Vusumuzi Dube
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
PLAYERS in the branding sector say corporate gifts are an essential part of raising awareness, creating a lasting impression, and increasing visibility and businesses must make efforts to ensure their brands are noticed.
Image Magic Corporate (IMC) who are exhibiting at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair said they are keen on ensuring brand visibility through corporate gifts that they brand according to corporate specifications, types of events, and time of the year.
Karen Gondo the team leader at IMC The company started as a printing-only company in 1999 but has developed to corporate gifts, clothing, displays, packaging, and many more.
“Branded gifts are very important to customers. When a person comes to your organisation or stand as it is at ZITF, it is very easy to forget about a service provider, but when you have a gift with a branded logo, every time they come across your product, they remember you even with just a branded pen. This is the importance of corporate gifts,” said Gondo.
Gondo said 80 percent of customers who are given a branded gift usually return to that company for service provision than other forms of advertising in the media.
She said the market has adjusted and now takes corporate gifts seriously as seen by the volume of people who now seek their services such as banks, the mining sector, SME’s and telecommunications companies to name a few.
“Our job as Image Magic Corporate is to ensure that corporates get gifts that are suitable for their clients. If it is winter, we will not sell you water bottles because no one is drinking much water but we will get you thermal mugs for coffee, and woolen hats. We understand what customers need, we do not just sell products, we have to understand the receiver of the gifts at that moment and the season of the year. During rainy seasons, we customise umbrellas, we do not want to sell you off-season items,” said Gondo.
The organisation educates marketers and public relations teams on various aspects when they approach them for materials.
“If an organisation has a campaign, we go down to ask who the target market for that event is, if one has a swimming gala for children definitely, we cannot advise that you get branded notebooks for children but we offer something appealing for young children. Corporate gifts must make sense to the one receiving them,” she emphasised.
She said small businesses that are existing or budding must take advantage to make potential customers aware of their brands and offer promotional corporate gifts.
@NyembeziMu
Online Reporter