Think think think

John Spain asks companies to send promotional gifts for the right reasons
I must say it's a pleasure to be editing this new newsletter for the promotional merchandise industry. I've already spoken to a number of interesting and thought provoking people who have given me some insight into the issues facing both the manufacturers and buyers of promotional goods.

I thought it might be useful, in this first issue, to offer you some unashamed impressions I have gained.

In writing this I must admit that, as a relative newcomer to the industry, I am hardly qualified to pass judgement on many of the things that readers will face on almost a daily basis.

However, having been a journalist in an industry which is all about marketing, I am more than qualified to talk about what it's like to be an end user, in other words, someone who has been bombarded with a huge array of promotional gifts over a period of several years.

Like most people who get involved in something for the first time, I was understandably excited when I received my first gift from a company. It was a glass paperweight and was sent to me as a Christmas present by one of the UK's major exhibition venues.

I couldn't wait to get home and show it to family and friends, indeed, it's still on my desk as we speak and fulfils its function perfectly, especially on summer days when the windows are open and papers begin to fly around the room. I've never had the heart to throw it out, mainly because I sentimentally remember its position as the first corporate gift I was ever sent. It looks set for a lengthy stay.

If only the same could be said for the catalogue of rubbish that I've been sent over the following few years. It sounds terribly ungrateful but I really wish most people hadn't bothered. Funnily enough, not because I didn't like the offending items but actually because I felt so sorry for the people who had sent them and how wrong they had clearly got their firm's marketing.

I have lost count of the number of times my colleagues and I eagerly opened parcels only to stare in dumb amazement at what was contained inside. There was the time a plate arrived in several pieces and was dispatched to the bin straight away. There was a box of chocolates that tasted so awful that the rest of it had a similar fate to that of the plate. How about the numerous occasions when something arrived and we had absolutely no idea who it was from or why we had been sent it?

Before promotional merchandise manufacturers everywhere start reaching for their pens, to write me a letter, or the phone, to give me an abusive call, let me state categorically that I do not blame them. Indeed, I think that most manufacturers will agree with me when I say this: Promotional merchandise has a huge and important role to play in the marketing story of a given company, but all too often its use has been poorly thought through and therefore been largely useless in its effect.

And the trouble is that people seldom accept the blame for these blunders. I bet many manufacturers have seen clients send out stuff which is totally unsuited to its task. When the item in question fails, the blame is given to it rather than the person who thought up such a ludicrous campaign. As a result that company decides not to use promo goods again and the whole industry suffers.

There is good evidence here that manufacturers should work with clients more in order to help them really analyse what they are trying to achieve. I'm sure there must be many that do.

It seems to me there is one fundamental thing that firms should do. You need to plan carefully and ask yourself exactly what you are trying to achieve. It is only by doing this that you can then go on to decide what sort of gift you are going to send and to whom. Here are some examples.

If you are announcing a new product or service it seems to me that you need to make your promotional items so relevant to what you are going to do and also so compelling that people will be drawn enthusiastically towards it. A few years ago I was sent a gift from a company that was launching a sports exhibition. In the parcel was a tube that contained a tennis ball, sweatband, towel and other sporting gear. It was so well put together and conceived that I simply had to go to the show to see if the reality was as exciting as the way it had been marketed. I put the date in my diary immediately.

If you simply want to give someone a present then it needs to be something that is totally relevant to them and in tune with current social thinking. It seems pretty pointless to give people cigarette lighters in this age of anti smoking. An opportunity for doing something quirky and up to date is coming up next summer when the soccer World Cup takes place, there will be so many opportunities to give your customers something that taps into their excitement and helps you reinforce your brand.

Perhaps you are wanting to enforce and maintain your brand in the eyes of both your existing and, perhaps more importantly, your potential clients. This needs to be something that is seen, not just by the recipient of the gift but by as many others as possible. A great example of this is something Eurostar did. At a press event it threw a year or so ago, each guest was given a goody bag. The bag itself was a high quality rucksack made in the firm's corporate colours with the Eurostar logo emblazoned on it. An old colleague of mine has used that rucksack every day going to and from work on two tubes and a train. How many hundreds of thousands of people have seen that bag and had the Eurostar brand reinforced by his using it? Inside the bag was a notepad, again branded with the company's logo. That has sat by my phone next to my front door ever since. Everybody that has come into my house has seen the pad and the Eurostar brand has been reinforced. It seems a simple but effective way of keeping the message alive.

There is one thing that needs to be underlined. Your use of promotional merchandise must not be the only thing you do. It has to form part of an integrated and, again, well thought out strategy. For the most part, people aren't daft, they can spot the gimmicks which have been given little thought.

It's a bit like Christmas. When you open your stocking on Christmas morning you can spot the presents that were bought in a rush on 24 December and the ones that were carefully thought through by someone who really identified what they were wanting to achieve in giving you that particular item. Just as the present you give somebody for Christmas can often say more about you than the recipient, so too does the corporate gift you send to a valued or potential client.

As I said at the beginning, these are my unashamed first impressions and it is entirely possible that I could have completely missed the point. If that is the case, or if you want to agree with something I've said, please drop me an email. That way we can get a debate going and hopefully work together to help make the industry even more successful.

I look forward to hearing your views

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