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.

Now you may be wondering if I am going to blog about the wonderful properties of carrots. Well hang fire. We have teamed up with a local baker this year who provides us with some wonderful promotional cakes and slices. So far we have supplied these to corporate customers who have used them to say ‘thank you’ to their staff but the options are infinite. Each one has a custom designed label (68x96mm) printed for the occasion and event. The baker provides us with quite a selection to choose from including: paradise, toffee, choc & nut brownies, muesli, choc fudge, almond, cherry bakewell, banana, krispy, ginger, apple, choc sweetie, lemon, coconut, banana and toffee, jame and cream, farmhouse and off course, my favourite - carrot cake. For anyone looking for something a little different for their clients and employees this coming party season then I can thoroughly recommend these mouth-watering gifts. 

What else could we wish for this weekend but a back-to-back win by the English rugby team in this year’s world cup. But who will be primed to take advantage of this next week with follow-up marketing if we beat the Springbok? It can happen – if the English pack dominates the field and keeps the ball tight. Fingers crossed for tonight then. Its a good job I brought home some rugby-shaped stress balls for the party we’re having at our house tonight.

Stress relievers are evolving into something of a fine art in the promotional gifts business. As tooling charges fall and volume manufacture moving to off-shore locations, the possibilities for customisation continue to increase. Leadtimes can be the only problem for large quantities that need to travel via container ship. However, if England win on Saturday I am sure we can print small runs in the UK for anyone interested in providing their customers with a little stress relief – after tonight we may need it.

An idea that works really well when selecting promotional gifts is brand-message metaphors. What this means is that you select a gift that reinforces your promotional tagline or a particular brand metaphor. It is always about impact with promotional gifts and so making the connection between the chosen giveaways and metaphors is of the utmost importance. For example, if you are promoting skiing holidays for fitness, offer a fleece cap or beanies. If your marketing proposition is that you are offering the most in the market, choose an over-sized promotional gift, like a large latter mug. Off course, the combinations are as endless as the gifts and metaphors mixes.

Our advise is to avoid the pitfalls – what may seem appropriate or funny to you might back-fire with your audience. A classic example of this is an insurance company offering promotional condoms – yes ideas like this really do get to the board room and yes, you can actually get these products (click Condomi) which are more appropriate to other campaigns like preventing teenage pregnancy and  sexually transmitted diseases. Believe it or not we were actually also asked for these along with pants and other items for giveaways at a world-famous male singers concert!

If in doubt or in need of any advice, I suggest you talk to one of our promotional gifts consultants – they have a non-judgemental, non-blushing clause in their contracts.

As we approach the Christmas season and with an every growing concern about the state of our planet, these new organic chocolate gifts really do seem to hit the mark. I tried a few and they are simply delicious. Hand made from white, milk or plain chocolate these organic truffles are packed in – yes you guessed it – fully recycled paper boxes available in one, three or seven pieces per box. I simply love chocolate gifts like this because they appeal to my ECO nature, have  a twist on the conventional and can be branded with a printed logo and message – just right for Christmas and most other occasions.

My sister recently gave birth to a wonderful baby daughter whilst travelling in India. During a Skype call she asked me to get hold of some English papers from the birth date for her return to the UK later in the year. Through Google I came across a great website (Historic Newspapers) offering this very same service. Using the website you can select from a range of newspapers and order them in leatherette gift boxes with gold or silver foil imprints.

Recently I found out that the same company were applying their concept to the world of business gifts. Here the focus is on rewarding an employee - for example supplying a newspaper to commemorate a specific milestone and/or the date they started with the company.

This is a wonderful, very personal and memorable type of business gift and one that I am sure the recipients would value and treasure for years to come – just as we hope my latest niece will in the years to come.

This week saw the National Incentives Show whose markething theme centred around a carrot – or to be more precise ‘more than a carrot’. I liked this concept because it exemplifies the two ends of a continuum with corporate gifts and any type of marketing incentives, from defined goal-linked incentives to general giveaways with a wider marketing message - each with a different set of corporate objectives.

Some clients use gifts as incentives and rewards. A great example of this is a corporate reselller rewards programe. Here branded items are offered to resellers who hit certain turnover targets and product shipment volumes. These gifts are generally towards the higher value end of the market and include items from our promotional gadgets range. Such a programme generally includes some form of added financial incentive such as capital bonds. At other end of the spectrum, we have clients using gifts simply as general giveaways to help build brand name awareness and keep contact details within easy reach. Here the goal is less financial and it is harder to pin down a specific Return on Investment (ROI) for the marketing activity as it is more holistic.

What the spectrum reveals in relation to corporate gifts and incentives is the wide range of uses to which they can be used and the reason why it is so important to match the right gifts to the marketing campaign and its objectives, something our Promotional Gifts Consultants are experts in.