The Beauty of Recycled Products

Are you one of the millions of people who have received lots of promotional items from your business partners or potential vendors? Maybe you are beginning to design a marketing or promotional campaign and want to avoid adding to this situation, or maybe you are hoping to limit the amount of plastic or harmful materials used in your "giveaways". If so, you can find a good solution in the vast array of promotional recycled merchandise available.

Now, before you leap to the conclusion that your choices are going to be limited to a few items, you should know that recycled merchandise includes everything from fleece jackets and customizable umbrellas, to gorgeous mugs and all kinds of office supplies. This means that nearly any target group can have an ideally matched freebie available.

What is a target group? When you plan on using promotional products it is always essential to consider the primary audience of recipients in order to be sure that the merchandise they receive has some sort of relevance and usefulness to them. For instance, if your clients tend to operate away from their desk or office, you would want to give them promotional merchandise that could easily transition between their desk and their briefcase. This would mean that recycled note pads, writing implements, and mobile device holders would make for truly useful, relevant and meaningful giveaways.

Meaningful is also an important word in any discussion about the creation of promotional campaigns, and this is because it is a term that serves a dual purpose. For one thing, any promotional product has to somehow form a connection between the consumer and the business (such as a tech firm handing out imprinted USB devices to new clients), but it can also send a much more subtle message too. This is particularly the case where recycled goods are concerned.

For example, let's say that you have decided to hand out pencils to all of your new or potential clients since these are a very affordable form of advertising and promotion. This is a very practical approach to marketing, but if you also add another element to the message, such as giving out only recycled pencils, then you are telling your customers a bit more about your business ethic. By choosing a recycled product you are conveying a concern about the environment, the future, and the way that resources are consumed and used in the modern world. Simon Patnick, Managing Director of http://www.MerchandiseMania.co.uk mentioned such corporate responsibility initiatives in a recent blog entry, and affirmed that ethics and responsibility are two key factors in business success in the coming decade.

If this is the sort of message that you want to send to your potential customers or to an existing customer base, then it is always going to be the recycled goods to choose. You can, however, also consider handing out recyclable or biodegradable goods as well.  What would these include? Generally, you will find an enormous array of shopping bags and totes that are made from recyclable or biodegradable materials and there are few people who don't appreciate such a promotional product. These can be used for weekly shopping, toting recyclables to the curb, and much more. They are also an excellent form of free advertising, and can serve as a core feature in any marketing plan.

Corporate social responsibility

Ok so here I am on the train back from the city trying to recall the seminar I have sat through this afternoon on CSR and ethics. Personally I think the 2 things are absolutely intertwined and we need to be sure they are both adhered to. It was interesting listening to Tom from Sedex, Martin from ETI delivering content based on our clients demands. Both organisations grow based on the basis of peer pressure, if so and so does it en we nuts also do it. How many of these organisations are doing it from a philanthropic base rather than a what's in it for me base remains to be seen? It is this that concerns me the most because I really do care, but I am being forced to comply with oodles of red tape that is really difficult to understand. Anyone tried to supply goods to LOCOG?(London Olympics 2012) If so you know what I mean! Somewhere along the supply chain must come the sharing of this data to allow more than one company to benefit from the social audit that has been carried out by an independent assessment firm of a particular factory. Rather than all of us doing the same audit over and over again. This is where Sedex really could come into it's own. The cost to industry of compliance is huge and still growing, so come on big business do you really need that extra bit of Social Accountability or will the one carried out a few months ago by another company suffice?

So interestingly in a room of 40 or so people only around 10-12 promotional products distributors were represented. Does that mean that only 0.5% of our industry cares about this topic or is it just those that are being forced to comply that were there? It scares me a little about the cost of these compliance issues, who will pay. Will it be the end user who may be driving down the price of a product whilst asking for more and more compliance and quality. With a 'grown up discussion' it may well be, but this will only be true of certain corporate who really do get the whole 'partnership ethos.'. I guess in reality it will be the distributor who will continue to have their margin eroded to conform to our clients needs.

Listening to both a supplier and distributor ( direct competitor but a really good firm!) give a presentation each on what it means to them, I can see that it is not just me that is fearful about the reasons why we are being asked for so much compliance. This is going to be one hell of a learning curve with many companies doing it differently to one another. Clearly this means that the client will have options, but not necessarily being able to compare 'apples with apples'. As with most things in life there are many companies out there offering different levels of compliance, this is due to the different market forces but ultimately with audits you get what you pay for! So beware of people offering really cheap audits because if it looks too good to be true, it probably is!

We must all remember that Social Accountability is not just about child labour there are many other aspects and we at Merchandise Mania check for them all.

I would be really interested to hear back from anyone with experience in this area.

Thanks

Simon





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