The Promotional Gifts Blog

For years the UK has looked at the US with envious eyes, with American popular culture, politics and sport securing prime time slots here in Britain. Whether it’s TV shows such as Friends and Glee, or round the clock coverage of Presidential elections, Britain seems to have a special fascination with all things American.

Trends and fashions that emerge in the States also find their way over here, as do business practices and even language, so it is a fair bet that if something is popular in the US, it’s only a matter of time before it catches on here.

The annual Superbowl event that has recently taken place this year in Dallas was another American event to be broadcast in the UK, but while the actual game was screened live, one of the main features of the Superbowl event was missed everywhere outside of the United States.

The Superbowl has become synonymous with the adverts that accompany it and because of the vast audience figures that the event commands, advertisers use the occasion to wow the country with their latest, most expensive commercials. The slot is so popular that the Superbowl offers some of the most lucrative airtime of the year for broadcasters, with eye-watering sums of money paid to secure the prime slots.

In the UK we have traditionally not had an event that has dominated the attentions of advertisers to the same extent, and with diminishing audiences due to more digital channels, will the UK ever adopt this very American tradition?

Well there is an argument to say that it is happening already, with the Simon Cowell driven goliaths of the television word, Britain’s Got Talent and The X-Factor generating huge audiences of up to 18 million. With audiences that huge, broadcasters can charge far more for advertisers to ply their wares and equally, advertisers can use these events to launch their new adverts.

Although not on the same scale as the American counterpart, these television events have helped to breathe new life into a once flagging advertising industry, bringing vital income to commercial broadcasters at an important time. This success does depend on the continued popularity of the Simon Cowell juggernaut, but if producers continue to come up with shows that capture the public imagination in the same way, UK advertisers could well have their own Superbowl moments here in Britain.

It is important for these advertisers not to rest on their laurels when launching big money adverts and ensure that they back these up with secondary marketing campaigns. Even with the wittiest, most popular adverts, it is important to enhance these with campaigns to make sure that consumers remember who the advert is featuring and get them to interact further with your brand.

Using social networks can help you to interact with viewers who like your ad, and using physical items such as corporate gifts can put something real into the hands of your fans, giving people a physical representation of your digital campaign. Corporate gifts are a vital part of the branding process and can be an effective way of increasing brand awareness on the back of an advertising campaign.

If your company is looking to advertise in the UK equivalent of the Superbowl schedule, make sure you use items such as corporate gifts to back up your campaign.

Financial crisis? What financial crisis?! Anyone who took an interest in yesterday’s transactions on the last day of the football transfer window will be wondering what all the economic fuss is about as tens of millions of pounds were spent on players.

£35m for Andy Carroll, a British record breaking £50m for Fernando Torres and £21.3m for David Luiz. The debates are already raging about whether the transfer window is fulfilling its purpose, given that it was originally brought in to stop the kind of panic buying and massively inflated prices that we now see at the end of January.

But with the stakes now higher in football than ever before, is it only natural that clubs can charge what they like when their best players are coveted at the last minute? Surely it is just a simple case of supply and demand that will dictate the huge prices clubs are forced to pay when going for a transfer at the death?

The merits of the transfer window will be discussed in much greater detail than on this humble blog, but it seems obvious that whether it is there or not, clubs will have a huge demand for players who are not in great supply, and the higher the demand the more these clubs can charge for them. Whether the transfer window stays or goes, high demand will dictate that clubs will pay over the odds for players when they feel that they desperately need them, putting a deadline in place simply speeds the process up.

It is the same in all businesses, the more an item is in demand then the more the seller can charge people for it. Football takes these principles and magnifies them for the world to see. Putting a deadline on this would appear to drive up the price but in reality it is simply shortening a process that would have happened anyway.

The Corporate Gifts Company can illustrate this principle perfectly. As will usually happen in the world of marketing and events, there is always a call for last minute promotional items such as corporate gifts. Whether it’s for staff at a conference or for customers at a show, corporate gifts can often be the items that are called for in a hurry.

The Corporate Gifts Company specialise in last minute corporate gifts and have a wide range of products that can be branded and despatched in anything between 24hrs and 3 days. If you happen to have a huge demand for something in a short space of time however, you do not need to pay hugely inflated prices. Prices are the same whether you need something in 3 months or 3 days so you don’t have to worry about paying more because you are facing a tight deadline.

