{"id":1158,"date":"2011-08-04T15:28:14","date_gmt":"2011-08-04T19:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/?p=1158"},"modified":"2011-08-04T15:28:14","modified_gmt":"2011-08-04T19:28:14","slug":"company-picnics-are-back-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/2011\/08\/04\/company-picnics-are-back-baby\/","title":{"rendered":"Company Picnics Are Back, Baby"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Remember the company picnic? Maybe you attended one thrown by your dad\u2019s company and marveled at seeing him tie-less, downing a beer with seldom-seen work buddies and playing baseball with the boss. We wondered about the current state of a time-honored summer tradition, so we conducted a survey to find out.<\/p>\n<p>Larry Basinait, our executive director of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.asicentral.com\/asp\/open\/Research\/default.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">research services<\/a>, polled 400 companies and discovered 41% of respondents planned to throw a company picnic sometime this summer. And 8% said they\u2019re hosting a picnic for the first time or the first time in recent years. For many, it\u2019s a reward to employees for all their hard work during recent tough times.<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"right\" src=\"http:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/images\/picnic.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Since no employee gathering would be complete without giveaways, we also learned 41% of respondents always give away ad specialties to attendees, and 28% sometimes do. Of those who give out items, 51% give away T-shirts; 44% give away recreational items like frisbees, games and toys; and 32% give away caps and headgear.<\/p>\n<p>All told, companies responding to the survey spend an average of $4,116 on their company picnic. That\u2019s a lot of hot dogs and inflatable slides.<\/p>\n<p>We issued a press release on our results, which you can read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.asicentral.com\/asp\/open\/AboutASI\/pressRoom\/index.aspx?id=6474\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>, and more than 150 outlets picked it up, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.upi.com\/Business_News\/2011\/07\/31\/Companies-spending-on-picnics-again\/UPI-96871312144370\/\" target=\"_blank\">United Press International<\/a> and a <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em> radio report broadcast on Pittsburgh\u2019s KQV-AM, which you can listen to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.asicentral.com\/asp\/open\/AboutASI\/pressRoom\/radioclips.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>One amusing side note from the survey concerns activities respondents said their company planned, which included everything from dunk tanks and egg races to drinking games, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jousting\" target=\"_blank\">jousting<\/a> and even medical testing. Whatever it takes to motivate employees!<\/p>\n<p>Let me know if you attended or hosted a company picnic this year by posting a comment or e-mailing me <a href=\"mailto:tim.andrews@asicentral.com\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>. I\u2019m also on <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/Tim_Andrews_ASI\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/timothymandrews\" target=\"_blank\">LinkedIn<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/timasitv\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remember the company picnic? Maybe you attended one thrown by your dad\u2019s company and marveled at seeing him tie-less, downing a beer with seldom-seen work buddies and playing baseball with the boss. We wondered about the current state of a time-honored summer tradition, so we conducted a survey to find out.<\/p>\n<p>Larry Basinait, our executive director of research services, polled 400 companies and discovered 41% of respondents planned to throw a company picnic sometime this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,8,25,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-coverage","category-news-about-asi","category-research","category-using-ad-specialties"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1158"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1162,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158\/revisions\/1162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timandrewsblog-asicentral.com\/timblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}