One of the effects of the economic crisis has been the growth in popularity of pens as a promotional product. The recent research by PPAI has revealed that pens top the list of promotional products with the greatest advertiser/message recall due to usefulness or uniqueness:

The relatively low cost and the usefulness of the product itself make the pens the promotional product of choice especially when budget is the most important consideration. No wonder that many promotional products suppliers see the return of the pens to the top of their best seller list.

Looks like it is back to basics, back to pens …

Photo: promogifts

The current global financial crisis is slowly but surely spreading from banks and financial institutions to other sectors of (global) economy. How it does, can or will affect the BizGift industry ? I say it will but hopefuly (thanks to the nature of this industry) less than some other industries. Here is why that can be the case.

BizGift industry does not target the retail customers (at least not directly).

When crisis hits people start spending less. First go the pricy items (cars for example) but if the crisis hangs on even cheaper but non essential things remain unsold. Retail sales suffer. But BizGift products are not out there for people to buy. They are out there to motivate people to buy other stuff.

When sales are falling companies have even more reason to invest in marketing.

When sales are falling companies can either give up and shut down or do something about. If the pie is shrinking (buying power of consumers) the aim has to be to take bigger share of that pie. Marketing activities have to go on and they do include purchasing of BizGifts.

Big corporations are cutting marketing budgets

This may sound like bad news and it well may be but not always. The BizGift industry is massive but cost of the promotional products that accompagny marketing campaigns is usually only a fraction of the total campaign cost. Imagine what you can get when you decide to spend USD100,000 on promotional products and then go and try to see how much advertising time on TV or ad space in media you can get for the same money. Cutting only a fraction from spending on media advertising probably saves more than cutting the BizGifts out altogether would. And BizGifts do work.

Look out for opportunities

And lastly – every crisis creates brand new opportunities. Taking them may require some courage as risks may be involved, but some time all that is needed is to approach the things differently in these new and changing conditions.

So aren’t there any dangers ?

Yes, they are, of course. Perhaps not for the entire industry but for individual companies.

Many BizGift companies rely of few major accounts to survive and prosper. The major account can be for a large company, for some other one or two local business. Some companies cut their spending but there are those that go under. Loosing one or more of the key clients may be devastating for BizGift company.

Many BizGift companies keep significant stock of merchandise in their warehouses. Without that it would be hard to provide superfast service people are used to these days. That stock has to be financed somehow, usually by banks. While business is steady or grows there is no problem. But drop in sales may result in inabality to meet the payments to banks and all sorts of troubles may follow rather quickly.

Many BizGift (as well as other) companies give favourable payment terms to their good clients. But even good clients may get in short term difficulties. Delays or defaults on payments may create serious cash-flow issues. Not a pleasant situation.

Falling attendances, hotel bookings down, unhappy exhibitors, that is how the October trade shows in the Far East can be described. Many blame the current economic climate for this but the root of the problem is somewhere else.

Yes, there sure were people who canceled their travel plans in the last moment. But most trade show visitor plan and book their trips, flights and hotels way in advance. The major reason for the falling attendances were the stupid greed motivated decisions of Canton Fair organizers to stretch the bi-annual Chinese Export Import Fair to three sessions spanning from October 15 to November 6. It may be fine for the regular buyers but pretty much killed it for the people from the promotional products industry. Electronics products in Phase 1, Gifts in Phase 2, Stationery and Writing instruments in Phase 3. What session should BizGift people select ? Who can spare 3 weeks to stay in China ?

Then there is Kenfair, the organizer of October Mega Show in Hong Kong, another regular trade show for people from promotional products industry. In the normal days this show was placed in between the phase 1 and phase 2 of the Canton fair, allowing us to visit 3 trade shows within a period of about 10 days. Now the new arrangements resulted in many people not staying after phase 2 in Canton. Bad news for exhibitors – Kenfair was much worse attended than it used to be, the Phase 3 in Canton, especially in the stationery areas was almost empty. As one of the exhibitors told me, they could just sit down and play cards for 5 days …

This all however had some positives for the visitors. The exhibitors had much more time and patience and desire to talk .