It may not be a transfer window but when organising a corporate event there will always be a tight time window in which to organise the function. If you are right at the end of that window then you can rely on The Corporate Gifts Company to fulfil your demand without having to pay a premium. The will be a few football club owners with sore cheque books who will be looking on with envious eyes this morning.

We’ve all been told that 2011 is set to a tough year on the rocky road back to recovery and the predictions would appear to be true if the latest data on marketing budgets is anything to go by.

According to a recent IPA/BDO Bellwether survey (covered in Brand Republic) marketing budgets have dropped by 5.4% ahead of 2011, coming off the back of a cautiously optimistic rise at the start of 2010. So what will that mean for marketing activities, advertising and corporate gifts over the year to come?

Oddly, whenever there is an economic downturn it always seems to be the marketing and sales budgets that are the first to be slashed, even though these are the very departments that will be charged with gaining the vital leads needed to help the company through the hard times.

With a weakened budget it is easy to think that quality and quantity of output will drastically decrease, but the overall effect may well more positive than expected.

What can often happen when budgets are constrained is that a lot of the expensive but less effective marketing streams are abandoned in favour of more successful methods that deliver a better ROI.

Marketing bosses and staff are forced to think of more innovative ways of marketing their brand and gaining visibility in ways that won’t break the bank, so new ideas are often implemented in a way that will look to save the company money.

So which marketing avenues should your company keep and where else should you look to market your brand while keeping an eye on the budget?

TV Advertising

Despite taking a battering over the last few years, TV advertising has gone through something of a revival recently, with programmes such as the X-Factor drawing in record numbers of viewers and the new “viral” aspect to some adverts attracting a lot of attention. If you are lucky enough to be able to afford to go down the TV route, a clever and witty advert can still have the power to market your brand effectively, so even in the digital age it should not be discounted.

Corporate Gifts

This is marketing with the personal touch and it is still a popular and effective way of showing your best clients and hottest prospects that they have your attention. Getting your brand in front of the right person is always a challenge and corporate gifts can show your brand off in the best possible light.

Brand consistent corporate gifts can be used to get your core message across while also providing your recipients with the unique feeling that receiving a gift brings. Even if your budget has taken a knock, corporate gifts are still a crucial way of keeping your best clients onside and getting the attention of those prospects that count.

Online Marketing

This field of marketing has continued growing year on year as the potential of online marketing has been fully understood. You Tube has provided a great portal for free advertising to appear whilst social networks and search engine optimisation (SEO) have provided effective ways of getting new leads. This has proven to be a very effective way of marketing a brand and a company and has become a must for every marketing department.

Newspaper Advertising

As online marketing grows the opposite is happening to advertising through newspapers. Circulation numbers across the majority of major newspapers are dropping as people turn their attentions online and the high cost of placing a newspaper ad is proving to be discouraging to most businesses. With marketing budgets decreasing and new marketing avenues opening up all the time in the digital world, it might be time to drop the newspaper ads and focus on getting press attention through PR instead.

It promises to be a tough year for all departments, but a reduction in budget could be a good opportunity to audit your current activities and find new, more effective avenues in which to operate.

The end of the year is one of the few times where everyone stops to reflect on the months that have passed. Newspapers dedicate column inches to dissecting what has gone on over the last 12 months, while television shows highlight what they consider to be the highlights and the lowlights of the year.

This period of reflection is rare in the modern world, where everything has to be on demand and tailored to meet our requirements. Whether it’s news, transport or food, everything is all about the now and those that don’t keep up are left behind.

Whether we like it or not, the fast pace of the world has us all caught up in it, and from sandwiches on the train to 24hr news, the fast and disposable nature of all aspects of life are becoming a normal part of our days.

Food and information are both consumed in the same way, quickly and with little regard for quality content, and it seems that the time for taking in and appreciating what we are exposed to in everyday life is being restricted to the bare minimum.

It is becoming the same in marketing, with modern campaigns designed to launch themselves onto our televisions and a computer screens with witty ideas and catchy songs only to fade into the background once they are considered old or annoying after a matter of weeks.

This disposability of marketing content spreads throughout a campaign, with all of the peripherals being affected. Physical objects such as promotional gifts that are used to raise awareness of the campaign are soon jettisoned to the waste paper bin once the content becomes old fashioned or unfashionable. As well as the obvious environmental concerns attached with that it also raises the question of how sustainable a marketing campaign can be by using this method, and brings into doubt the longevity of any effect it may have.

