The Redbows Promotional Gifts Blog

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 (800x1200mm), 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.

Just a note to let you know (as if you didn’t already) that this time of year is the maddest for promotional gifts companies and their suppliers. The artwork guys really do feel the strain at this time of year and it is common for studios to get back logged. We do our best to keep them moving in the right direction and our advice is to think about avoiding anything beggining with the word ‘custom’ if you now want a December manufactured delivery. There are still many products available for personalisation which can be delivered in time for Christmas including calendars and diaries, hampers and gift baskets. All we ask is that if you have artwork make sure it is ‘good to go’ and if you need our design team to get involved, then we need to tee-them up for your project as soon as possible.

Our growing sales of promotional flashdrives has been quite staggering this year and we have recently announced an extended range - see the press release in our newsroom. We now have over 50 different models we can offer clients and a new customisation service. For high enough volumes we can offer clients the option to have a flashdrive manufactured to match their physical design. A recent development has been that of a battery-shaped one and more are in development. Wooden flashdrives are also now available. As with any custom product there can be extra costs to consider and there will always be a longer leadtime for deliveries.

Last Sunday, I took the family down to Covent Garden in London. It was a warm, dry November morning and I have to say that the area lived up to all expectations. The street performers were quite simply amazing. One, a juggler commented that his was the purest form of entertainment. He had been doing it for nearly 13 years and was so successful he still worked on the streets! Well this got me thinking back to the foundations of the promotional gifts industry. What are the purest gifts we supply, which can create the ‘buzz’ that this street entertainer had with an audience of over 300 people passing by? The truth is that there is no one gift that falls into this category. They all can. It just comes down to finding the right product and message, and delivering it in the most informative, interesting and educational way possible – at the right time. Just like the street juggler in Covent Garden that morning.

We recently went on a quad-biking day with some corporate clients and this got me thinking about how to make the memories of the day last longer. It reminded me of a golf tournament I played in several years ago. Often both types of events are relatively middle-off-the road priced. So if you have 10 to 20 clients what could you stretch your budget to? Well a really great way is to get a photographer for the day to take pictures of the key moments – such as the drive-off or start of a course. Then take more photos during the event and finally at the close down. With a little digital mastery and small printer in a local office these can then be superimposed onto a relevant magazine cover – image me on the cover of Golf Weekly or Quad Biking News and presented at an awards dinner or dropped off later as a personal thank you for attending. Other ideas include the supply of golf towls and balls, baseball caps and fleeces and other such items that are available in small quantities and can be easily customised for the day.

I am not saying that it rained on our parade last weekend but nothing really seemed to go right for us. The English rugby team did so well to reach the final but were just not good enough to beat the Springboks. So trying to get something positive out of this we quickly found this Pressure Kick game for some clients who just wanted to see an inter office rematch of the final. I loved the Saturday Daily Mail piece which compared members from the two rugby teams to cartoon characters. I also have to say that whilst it is brilliant to be up there in Formula One , I was left with this thought after the Brazilian Grand Prix: “Ferrari team, Maclaren drivers”, the clue is in the second word. If Hamilton had a co-driver/partner would he have made such a mess of that first corner? Oh well, at least we won the Conker championships this month and beat a Frenchman to boot.

You know they are there but very often we fail to recognise the needs of the less obvious groups within a company – yes I am talking the teams behind the sales and service activities – finance and operations. Why do I mention these now? Well consider a promotional gifts campaign aimed at increasing reseller sales of a particular product. Here the client may be focusing on purely the sales and service teams but more often than not we need to get buy-in from the company as a whole. Sure operations will process the purchase orders and finance raise the checks but these teams are staffed by humans not robots.

Accounts teams respond to a bit of stroking (PC interpretation required) and so remember to include them in your promotional campaign planning. How often do you have promotional gifts like a coaster or pen but fail to include them in the envelope when you send financial statements ? Anything you send into a finance department gets opened – so make them smile, make them remember you and above all include them in your promotional campaign.

I know a company that uses a lot of field service subcontractors. The one everyone loves the most (and the one who gets the most business) always gives each team a box of chocolates whenever he visits the company HQ – how inspiring. He realises that he needs everyone to buy-in and builds relationships with them all.