Event Planning Swag – Don’t Overlook the Importance of VIP & Sponsor Gifts
Event planning is a lot like snow days, it seems like fun until you realize how much work it’s going to be. Unlike a snow day the work can drag on for ages:
Picking a venue, food, and entertainment,
Making guest lists and invitations,
Organizing registration,
RSVP’s and sponsorships
For many, this list is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s no wonder that event planning swag bags, VIP and sponsorship gifts or acknowledgments are often left until both the organizer’s energy and time are virtually used up.
It can be very easy to become swept away by the logistics of the event itself and lose sight of the excellent opportunity available to send people home with something thoughtful, appreciated and most importantly, branded in a way they’ll always associate it with the event and your company.
Say “No” to Cheesy Swag
No matter what your budget, any gifts, swag or acknowledgments you give out should always reflect your brand and also be something appreciated. There is no use in spending money and time in creating something your recipients will get rid of at the first opportunity. Likewise, you don’t want to brand something valuable in a way that makes it seem cheesy or embarrassing which can virtually guarantee your recipient won’t want to be seen using/wearing it.
It’s a difficult balance and requires thought and imagination to come up with the right thing. Thankfully, our Clearmount team is well practiced at helping you to create just the right piece to achieve that balance.
High Quality and Thoughtful Swag for Your Carefully Planned Event
With our acrylic products, our SIGG line, or our array of eco-friendly frames, you can rest assured that before you even begin, your gift will already have the distinction of being environmentally sound, high quality (perceived and in actuality), as well as being either Canadian or Swiss made. Imagine if all your event planning could have achieved so much before you even had to make a single decision!
As we’ve said many times before, Lucite embedments are an easy way to do something incredibly unique and distinctive. However, it doesn’t need to be expensive to do so.
This past summer, we were contacted by a local cricket field in an effort to raise money in the community, but when they realized what we did here at Clearmount, the conversation changed quickly to sponsor gifts. The organizer had been looking for something distinctive to give, but didn’t have a huge budget to work with.
David, being a cricket player himself, helped her to create an incredibly unique piece which would be a fun piece to have in your office or home while still being branded with the field’s name. Together, they designed a half cricket ball with the field logo, the acknowledgment and some grass from the field embedded within!
Of course, a simple SIGG bottle becomes significantly more fun and interactive as swag for an event if you make it a challenge to get. The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) hosts a fundraising party and created a truly inventive and clever way to distribute their swag.
The Producers Ball, held every year in Toronto, decided this year to use WonderMakr to create a customized vending machine to hand out it’s swag: branded Producers Ball SIGG bottles. Elegantly and subtly engraved with just their simple logo, the organizers picked black and white bottles and filled a vending machine with them.
Now here comes the clever part: party-goers had to take a photo with the vending machine and tweet it with a designated hashtag to get the code necessary to retrieve the bottle from the machine! A fun, interactive, two-fold publicity piece of swag.
The creative ideas possible, when you think outside the standard event planning swag bag or sponsorship plaque, are fun and exciting. So, next time your organization sits down to plan their once a year event, make sure to put equal thought and enthusiasm into the pieces that live beyond the one afternoon or evening. When the golf tournament has wrapped or the dinner has been digested, wouldn’t it be nice if there was something to happily remind your attendees of what a lovely time they had?
Of course, don’t feel you have to meet this event planning swag creative challenge on your own! Give us a shout, we have a wealth of experience we’re happy to share and, between us, we should have your event the talk of the town in no time.