Let’s see how long it will take for the Canton Fair organizers to admit that they were wrong with this new format …

Recently I read an interview on wired.com with the French designer Philippe Starck. Among other things he touched the question of using the recycled plastic and bioplastic.

Wired: Recently, you have begun to look at the environmental impact of your designs. How does a plastic chair fit in?

Starck: The stupidity of the ecological movement is that people kill trees for wood. It’s ridiculous. The best ecological strategy is to make products of a very high creative quality, so you can keep them for three generations. I prefer to make a very good chair in the best polycarbonate than make any shit in wood that will be in the trash one year later.

Wired: Why not use recycled plastic?

Starck: It’s a little joke of a material. You can do almost nothing with it. And I also refuse bioplastic, which comes from something that people can eat. Scientists agree that we have a real food problem, a famine approaching. It’s a crime against humanity to take something you can eat and make a chair — or use it as gas for your SUV.

These “green” items have recently became very trendy also in the promotional products and gifts and premiums industry. I have nothing against some environmental consciousness but feel that as it often happens the whole industry has jumped on the wagon without really thinking about the actual impacts these “green” products may have. The parallels with biofuels spring to mind. We can run cars on fuel made of corn or soy beans but at the same time as a result the global food prices keep rising threatening stability and lives of people in many parts of the world. One of the aims of biofuel use was reduction of the CO2 emissions. At the same time however huge areas of Amazon rain forest are disappearing so the land can be used for biofuel crops …

Of course those few million pieces of plastic pens made of corn are just a drop in the ocean if compared to the biofuel production. But do we really need to start turning food crops into plastic pens at exactly the time of increasing food prices ?

Is the motivation behind this “green” items craze really the concern about the environment or is this all simply because being considered green is cool these days, no matter what it takes to create that eco friendly appearance ?

One more note on the recycled plastic. Not sure if I would call it a joke of a material, there perhaps is some use for it. But products produced from the recycled plastic rarely can pass the safety lab tests in order to be allowed to enter developed markets.

I will elaborate further on BizGifts and environment in future posts.

The green fever spreads in our industry. Here is one product marketed as green – the water calculator. Well I am not sure if I would call it green. It does not use any recycled material, it is not even packed in a box made of recycled paper. The only thing that can be considered green is the fact that it does not have to use a battery. How is this going to save the environment .

But while I think the “green product” label attached to this product is just a misleading marketing trick it still is a fun item. Kind of cool promotional product for a drink company.

You run promo for soda – print “Runs on Soda” on the box, you run promo for coffee – print “Runs on Coffee” on the box, you run promo for water – print “Runs on Water” on the box.

The best product to promote with this calculator would however be some energy drink

I was doing small research on evolution of some big brand logos. OK, not really a research. I needed to see how some big guys polish and revive their brands so I spent about 15 minutes on Google and looked around. I found this article on the Starbucks logo. I had no idea they recently started to use some retro logo design. Over here all we get is still the “classic” green one. But after reading the article I thought this is exactly what I was looking for – some example of return to the roots. And I thought this is quite well done.

The article I mentioned says that the marketing objective in bringing back this version of the original logo was to compliment the campaign slogan “Roasting coffee since 1971. The best cup then. The best cup now”. I think the logo does it nicely. It also gives a different feeling to the Starbucks merchandise – including the mugs.

But then I checked few other links pointing to the new Starbucks logo articles and I realized that some people actually have some issues with it. Serious issues. The problem seems to be the way the siren (mermaid) in the logo is pictured – “naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute”.

Here is one nice article on this. I am quite sure that making people calling them “Slutbucks” was not the idea behind the old logo revival . But it got people talking and gave the retro image quite some publicity. At the end the very people who find the the logo slutty are doing the new old logo the best service. Marketing by controversy in its best .

Time for some coffee . Slutbucks perhaps .

