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DO YOU gift? How much gifting happens in your corporate environment?
Ugh, I can’t stand that use of the noun as a verb. I’m usually quite tolerant of language use – I don’t much care how you say it, as long as I can understand it, but to me ‘gifting’ just sounds ugly.
As a journalist and editor of a magazine, I’ve been on the receiving end of much gifting over the years. It’s always astonished me how much money is spent on little frills and furbelows aimed at sweetening or flattering the recipient.
But I’d been getting these gifts for a long time before I realised just how big an industry ‘gifting’ had become.
That was when a friend decided that PR was no longer making her enough steady income, and she was going to go into the business of ‘gifting’. Gift importers, gift wholesalers, gift agencies (also known as gift houses)… you name it, we’ve got it.
And they can supply you with any gift imaginable, from luxurious blankets to scented candles to gimmicky flash sticks. In fact, the gifting industry has its own body, Corporate Gifts Association of South Africa or CGSA. And I hear that corporate gifts are a proven marketing tool.
So I’m not going to rubbish the industry (despite my loathing of the term ‘gifting’).
But I am going to ask a question that I think is pertinent: is the money – which, I’m told, could mount to billions of rand – spent on branded pens and memory sticks wisely spent? Could it be spent more effectively?
I was in a meeting not long ago where gifts were under discussion. I listened with interest to how the decision was made; it seemed to me that it all amounted to appeal – would the recipients like a memory stick or a cute little bottle opener-cum-torch better?
I found myself remembering some of the gifts PR companies have sent me over the years. Tucked away in my drawers somewhere are a lone silver napkin ring, a gorgeous crystal glass and a large knitting needle.
There was some clever point being made with the knitting needle (point, geddit?), as is often the case with gifts sent by PR companies to journalists. But if you want to really hammer home the point, wouldn’t you be wiser to send both knitting needles, in the hope that they’ll get used by the recipient – and thus provide a regular reminder of the sending company?
Wouldn’t it be better to send a set of napkin rings, discreetly branded perhaps?
Really, to send only one of what should be a set turns out to be as worthless as my favourite useless PR gift of all time.
This was a video box (back in the days when we still watched videos) where the cover was an invitation to the movies – clever, until you opened the box. The bright person who conceived the idea had decided to carry through the movie theme by filling the box with popcorn.
So all over town, journalists cracked open the box to unleash a deluge of popcorn all over their clothes and the dark stick-on tiles of wall-to-wall carpet under their desks. I was still finding errant bits of popcorn weeks later – and not thinking too kindly of the company who’d sent me this little ‘gift’.
Wouldn’t it be nice if promotional gifts had real meaning? That huge industry spend could do a helluva lot to change things in South Africa (if it really amounts to billions) if creative minds went to work on it.
How about this: for your festive season ‘gifting’, why not load a memory stick with images and info about your favourite cause?
You could go for community-led animal welfare, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital, Gift of the Givers, Eseltjiesrus Donkey Sanctuary, The Smile Foundation, Hospice, Women and Men Against Child Abuse, whatever you like – and then send your gift out with a message saying that the budget you would normally have spent on gifts has been sent to the charity or cause instead.
Or you could make the gift itself do the work: a cunningly created collapsible box for collecting old clothes/food, perhaps, with a promise that the charity will collect when called. Or a kit for starting your own food garden which includes info on how to donate to an NGO supporting food gardens in poor areas.
I know some people in this industry are thinking this way already.
As we head towards prime ‘gifting’ season, I hope more will take up the challenge, and that corporates will take stock of the amount they spend on bottles of whisky and cute traveller’s alarm clocks – and ask instead for new and creative ways to turn their budget to good use.
- Fin24
*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own.
Ugh, I can’t stand that use of the noun as a verb. I’m usually quite tolerant of language use – I don’t much care how you say it, as long as I can understand it, but to me ‘gifting’ just sounds ugly.
As a journalist and editor of a magazine, I’ve been on the receiving end of much gifting over the years. It’s always astonished me how much money is spent on little frills and furbelows aimed at sweetening or flattering the recipient.
But I’d been getting these gifts for a long time before I realised just how big an industry ‘gifting’ had become.
That was when a friend decided that PR was no longer making her enough steady income, and she was going to go into the business of ‘gifting’. Gift importers, gift wholesalers, gift agencies (also known as gift houses)… you name it, we’ve got it.
And they can supply you with any gift imaginable, from luxurious blankets to scented candles to gimmicky flash sticks. In fact, the gifting industry has its own body, Corporate Gifts Association of South Africa or CGSA. And I hear that corporate gifts are a proven marketing tool.
So I’m not going to rubbish the industry (despite my loathing of the term ‘gifting’).
But I am going to ask a question that I think is pertinent: is the money – which, I’m told, could mount to billions of rand – spent on branded pens and memory sticks wisely spent? Could it be spent more effectively?
I was in a meeting not long ago where gifts were under discussion. I listened with interest to how the decision was made; it seemed to me that it all amounted to appeal – would the recipients like a memory stick or a cute little bottle opener-cum-torch better?
I found myself remembering some of the gifts PR companies have sent me over the years. Tucked away in my drawers somewhere are a lone silver napkin ring, a gorgeous crystal glass and a large knitting needle.
There was some clever point being made with the knitting needle (point, geddit?), as is often the case with gifts sent by PR companies to journalists. But if you want to really hammer home the point, wouldn’t you be wiser to send both knitting needles, in the hope that they’ll get used by the recipient – and thus provide a regular reminder of the sending company?
Wouldn’t it be better to send a set of napkin rings, discreetly branded perhaps?
Really, to send only one of what should be a set turns out to be as worthless as my favourite useless PR gift of all time.
This was a video box (back in the days when we still watched videos) where the cover was an invitation to the movies – clever, until you opened the box. The bright person who conceived the idea had decided to carry through the movie theme by filling the box with popcorn.
So all over town, journalists cracked open the box to unleash a deluge of popcorn all over their clothes and the dark stick-on tiles of wall-to-wall carpet under their desks. I was still finding errant bits of popcorn weeks later – and not thinking too kindly of the company who’d sent me this little ‘gift’.
Wouldn’t it be nice if promotional gifts had real meaning? That huge industry spend could do a helluva lot to change things in South Africa (if it really amounts to billions) if creative minds went to work on it.
How about this: for your festive season ‘gifting’, why not load a memory stick with images and info about your favourite cause?
You could go for community-led animal welfare, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital, Gift of the Givers, Eseltjiesrus Donkey Sanctuary, The Smile Foundation, Hospice, Women and Men Against Child Abuse, whatever you like – and then send your gift out with a message saying that the budget you would normally have spent on gifts has been sent to the charity or cause instead.
Or you could make the gift itself do the work: a cunningly created collapsible box for collecting old clothes/food, perhaps, with a promise that the charity will collect when called. Or a kit for starting your own food garden which includes info on how to donate to an NGO supporting food gardens in poor areas.
I know some people in this industry are thinking this way already.
As we head towards prime ‘gifting’ season, I hope more will take up the challenge, and that corporates will take stock of the amount they spend on bottles of whisky and cute traveller’s alarm clocks – and ask instead for new and creative ways to turn their budget to good use.
- Fin24
*Mandi Smallhorne is a versatile journalist and editor. Views expressed are her own.
