The party season is nearly here – and companies all over the UK are gearing up to make marketing statements with a series of planned advertising gifts. Organisations within the industry are providing information and resources designed to help manufacturers and distributors find the buyers looking for their products – and to help the buyers looking for those products find the right ones for their promotions.
Designing a festive promotion, indeed designing any promotion, requires a lot of information. You need to know what kinds of products are suited both to your campaign and your audience. You also need to know where to get the advertising gifts in question – who’s providing them, what kinds of bulk discounts you can expect and – most importantly – the kind of branding opportunity open to you with the sorts of advertising gifts you’ve decided to use.
There are multiple opportunities for branding and brand awareness during the festive season – for companies who wish to strengthen their associations with their clients and partners; and for companies who want to give their customers and the buying public a way of associating them.
Choosing the right product to run a festive promotion is a complex process. It involves advertisinggifts manufacturers, whose products form the basis of every successful promotion; product distributors, whose ability to source and provide (not to mention brand) large volumes of product are key to getting a message out; and the buyers and promotion designers, whose ability to identify the right kinds of products and connect with their suppliers is crucial to ensuring the message is the right one.
The role of promotions designer often falls to an advertising agency – just one of the many satellite services whose existence is vital to the success of the advertising gifts industry. Creative thinking is what paves the way for a product to be associated with a brand. By creating a campaign designed to align a company with a specific aspect of the festive season, the advertising company is able to identify the kinds of advertising gifts best suited to the message.
Almost any product can make successful festive advertising gifts, provided that its association with both brand and season is clearly defined. From useful products – like umbrellas, gloves and hats, or even branded breathalysers – to specifically festive ones (gift boxes; hampers; wine), it’s the truth behind the association that makes or breaks a campaign. Pick advertising gifts that are appropriate to the target audience and the time of year, and your campaign is all but guaranteed to successfully align your brand with the emotions and ideas you are aiming at.
Clearly every festive promotion requires a network of complementary services and ideas in order for it to work at maximum effectiveness. Finding a source capable of combining all these services and information streams, then, is often the cornerstone of a well worked festive promotion. To be connected is to have the world at your fingertips!