The hectic few weeks of visiting trade shows all around the region is finally over. I went to several, not always the good ones, in search of something new that might revolutionize our BizGift industry. Did I find something special ? Well, not really. But that is nothing new. New trends like transparent (or frosty transparent) materials or brand new items like lanyards few years ago do not by come every year.

I believe that this year most of the effort of people in our industry is to manage the crazy market conditions. The relatively stable or decreasing material and product costs we have grown accustomed to in recent years are going up now almost every day. That is the main challenge these and not too much time is left for innovation. Unfortunately, because clients would sure complain less about about higher prices if they can get new products in return. But paying 20-30% more than 12 months ago for pretty much the same stuff is not what we like, do we .

One trend, not exactly new, but very much the latest, are the “green” items. And as the US promotional market is going “green” crazy, there are more and more “eco” products available. How “green” and “eco” friendly they actually are, that I am not sure. But the fact is, the “green” products are hot these days.

The only other thing that caught my attention in past few weeks were sublimation ready products especially all sorts of ceramics ready to be sublimated .

Otherwise all the same old stuff we have known for years, only more expensive then ever these days (especially in US dollar terms). We may see more in October when the fall trade show season kicks in.

Few weeks ago I wrote a post on the Mega Macau Fair, based on my experience from October 2007. While my experience was far from good I decided to give it another shot and see how much better or worse the fair will be the second time around.

The problems with logistics I experienced last time were gone. First I played it safe and purchased the ferry tickets few days in advance. Also upon the arrival in Macau the staff from organizer were visible already at the Macau immigration. Thanks to having the trade show badges we could use the express lane. So all and all getting to Macau was smooth this time.

After passing the immigration more trade fair crew were on hand with information on shuttle bus. Unfortunately we were told to wait for 25 minutes for the bus and that was all the info we got. No word on the alternative – the Venetian Resort hotel shuttles that go around almost non stop. But knowing Macau a bit we walked out, jumped on the hotel shuttle and 10 minutes later we arrived at the fair venue.

So, how about the trade fair ? Takes about 1 hour to walk it all. Very few exhibitors and what I found even more surprising were many booths that were left empty even though they looked like someone paid for them … Not much to see, meaning nothing that I can’t see at other fairs held during this period around here. The whole trip was again, waste of time for me. And I wonder how the exhibitors must feel with so little traffic …

I simply do not see any reason why this trade show should last … I myself do not plan to visit again and I would have to loose my mind if I were to decide to exhibit at this show…

At least in the streets of Macau I could see these CocaCola branded rickshaws .

The Hong Kong Gift and Premium Fair is not as big fair as Canton Fair, but for a fair that specializes at something and not at everything it is rather huge. There are about 5000 booths and the organizer says “50,000 quality buyers from 141 countries”. Well, I would argue with that “quality buyers” claim (more on that in the article). But it is hard to argue about the size of the fair. The first time I visited was in 1995 and that time I already felt the fair was big. It was crammed in several halls and rooms of the original exhibition centre. That time the fair was still for both gift and household goods. In 1998 the exhibition expanded into the new extension of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC – on the photo) providing room for many exhibitors previously only able to get on the hopeless waiting list.

Few years later the original show split into two – Household Fair and Gift and Premium Fair (with a week gap between them). This split provided for more room for exhibitors, but clearly not enough. Barely 10 years after the new exhibition centre opened the new extension works are under way.

Unlike the Canton Fair and the new Mega Macau, the Hong Kong Gift and Premium Fair is very well organized. It is easy to navigate for buyers, the services for exhibitors are on pretty good level, food and beverage services are available all around the venue at reasonable prices.

