Gifts – from ballpoint pens to the Olympic Games

Promotional gift is a collective category that includes promotional gifts (usually distributed in large numbers) and business gifts (a means for saying thank you to business partners). Business gifts also form part of a company’s marketing strategy, therefore it is crucial to give away logoed, high-quality items. Promotional and business gifts reflect actual trends in both their looks and function. Nowadays electronic devices are the most popular, such as powerbanks, USB keys, speakers, etc. However, this growing segment is still much smaller than that of traditional gifts, e.g. the good old ballpoint pen.

According to Éva Váradi, sourcing and marketing director of Golding Reklámajándék Kft., one shouldn’t economise on promotional gifts as the more of them get used by people, the bigger the advertisement for the company is. Seasonality has always been characteristic of the market, but it is a new phenomenon that companies don’t spend the largest part of their promotional gift budget in the Christmas period any more – they have started to spend more on these gifts during the year than at the end of the year. The April-June period has become an important time in the promotional gift market.

Formerly one or two gifts were used in a single promotion, but these days companies purchase more, but cheaper gift products from the same budget. Győző Sauer, sales director of Absolut Gift informed our magazine that from promotional gifts (those distributed in large numbers) those smaller products are popular, which can be logoed well, e.g. sunglasses, fridge magnets. As for business gifts, it is very important for the product to have some kind of function; in this case reliability and quality are even more important than with promotional gifts. Absolut Gift pays special attention to offer unique gift solutions to partners. However, partners need to understand that this takes time. It is needless to say that the end result will be much more special than a standard gift with the company’s logo on it.

It is a big question in the promotional gift industry how long the products gift companies offer will be presented in the form of a catalogue. Catalogues are neither environmentally friendly nor cost-efficient. Ms Váradi revealed that their online shop can already offer much more than the catalogue, it is enough to mention that it makes instant cost calculation possible for gift packages of various compositions. But if there are no catalogues, what will differentiate small gift companies from the big players? Mr Sauer told our magazine that from classic BTL elements they prefer being present on the pages of trade magazines and they regularly send out newsletters to partners. The company is also a strategic partner of Trade magazine, so they are always present at their annual Business Days conference.

One form of business gifts is incentive travels, and organising these takes a lot of work and responsibility. It isn’t easy to choose the perfect location and to compile a programme that satisfies everyone. TENSI Kft. has been organising top-quality trips to destinations in both Hungary and abroad for more than 20 years. Managing director József Boros spoke to us about the recent drop in the number of incentive travels, although he said the situation improved a little in the last two years. He thinks that the success of incentive travels doesn’t exclusively depend on money. The main criteria based on which companies select destinations are safety, creativity and the gastronomy. Customers like programmes in Hungary, coach trips to neighbouring countries and this year to the Olympic Games. Mr Boros reckons that each trip is a new challenge for them if they wish to provide a service that is tailored to the customer’s individual needs.