Advertising Gifts

The difference between advertising gifts and desktop gifts is not very much at all; in fact, in the lower price bracket they are pretty much one and the same. Nevertheless, for many people, there is a major distinction between advertising gifts and, say, business gifts. 

In truth, one is seen as cheap and cheerful whereas the other, while not necessarily overly expensive, is definitely more of a gift than an advertisement.

Still further towards the top of the gift scale is the executive gift with all its connotations of wealth, luxury and affluence…or it should be! However, a glance at any run-of-the-mill business gift catalogue will reveal a marked discrepancy between your idea of an executive gift and  the catalogue publishers idea.

However, it's probably true that advertising gifts exist to overtly advertise a company and its products and within this definition there is a wealth of products that accomplish this and still manage to retain their credibility as an acceptable gift.

Desktop advertising gifts

Many items fall into this category and include coasters, aluminium coasters, acrylic coasters, leather coasters, calendar coasters, melamine coasters, mouse mats, computer mice, pottery mugs, plastic mugs, note pads, pad blocks, paperclips, paperweights, pencils, pens, rulers, letter openers, paper clip holder, post-it note pad, pencil sharpeners, staplers, wrist rests, erasers, highlighters, telephone cord untangler, message holder and pen pots…all desktop advertising gifts, and none the worse for that.

Other advertising gifts

Away from the desk other products in this category are air fresheners, car air fresheners, frisbees, plastic boomerangs, yo-yo, shaped rulers, sliding puzzles, solitaires, reflectors, ice scrapers, plastic paperclips, bottle-top paperclip holders, shaped plastic letter openers, peg message holders, plastic key fobs, fridge magnets, plastic bottle openers, glove-box sewing kits, glove-box shoe polishing kits, instant shoe shine kits and toothbrush kits…among others.

You might think that some of these items are distinctly naff…and they probably are but, year on year, they enjoy excellent sales and consistently appear in the business gift catalogues.

Advertising gift pens

And then, of course, there is the ubiquitous advertising pen…starting at around 7p or 8p it just keeps on going. So how much do you want to spend? 20p, 30p 40p…whatever figure you come up with there will be a pen in that price bracket.

You can get an advertising pen shaped like a football, a coke can, a ski, a soft pen, a cricket bat, a baseball bat, a hard pen, a barrel pen, a pencil slim pen, a stick pen…and on it goes. But how about with a cap, or without a cap or perhaps you want a twist action ball pen, a push action pen, a push-on, a retractable pen, …the mind is overwhelmed by the variety advertising pens.

And the copywriters just keep on dreaming the stuff up as you will see from the following descriptions of, what are after all, just common-or-garden advertising pens.

Here we go; translucent colours, frosted barrel, clear finish, bubble finish, soft rubber pen, big pen, little pen, see-through pen, bullet pen, capsule pen, frozen pen, glacier pen, extra sleek pen and chunky pen… and that's all before you start on pencils with their propel, repel, expel mechanisms and bendy shapes.

Pick up any business gift catalogue and scan the 25 page selection of "writing instruments" and then consider that this is only a small part of available advertising gifts.