Another week has passed by, here is what happened here at BizGiftGuru:

To brand or not to brand: that is the question that I tried to answer.

Winner of the Watch Gift Set Contest was FC. However he stepped aside and did not claim his prize and I will be sending it to Marketing Deviant who ended up in th second place. Please contact me for the delivery arrangements.

BizGiftGuru sponsors contest at GatherSuccess - this blog about giveaways is giving away 100 branded pens.

And it is time to get back to business, holiday seasons are over .

Gifts for new subscribers - Time vs. IHT - how the incentives offered by Time and International Herald Tribune compare.

I spent most of the last week traveling and working with my suppliers, so there was not too much time to read around other blogs. But still, there are few interesting finds:

There are many things that can carry company brands, one of the most expensive ones would probably be a Formula 1 car. How much of a brand awareness does it create ? If you find plastering your logo on Formula 1 car too expensive, you can check how much sponsoring and exotic would cost ?

Back to logos for a while. At the end you need the logo first before you can print it on anything. Many people do not realize how much do logos develop and change over time. Here is a look at few car manufacturers. And here are some ideas for few companies, what to do with their branding to be seen as Web 2.0 cool .

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I keep getting in the mail all kinds of irresistible offers for magazine subscriptions with all sorts of freebies offered in return. Usually I simply throw them to the waste paper bin right away as I have way too many things to read already. But from time to time some of them make it through my mailbox firewall and I do get a chance to see what is on offer. And so here is an opportunity to compare how valuable new subscribers are to Time Magazine and International Herald Tribune. These are also the examples of promotional products or business gifts that do not have to be branded.

Time Magazine offers free binoculars with either 12 or 24 months subscription. The 12 months deal costs HKD702 (around USD90), 24 months HKD1,350 (around USD175).

I know this particular model quite well. The binoculars are not too bad, actually better than they look on the order form. Pretty handy and compact piece of equipment but not exactly professional stuff. But comparing to some gifts Time Magazine featured in the past, this one is quite an improvement. I would say a fair deal for someone who spends 90 dollars for a magazine, but not really a motivation to sign up for 2 years.

International Herald Tribune’s Order Form (click to view) offers 362 issues (12 + 2 months) for HKD2,850 (about USD367) or 90 issues (3 + 2 months) for HKD974 (about USD125). There is no gift with the 90 issues subscription but IHT offers a Waterman Hemisphere ball pen with the 362 issues deal.

It is not exactly clear form the photo what version of Waterman Hemisphere is the one offered, but I would suspect it would be one of the cheaper ones that retail between USD30 - USD40 a piece. This is a gift that comes with USD367 subscription.

So who does better job here ?

Time is offering a decent but a no name and non-professional product, IHT a nice pen from one of the most reputable pen manufacturers.My vote would go hands down for IHT and the Waterman Hemisphere pen. Although the pen is more expensive than the binoculars the difference is not as big as it may seem. What is very different however is the perceived value for the recipient and here Waterman definitely wins.

I think Time would be better off offering higher value brand name gifts in return for longer subscription period (at least 2 years) and have some simple souvenir ready for those who choose shorter periods.

But as I mentioned above these binoculars are a step forward. I remember a year or so back Time Magazine had a very cheap radio as a gift. Few weeks later they got slammed by one of their readers in the “Letters to the Editor” for that **** piece of plastic producing static and noise only … Well, that is what one gets for being cheap .

Popularity: 17% [?]

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The end and the beginning of the year is always a bit messy for me. End of the year most of the world is in the holiday mood and not much is happening. Then the new year kicks off with industry trade shows taking me to PSI in Europe and this year also to PPAI in the United States. The shows and the meetings at them result in lots of follow up work, unfortunately that has to wait. Why ? Because another holiday season starts right after - Chinese New Year … This year all got a bit more complicated by the severe weather in China but now it is time for the things to get back to normal again.

So what a person like me has to do once the festive season is over ?

• Recalculation of prices of all the products our clients buy regularly, a real headache of a job

• Finalizing development and sampling and testing of new products

• Follow up of all the stuff that came up during the January trade shows and meetings

• Visits to suppliers to facilitate the above

• Getting ready for the April trade shows in Asia - travel and hotel arrangements for customers, booth and showcase arrangements for us

• And in between getting rid of the mountains of correspondence that piled up during the weeks I was more away from than in the office

I love the holidays, but I hate what comes after them

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Alvin at Gather Success blog is getting ready for a major giveaway contest. His list of prizes is not yet final but already very impressive. And when someone talks about giveaway contest, some giveaways should be among the prizes.

This very BizGiftGuru joined in and sponsors one of the prizes. To let one of the winners to sample the power of BizGifts, BizGiftGuru is throwing in 100 pieces custom branded pens. There will be 8 styles and several colours to choose from.

As I have written in one of my previous posts, when you are not sure what to do, start with a pen. One lucky winner can soon do just that .

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Thanks to everybody who joined the mini contest here at BizGiftGuru. I used the Random.org to draw the winner. Haven’t tried that before and I hope I did it right …

Here is the result:

Congratulations to FC ! I will be contacting you for delivery arrangements.

All the others who took part in this contest will gain an extra entry in the next conest here, that will be coming soon !

Popularity: 30% [?]

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