The Redbows Promotional Gifts Blog

There has been much talk about how environmentally friendly bio-fuels are this week. After being heralded as the major breakthrough we need in alternative energy it appears that they are not as environmentally friendly as we first thought. Now, news like this appeals to my fun side and I was wondering if the day would come when we can take a few cuttings from desk plants to power our cars on the way home. Perhaps a little unlikely for now, but did you know that desk top gardens are well within your graps? That’s right, they make the ultimate eco gifts – branded desktop plants and herbs.

Well my other half made it back from the Portuguese Moto GP this week and boy did it look as though he had fun. Packed with corporate merchandise and giveaways from the stalls outside the ground he walked into our office proudly waring his latest fleece. Later in the week panic set in as he noticed that the top of his ears had started to turn black and peal. He stated categorically that had he fallen when drunk there would have been far more damage. He thought the worse and we decided to let him sweat a little till we pointed out (in a giggle) that his other ear was also pealing – this modern day marvel had sunburn! Shame…Now the winner of this race was a new rookie Jorge Lorenzo and he certainly looked like someone worth watching.

Well you have just got to take your hat off to Danny Bamping of Bedlam Puzzles. We became a fan after watching him on Dragon’s Den and it is amazing to see how his company has grown since then. In a recent interview in Promotions Buyer, Bamping says that the promotional merchandise and corporate side of the business has grown to 15%. Now promotional toys and puzzles are a growing area for Redbows with sliding puzzles being a firm favourite. I guess what appeals is that they are so easy to brand, are great fun and come in at a relatively low unit costs. We have not really found anyone who has not experienced a winning formula and have seen these types of gifts used in campaigns targeting various demographics. Food for thought perhaps.

With our company mascot, Coco, never far from my feet, I still had to chuckle at the BMW advert in the Daily Telegraph on April Fool’s day. My husband is an ardent collector of these. This year’s – on a Canine Repellent Allow Protection system – was another master stroke. These adverts have been running since 2000 and are produced by their advertising agency WCRS – for a complete list of BMW ‘innovations’ click here. Off course as a Promotional Gifts Consultant I would be looking to provide something a little kinder for a pet promotion such as a our plastic pet bowls or branded dog leads.

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.