Business Gift Catalogues

Not everyone is comfortable surfing the net for their advertising gift requirements and this is wherebusiness gift and promotional merchandise catalogues come into their own. These publications are ideal for people who like to browse and pick up ideas.

Business gift and promotional merchandise catalogues are produced by trade groups, importers and suppliers and are anything from 112 pages up to around 180 pages. These catalogues are used by the various gift houses and distributed to their customers and sometimes a general mailing list.

The usual business gift contents are pretty standard and are often listed in a similar fashion to the following headings.

Desk accessories, timepieces & electronics, executive selection, computer accessories, writing instruments, conferences & exhibitions, calendars & diaries, advertising & promotional, lifestyle, crystal & china, umbrellas, golf, clothing & headgear and bags & cases...and that's without thinking about all the separate catalogues issued by specialist manufacturers.

Desk Accessories

Here you will find aluminium coasters, plastic coasters, gnalvic puzzle coasters, in fact, coasters ad infinitum.

There is a proliferation of mouse mats in their many guises along with an almost limitless selection of advertising rulers from scale rulers to cheap school rulers that might be accurate or not.

Paperclips, memo holders, paper blocks and pads all feature strongly in this section which would not be complete without sticky pads.

Timepieces & Electronics Advertising Gifts

This group of products used to be called clocks & watches but has recently acquired some other products hence the electronics appendage.

As you might expect there are watches galore but mainly from the very cheap end of the market although the Victorinox watches from Swiss Army are anything but cheap and are obviously a quality product.

Clocks are more often than not electronic desk clocks with lots of additions including weather forecasts, alarm, date and temperature.

The electronic part of the title is covered by a selection of calculators, radios and MP3players.

Executive Selection 

Here is where catalogue business gift and promotional merchandise catalogue publishers always seem to struggle to find the right products for the heading. Often their idea of a corporate executive gift is a touch ambitious. There is nothing of note in the catalogue on my desk save the Swiss Army products, Waterman and Rotring pens. As for the rest, well, let’s leave it there, shall we?

Computer Accessories 

This is a much more interesting section and has gone past the mouse mat stage with lots of USB based products such as flash drives, hub pads, laser pointers, mobile phone chargers and a selection of optical mice in various sizes and colours.

Writing Instruments

Promotional pens and pencils to the rest of us! Whatever the definition, you can spend an awful lot of money or be a real cheapskate in this section of the catalogue. In fact, anything from Cross and Mont Blanc in the three and four figures down to golf style pencils for a few pennies as well as crayons, highlighters and erasers.

Conference & Exhibition

Conference and exhibition advertising gifts has just about every conceivable variation and colour on the bag and carrier theme along with a wide selection of portfolios, zipped cases and folders in everything from luxury leather to PVC. As you would expect there are innumerable badges - slimline aluminium badges, aluminium window badges, conference name badges, ID badges - lanyards, bottled water and promotional drink cans.

Calendars & Diaries

Normally promotional calendars and corporate executive desk diaries are all the rage around the turn of the year although some companies issue half-yearly calendars from July.

There’s a handsome choice of corporate pocket diaries, desk diaries and personal organizers in an assortment of bindings from PU to various leathers.Promotional calendars live in a world of their own with illustrations of animals, scenic views, females and company products on wall calendars and desk calendars to say nothing of calendar coasters.

Advertising Giveaways

Here’s a selection of cheap and cheerful advertising giveaways which, alphabetically, runs the gamut from badges to yo-yos. Although seen by many as unmitigated tat there’s enough worthwhile stuff here to run a different sales, advertising and marketing programme every day of the year without any repetition.

Perennial favourites are advertising and promotional confectionery, key fobs, button badges, soft toys, puzzles, stickers, balloons, ice scrapers, stress balls, logobugs, actually, a veritable treasure chest of low cast advertising and promotional giveaways.

Lifestyle Gifts

I guess it all depends on what is your own personal lifestyle but in this surprisingly large section there’s enough to think about with advertising binoculars, bottles, promotional cameras, hampers and on and on.

Swiss Army products from Victorinox are here in abundance with an amazing collection of Swiss Army pen knives and the ever popular Mag-Lites. Aluminium drinking bottles and other insulated travel mugs are plentiful although you may be surprised to see a dozen or so advertising metal tape measures featured in this section. Cooler bags, hampers and glove box atlases complete this section.

Corporate Crystal & China

One of the more expansive selections in any business gift and corporate merchandise catalogue running from an earthenware mug through to some heavyweight china from Wedgewood and Dartington; certainly enough here for many corporate executive gifts. Paperweights and presentation crystal add to the overall class and quality of this section.

Promotional Umbrellas

Umbrellas can be a fashion accessory or just a device to keep the rain off. However, as this section illustrates. there’s a huge market for corporate umbrellas, promotional umbrellas and advertising umbrellas. There’s a huge choice here from briefcase telescopic umbrellas to garden parasols and all with a healthy advertising area.

Golf promotional gifts

It seems that almost anything can be branded and presented as a promotional golf gift as can be seen by a cursory glance at this section. Golf balls, tees, caps, markers, penknives, golf bags, towels, tee shirts, polo shirts, umbrellas, scorecards, pencils, china and crystal are all served up as promotional gifts for the golfer.

Corporate Clothing & Promotional Headgear

Anyone used to flat caps and trilby hats as headgear will almost certainly be bemused by the twenty pages that are needed to cover promotional clothing & headgear. However, time marches on and there are no flat caps or trilby hats here just an enormous choice of baseball style caps, bobble hats and beanie hats along with something called a fashion hat; but that’s a matter of opinion.

Clothing has an infinite variety of tee shirts, polo shirts, sweat shirts, jumpers, fleeces, body warmers and hoodies. There are some smart office shirts and slacks along with the work jackets and boiler suits.

Clothing has an infinite variety of tee shirts, polo shirts, sweat shirts, jumpers, fleeces, body warmers and hoodies. There are some smart office shirts and slacks along with the work jackets and boiler suits.

Promotional Bags & Cases

This is another section that expands every year what with laptop cases, pilot cases, shoulder bags. tote bags, brief cases, rucksacks and the like as well as the modern shopping bag in some eye-catching psychedelic colours.

Specialist Catalogues Brochures

As well as the standard business gift and corporate merchandise catalogues there are countless other catalogues devoted to each of the products mentioned above…it’s truly a vast market place which is why there are so many business gift and promotional merchandise catalogues. 

Jack Ritchies is the author ofHow to Make Serious Money from Business Giftsand is Sales Director of Starlake Publishing Limited.

Jack has been involved in the recognition, awards and promotional gift business since 1983 and can be contacted at jr@starlakepublishing.co.uk