So for those who are looking to the long term, what options are there for building a brand identity and securing your reputation of quality in the eyes of existing and potential customers?

For those that want to aim for the longer term and look beyond the disposable nature of some promotional products, executive corporate gifts can be the answer. They are like a fine steak compared to a cheeseburger or Newsnight compared to Live at Studio 5 (if you’ll pardon the comparisons!), corporate executive gifts offer a more refined, meaningful and long standing item that will look beyond the instant and build your brand with the people that matter in the long term. Short term marketing certainly has its place, but establishing your brand in the eyes of your customers with premium corporate gifts will have a more meaningful impact than sending more disposable promotional gifts aimed to highlight your latest campaign.

Marketing to your best customers shouldn’t be about blinding them with your latest flashy campaign, it should be about building a lasting relationship based on high quality principles, so sending them a disposable gift shouldn’t even be considered for your very best trading partners.

Take your foot off the gas and build for the long term with your best customers in order to build a strong and lasting partnership that will benefit you both. If you are looking to increase your brand presence when marketing to new and potential customers, use corporate gifts to make a powerful impression that will set you above your competition, and make sure you are not using disposable marketing with your best clients.

Football, it’s a funny old game. People in the UK follow the sport obsessively, and the amount of money now rattling around the Premier League has only added to the intrigue surrounding the top clubs and their players. So when the best paid player at the richest team in the league hands in a transfer request, it tends to grab the headlines.

For those who don’t follow the sport, the Carlos Tevez saga that has dominated the back pages this weekend has centred on the highest paid player at one of the world’s richest clubs demanding to leave after less than 2 years wearing their famous blue shirt. Add to the equation that he left their big city rivals Manchester United to come and play for them, plus the amount of attention that City drew to this fact when he joined, and you have a very intriguing story indeed.

So stepping back slightly from the accusations and recriminations, what can drive a talented player at a leading team being paid the highest salary to declare their intention to leave?

Whatever industry you are in, there are always external factors that will affect your happiness at work. Whether it’s family issues, relationships with your bosses or problems with how you’re managed, there will always be factors other than the size of your pay cheque that will determine your levels of workplace satisfaction.

Although it is important, it isn’t just the size of your pay cheque that dictates how happy you will be to go to work. When you enter the office on a Monday morning, there are lots of factors that will influence how happy you will be to take your seat for another week, so let’s take a look at what might make even the best paid of employees look elsewhere.

Don’t Get On With The Boss

No matter how well you’re paid, if you don’t see eye to eye with those in charge it can make even the best paid job go down the toilet. If you don’t feel listened to or feel that your opinions are swept aside it can be quite difficult to maintain a successful working relationship. It can also leave you with a feeling that any progression within the company could be doomed for the start, and may well tempt your best staff to look elsewhere. Everybody is different, so make an effort to get on with all employees. Be shown to be a good listener and don’t just dismiss other ideas, even if you don’t agree with them.

Lack of Incentives & Motivation

Motivation and incentives don’t just arrive in the form of a weighty bank transfer every month and some of the biggest breakdowns in a working relationship can arrive when staff don’t feel appreciated. There’s nothing worse than giving your all for an employer who takes it for granted, and using incentives such as corporate gifts to show your gratitude can go along way towards making staff feel appreciated. Sometimes just a simple “thank you” can go a long way, and using corporate gifts to give employees something to aim for can be an effective way of focussing their efforts and rewarding achievement.

Troubles At Home

No matter how good things are at work, even the best managers can’t make everything good at employees’ homes. They can quickly become problems at work though if managers are not seen to understand or be sympathetic. Although you can’t control what happens outside of work, have a sympathetic approach. By helping employees to deal with their external problems without work being a factor you will greatly endear your organisation to them and stop their eyes from wandering elsewhere.

There are many factors outside of the pay packet that will influence levels of staff morale, and where possible managers should look at these as opportunities to increase their employees’ motivation and enjoyment in their role. Even when you’re one of the best paid footballers in the world and playing for a team that are challenging for the title, things can quickly go sour if all events are not managed correctly. Be a good listener who is sympathetic to employees’ needs and offer incentives and motivational tools such as corporate gifts to make sure staff feel listened to and appreciated. And sometimes, just saying thank you might just do the trick.