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– Why, with the obvious benefit of early planning, do many postpone the order for later? Is this the usual human laziness and calculation for a chance, or are there other reasons?

Andrey Borisov: The advertising market is developing, and buyers are becoming more demanding. Therefore, some customers are delaying with the order, because they want to see all the novelties of the advertising market, a new model range, functionality and capabilities. Someone, especially recently, has difficulties with budget planning, including due to rate hikes. Therefore, a budget is allocated for New Year's souvenirs on a residual basis.
Maria Schennikova: Today, among other things, this is due to the volatility of the ruble. If the whole country is moving from three- to five-year planning to a maximum of an annual one, then this is reflected in advertising budgets. The heads of organizations have always considered advertising budgets as a kind of reserve for optimizing the budget of the entire company. And in the current situation at the beginning of the year, they are afraid to spend budget funds on New Year's gifts, because a lot can happen before the New Year.

– Since we are talking about the general economic situation, how has the situation in the corporate souvenirs market changed?

Maria Schennikova: Corporate gifts are still an important element in the strategy of brand promotion and increasing customer and partner loyalty. But the accents in the assortment of purchased souvenirs have changed. So, due to budget cuts, most advertising departments refused to spend on the purchase of gifts for the traditional holidays - Defender of the Fatherland Day, March 8... But since the tradition of giving men's and women's spring gifts in collectives is preserved, the advertising departments, using their knowledge of the market and connections with manufacturers, quite often continue to order such "branded" gifts for their employees on a budget, provided that the money for them is going to be paid, not from advertising budget.
For manufacturers of expensive corporate gifts, an unpleasant surprise was the orders adopted at various levels on the unethical nature of receiving expensive gifts and even the introduction of limits on the cost of gifts and special procedures for receiving them. Accordingly, advertising departments have reduced items of expenditure on corporate gifts for registration and regulatory authorities in connection with the policy pursued by their management.

When choosing gifts, advertisers began to be guided by the expediency of the ordered items, and not by the size and visibility of the logo. For example, food baskets, "corporate" tea and coffee sets, chocolates with symbols, "everything that you can eat for a holiday, remembering the bestowing company with a kind word, have become fashionable. When choosing gifts for promotions, preference began to be given to household appliances and other items needed in the household. For promotions held in August-September, branded notebooks, sketchbooks and other items necessary for schoolchildren are ordered. Customers will gratefully accept such care, especially in the regions. Such gifts can be easily ordered from local suppliers, which is also important. After all, the cost of souvenir products from European manufacturers is growing, and it is impractical to order their cheap products due to its poor-quality execution.

But despite budget cuts and crisis factors, New Year's gifts remain in high demand. Advertising services are constantly looking for original ideas, and due to the lack of free money, they do not want to work with creative development agencies. Russian manufacturing companies are becoming partners more often, which have departments on the development of ideas for branding and packaging of products.

Author: Sofia Karlova

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