Let's face it. Journalists can be an ungrateful lot. Perhaps you scrounged up your last remaining budget peso of 2000 to send your most treasured media contacts a small token of your love this
holiday season. But if the gift was perceived as trite, useless, excessively self-serving or lame (as in overstocked crapola you couldn't move off the shelves...or better yet, packages that arrived
postage-due) your promotional investment probably did little more than open your company up to scrutiny and ridicule.
Well, the editors at PR NEWS just hate to see media relations professionals dumping good money down the toilet. Especially if we're talking about bucks that could be better spent on critical
business tools such as, er, newsletter subscriptions. So out of the goodness of our hard little hearts, we polled a handful of reporters and asked for their picks and pans in the tchotchke department
this holiday season. Take note of their aversions, readers. It may help you in the sex-appeal department - what with Valentine's Day around the corner and all. Here's how the loot got rated:
Editors at Inside.com say...
Loved it: A pair of heavy tumbler glasses, coupled with silver, rabbit-head stirrers from Playboy. Very tasteful and already receiving considerable use. Also, a humongous metal tub filled with
popcorn from the Magazine Publishers Association of America. Predictable, but delicious. And let us not forget the collected works of Henry David Thoreau from Time Inc. (How very highbrow of them.)
Circular filed it: "The Making of Chicken Run" book from DreamWorks. Also, a branded umbrella from the USC School of Cinema-Television. Not the most useful gift in L.A.
Editors at CableFAX Daily say...
General gift policy: CableFAX Daily is never one to look the other way when excellent examples of graft and influence peddling come our way. At holiday time, we generally rate gifts where
the gift giver's company label is only barely noticeable, or better yet, not present at all. That gives the gift an infinite re-gifting quotient.
Loved it too much: An autographed picture of a barely clad Cindy Crawford from the new WE (Women's Entertainment) network (formerly Romance Classics). The PR contact had heard through my
colleagues that I was madly in love with - well, very much an admirer of - Ms C. (I guess the fact that I was barely conscious during a press conference to announce the new WE network name, and Cindy's
new show on the Net, was a good hint too.) At any rate, the picture and the gesture gave me the warm fuzzies (although most of that was well below the belt). [PRN Editor's Note: now
that's personalization.] Wore it: The neat America Online sweater from cable's newest member (but, what, no stock options?)
Made us queasy: Gifts (e.g., a beautiful box of cookies and cakes) from a PR rep I know I've never met, spoken with or anything. Kinda makes you feel embarrassed. A note from the PR rep telling
me we hadn't met, but that he/she plans to work closely with me in the year ahead would have helped.
Always appreciated: A card with a personal greeting. Ranks very high on the list.
Editors at min's New Media Report say...
Both loved and reviled it: A urinal pad from eBay subsidiary Half.com. The pad goes in the urinal to minimize splashing and catch large objects. The scheme is that men look down at urinals (a
great location for a promotional item). The pads are very fragrant and have the added benefit of being pretty much theft-proof.
Found it useful: A miniature medieval catapult to promote a new computer game. It shoots small stones and any other office object. Perfect for intracubicle warfare. It has become something of a
competition now especially among Internet and games-related companies to come up with the most outrageous promotional trinket. Some of the gaming mags actually have a "tchotchke of the month" award.
Still on the wish list: A branded drDrew.com condom.
Needed instructions: For a computer game called Evolva, Interplay sent out a petrie dish with some incredibly vile looking ooze in it - supposedly a play on evolutionary slime.
Made me a poster child: A full double-lined winter tech vest from Sony with the PS2 logo on it.
Editors at HOW Magazine: Design Ideas at Work say...
Best viral gift idea: Specially designed wrapping paper from people in the creative industry. When I use it, everyone asks where it came from and comments on how different it is from store-
bought gift-wrap. I just got an awesome set from Peleg Top. It's a great promotion for graphic designers, because both the giver and recipient end up talking about the paper and thus the company.
Poor taste: I received a bag of rub for meat, poultry and fish. I'm a vegetarian.
Editors at Wireless Data News say...
Best toys: A little red, remote-control truck from Nexterna, a company that develops location-based systems for trains, trucks and fleet managers. Also, a "Magic 8-ball" from traq-wireless.
Swankiest: A leather CD case from the PR firm Bock Communications in San Francisco;
Worse than coal in the stocking: A cell phone rest (miniature piece of crap that looks like a little lounge chair and has absolutely no use) from WiredPocket. Also, a cheesy brass metal pin
from Times-Three (based in Calgary) featuring the company logo (as if any journalist would wear a brass pin with a company's logo on it).