Trophies or medals, that is the question towards the end of the season. The last few years we have seen a trend away from traditional column trophies towards medals as the award of choice. We have noticed that this trend is driven by a couple different factors:
- The Economy. In times of economic fear leagues and groups may try to save money by purchasing stock medals instead of a trophy.
- Internet sales. The proliferation of internet trophy companies has grown in the last decade. Medals are easier to ship and are promoted more by the internet award companies.
If the reason you want a medal is for economics, consider that the difference in price at Alpine Awards between medals and trophies is maybe only one or two dollars per participant. At that rate, the better overall value is a trophy.
At Alpine Awards we often meet or beat the prices of our internet competitors, especially when you add in their costs for personalization, shipping time and expense and time of getting what you need when you need it. Our expert awards specialists are much better at working with you and your budget to meet your awards needs.
Before you decide to go with a medal instead of a trophy consider the following:
- A small participation medal will not be received as well as a small participation trophy.
- Leagues who give medals after previously giving trophies will receive more complaints from parents. Parents think, hey I pay all those league fees and all my kid gets is a tiny medal? How cheap!
Alpine Awards assembles all their own trophies and can do it at a lower cost than most of our competitors. Visit or call us and chances are, we can do a small trophy at just a little more than what you would pay for that internet medal, but the smile on the recipient of that trophy will be much larger. That’s what we call a good value.
Obviously there are occasions when medals are the better choice whether due to tradition or large quantities. We have been producing custom designed medals for over 20 years, so instead of a stock design, take a look at a custom piece instead. Give us a little more time and we’ll design it and produce it for you. Everybody recognizes the uniqueness of a custom medal over off the shelf designs. Awards are about recognizing achievement and value, and the quality of the award should reflect the values they represent.
A Case Study
In one soccer tournament this fall, one of our customers decided to reverse that trend and give large trophies to each player on the winning team. The positive reaction of all teams in the tournament confirmed to the tournament directors that giving larger trophies created more value to the event.
A team may only win one tournament in it’s lifetime and the players really appreciate a large award to remember the feeling of that day.
Trophies discussion overheard on the playing field:
Player 1: Did you see those trophies?
Player 2: Yea, they’re huge! So much better than that tournament last month that gave us medals.
If nothing else, remember the trophies you received when you were young. They meant something to you back then, and will mean something to the youth of today.
