merchandise, this pen proves that even familiar items can make a lasting impact. It’s not just a useful promotional tool, but a clear reflection of your brand’s commitment to social responsibility.
Award-winning promotional merchandise to watch
In addition to the main product categories, the BPMA also recognises excellence across three overarching awards:
- UK Made Product of the Year
- Innovative Product of the Year
- Sustainable Product of the Year
These awards review entries from across all categories to identify products that truly stand out for quality, design and impact. The FOAMO, Eco Vegan Treat Pack, and Wallet Mate Collection were recognised across all three awards, with WalletMate taking home the title of Sustainable Product of the Year.
While this blog highlights a selection of winners, you can explore the full range of award-winning branded merchandise on our website!
If you would like to learn more about how these products could support your next campaign, event or corporate gifting strategy, please contact our expert team. We would love to show you how our promotional merchandise can help your brand stand out.
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