“I don’t make merry myself at Christmas, and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. Christmas? Bah, Humbug!” Who said that? The Charles Dickens character of Ebenezer Scrooge in the famous classic tale of “A Christmas Carol”. Is the current economic downturn going to make Scrooges of us all?
At present journalists, politicians and “those in the know” keep telling us in the newspapers, on TV and on the radio that recession looms and times are hard; so why don’t we all just pack it in and adopt the mantra of original Ebenezer Scrooge? And no doubt some will; reasoning that sending a company card is just a waste of money – and do you know what? I couldn’t agree more!
It’s my opinion that sending a plain, boring four-page A5 card to your customer achieves little in the way of spreading goodwill or saying anything positive about your company. Even if you push the boat out and spend a small fortune on a really expensive card with a custom printed greeting inside, the likelihood is that it will just get hung on the office wall with all of the others. No, I agree – don’t waste your money on sending an ordinary card.
However, that’s not to say that you should waste the opportunity that sending a Christmas greeting can offer. It’s my opinion that what you should send is a real whiz-bang, super dooper effort that wipes the floor with all the other boring cards that your competitors might have sent and spread the message that your company really means business – no matter what the economic climate might bring.
So what am I going to suggest? Well, there are several options on the market but if you want to send a product that is sophisticated; that is guaranteed to capture your customer’s attention and that is guaranteed to convey only positive “vibes” about your company then there are two obvious candidates.
Both products feature very clever but totally different interactive movements and both make an excellent choice to convey your company’s Christmas greetings. Your customer will keep playing with either product rather than hanging it up with the rest of the “Seasons Greetings” brigade! The first is called a Flicker Card and it offers a really rapid movement which, with the right graphics, can create moving pictures.
The second prime candidate is called a Push’n'Pull and it features an ingenious reciprocal movement based on an internal conveyor belt which is something of a cardboard engineering masterpiece. You pull a card from one end and another card appears from the opposite side. Push your card back in and the other card disappears simultaneously. Sir Isaac Newton would have loved this product to illustrate his Third Law of Motion – “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”!
So, don’t think like the original Scrooge – think about what the reformed character of Scrooge said, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” Well, maybe not – as the “experts” keep telling us, there is a recession looming, you know!
Article by Paul Whitney.
Whitney Woods Ltd is a manufacturer of promotional marketing products designed using sophisticated cardboard engineering techniques. The company is a market leader in this field in the UK and publishes a range of over 50 products covering the areas of promotional pocket media, interactive marketing products, information discs, promotional pop up cards, creative folding and automatic pop up mailers. Whitney Woods also publishes a range of products which are particularly suited to Christmas promotions and for use as company Christmas cards. You can see details of the type of products mentioned in the above article on http://www.christmasmarketing.co.uk/promotional-christmas-greetings.html
Tags: Advertising Opportunity, Company Christmas card, Corporate Christmas Card, marketing opportunity