What I see as the main problem of this fair is the growing mismatch between the expectations of buyers and the exhibitors. Most of the exhibitors naturally come from Hong Kong. Many Hong Kong companies have been for years moving away from cheap stuff towards innovative designs, higher end products, developing brands. Many visitors who come to the Hong Kong Gift Fair simply look around for new ideas but are not willing to pay for them. Their only plan is to take the idea and look for cheap copycat version in Canton Fair in China. Many of them will even shamelessly admit that. The result is that many exhibitors are reluctant to display new products as they are afraid of getting copied. They do have the new stuff in their booths. But they will only show it to their old or regular customers they believe are loyal. The consequence is many buyers complain, there is nothing new to see…

The other draw back for exhibitors are way too many trade fairs held at the same time in Hong Kong (competing trade fairs at the HKCEC and at the Asia World Expo at the airport), Macau, Guangzhou. These fairs are not attracting new audience, only splitting the existing one. Less visitors walking each fair, visitors walking more fairs… From what I hear visitors are also not too happy about this… But, as long as there is market, there will be supply… We will see what future brings. For now, I am getting ready for this year spring trade fair season.

P.S. – Name cards are a necessity for a trade show visitor or an exhibitor. Check some cool ones this blogger has found.

Unlike Canton Fair , the Mega Macau is a brand new trade show held in brand new venue and in a place where trade shows haven’t been that common. Macau clearly wants to follow Las Vegas example not only as a gambling paradise but also as a convention and exhibition destination.

The first Mega Macau trade fair was held last October (2007) during the autumn trade fair season on in the Far East. I went there to have a look and I had mixed impressions.

The venue itself – The Venetian Macau – is great. The convention centre is a part of the newly open Venetian casino and resort and that sure creates a different experience than the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre or the Asia World Expo some 60 km to the east in Hong Kong. Shopping malls, kitsch decoration, decent selection of restaurants. But there weren’t too many other positives about the Mega Macau show.

Getting there logistics – This was a nightmare. Getting from Hong Kong to Macau is usually very simple. You get to the Macau ferry terminal, jump on the next available ferry (there is obe every 10-15 minutes) and you are set. One hour later you disembark in Macau, clear immigration, hop on taxi and go. Was not the case during Mega Macau.

I spent about 3 hours waiting for the ferry in Hong Kong. My stupidity, I should have guessed and buy ticket in advance. But it did not end there. In Macau, there was a special immigration channel for the trade show visitors. But only for those with badge. The organizer messed up and did not deliver the badge to me on time, I had only invitation to get the badge on site. Bad luck, no speedy line for me, I had to queue up for about 45 minutes in the regular line.

Organizer (Kenfair) promised a shuttle bus to Venetian right outside the ferry terminal. Well, the organizer staff were hiding and I had to look for them. When I found them, they told me there is no shuttle only a hotel shuttle. Then they pointed to an 1 hour long queue. I had 3 options – wait an hout there, or wait an hour for taxi or walk for half a day. At the end it took me 6 hours to get to the fair, a jjourney that should not take more than 2.

Why actually I went to the fair ? Well it is a new kid on the block so I wanted to check it out. Moreover they advertised some sort of Asia Pacific Advertising Product show as a part of the fair and I was curious to see how that is going to look. At the end the travel was total waste of time. There were only few desperate exhibitors waiting for some visitors. Most of the visitors were people from Hong Kong on a quick curious trip just like me. Not much to be seen there that I can’t see in Hong Kong gift fairs without all that traveling headache.

Attracting exhibitors and buyers to a brand new fair is never an easy task, especially when it involves a new venue and new location. But Kenfair, the organizer of Mega Macau, has a very strange strategy. We have been exhibiting in a fair in Hong Kong organized by Kenfair for perhaps almost 10 years. It took us 4 years to finally get a booth at a good location. We kept the booth ever since. Then last year a very strange request came from Kenfair – To keep your booth in October in Hong Kong you have to exhibit in April in Macau too. I am not even sure whether this is legal but I do not care. I sent them to hell and decided to withdraw from October fair in Hong Kong …

The other negative I found was the ever present cigarette smoke. There is no smoking in the exhibition hall itself but people are (or were) allowed to smoke just outside the hall, in the fair check-in area and that I found weird. This does not happen any more in trade fairs even in such smoking obsessed country as Mainland China …

Do I recommend to visit Mega Macau ? If you plan to fly half way across the globe to see this fair, then better stay at home. If you are in Hong Kong or Guangzhou already for other fairs then go, but only if you have a day to spare …