The Redbows Promotional Gifts Blog

Sheilas Wheels is probably one of the best female targeted marketing campaigns within recent years. It has all the elements of a classic promotion in being fun, focused and with a catchy little tune. Now the photo is not one of me and my Promotional Gifts Consultants team out for a jolly down the coast but it does raise to mind a factor that you should consider for any promotion - gender. Just think about corporate clothing for a second. Fleeces, t-shirts and pullovers come in a whole range of sizes, shapes, colours and patterns to suit men and women. Whatever your marketing objectives, ‘think Sheila, think Fella’ to make sure your promotion is an immediate and long term success.

We were expanding our IT network this week and had a very late night at the office. Around 11:00pm one of the sales lines rang with a call from an Australian-baed advertising agency. They had come across the kites in our Fun Collection (or to be precise our selection of ‘The Smallest Kites In The World’ and yes they actually do fly).

The call really brought home to me something you just don’t get from studying webstats and Google Analytics – we are dealing with real people, solving real needs, on a 24/7 global basis. Two colour print Logo Kites in Sydney within 3 weeks – no problem.

Key Note, a market intelligence company is reporting that benefits from winning the 2012 Olympics are already being felt in the sports promotions industry. The organisers of the games are hoping to earn £625m from sponsors and it is expected that these will come from familiar industries such as banking, energy and sports goods. The promotional gifts industry is also starting to gear up for this event which will make up for the rather disappointing fact that we will not have any UK teams in the Euro 2008 football championships this summer. For sure, a number of traditional items will be used for Olympics-related promotions including sports bags for example and we are also expecting to see manufacturers launching a number of bespoke products. Sports marketing is an important below-the-line activity for a number of organisations and it is interesting to note that without major events like the Olympics, the sponsorship market grows by around 5% annually.

They say that if you are not in Google, you do not exist. I reckon Wikipedia is approaching a similar stage when it comes to describing, well almost anything - take the current hot topic ‘Credit Crunch‘. This phrase needs to come with a health warning. If you lend money to people with a limited ability to pay it back, gamble on interest rates and disposable incomes, and make it your main revenue earner then you are sure to have created a business that is too sensitive to economic swings. The world is changing fast and the internet and our demand for data is driving it. Economic growth in the UK for 2008 may only be forecast at 1% by Ernst & Young, but this is an average with both lows and highs at opposite ends of a Bell Curve distribution. The UK promotions industry continues to expand - rapidly. A slower economic growth rate is actually useful. It forces organisations to step back and realign their strategies to the environment they find themselves in - or should do. At Redbows we are seeing clients focusing their spends on more measurable promotional activities - they are increasing their direct mail and sales promotions budgets. Promotional gifts are also being used as part of wider PR and advertising campaigns to help improve call-to-action response rates and drive prospects towards tailored-landing pages - all easily measurable activities. So, we need to appraise what is happening in our industries, keep scanning the horizon for changes but perhaps relax a little and question whether we really do always need to catch a cold if America sneezes.

This week on the Promotional Gifts Store we have been working on our ranges of Executive and Corporate Gifts. So, what makes an executive gift? Well we like to think that they are more of a premium item. Gifts that are individually packed and given, with a more personal feel, even though they may be produced in volume. Executive gadgets are a definite favourite and as their pricing is often linked to the dollar, prices have fallen over the last two years. They are well worth a look for a campaign aimed at executives and senior managers.

My IT guys started to install a Dell PowerEdge 1900 server on our network today. This latest piece of hardware is part of an on going strategy designed to take us towards single-source data storage. Redbows now has over 5,000 products on its Promotional Gifts Store, with access to several thousand more. The new server will be used to store images and price data, pdfs and specifications, providing our Gifts Consultants with the ability to generate Virtual Visuals and self-serve data to clients. There have been some interesting aspects to this project. Aside from the construction of a new server room, I was intrigued by the artistry of the packing materials used to protect the server in transit, and Dell’s ordering and tracking process.

Some time ago, I was showing a colleague from the promotions industry our new Promotional Gifts Store and we got to discussing the role of the humble promotional mouse. These were once one of the most popular desktop gadgets. Somehow they have been overlooked in recent years, despite several innovations and a dramatic fall in overall unit cost. Walk into any office environment and you will find computer mice, often constantly on view and in use. These gadgets offer a number of benefits: they are a practical gadget with a good sized imprint area, and generally have a very good working life, often several years. Now for the Chinese 2008 is the year of the Mouse and we hope that for more clients it will be the year of the Promotional Mouse.

There are a number of online photo and image websites but the best in my opinion is iStock Photos. If you are ever stuck for an image to use in a promotional campaign, on literature or to apply to a promotional product then this is the website for you. What these guys have done it make it easy for you to buy and download images. Sure there are terms and conditions to comply with but the whole feel and functionality of the website is to be admired. This last week one of our clients looked into using an image from this website on a promotional mug. Just sign up, buy some credits, download and away you go. A great example of how a website should make your life easier.

This is one of the busiest times for diary and calendar suppliers. Now people like my husband are totally anti-paper and have a clean desk, ‘everything must be electronic’ attitude to life. Even he though had to say that he was a little surprised when the Redbows Desk Top Calendars arrived this week. You see most people think that a calendar is something to put on a wall but these desk calendars are petite, and what’s more they have a useful functional format and interesting photos. Their real benefit is not just as a calendar off course (you get that from Microsoft Outlook) - what they actually do is bring something to your creative environment, adding a little bit of colour, and some imagery to refresh your mind and take you away from that screen. With a reasonable imprint area they also offer a great way to keep your contact details within easy eye-contact.

A little thought is sometimes needed when planning for large consignments. Promotional gifts can be supplied bulk or individually packed, dependent upon the quantities and weights involved. The larger the quantity (and weight) the higher the quantity of cartons that will be used. These themselves may then be placed on a Euro Pallet (800×1200mm), banded and shrink-wrapped. Such an approach makes a lot of sense within manufacturing facilities and distribution depots. Using a standard sized Euro pallet means that it is easy to load and off-load lorries across Europe, using local forklift facilities. However, at the final point of delivery, logistics problems can arise, where a client does not have such facilities. The answer is to either hire a local forklift service, ask for a lorry with tailgate and delivery personnel or ask for the consignment to be broken down at a distribution centre into more manageable lots. The problem with the latter is that boxes can then go missing - yes it does happen unfortunately. So, even though the former approach may add a little more to the delivery costs it can avoid this potential problem. If you have any doubts as to the logistics required check with our promotional gifts consultants, who will be more than happy to guide you and provide volume, weight and other consignment information. As a rule of thumb a one-person lift is taken to be 20kgs and even this can be difficult for some people. If you take the quantity of gifts ordered and multiply this by their individual net weights you can get a good idea of much you will need to plan for their delivery.