Early in Johanna Lucia’s tenure at San Francisco, California-headquartered promo distributor Brilliant, the vice president of client services worked on an alumni gifting campaign and was tasked with sending the sales team at ZipRecruiter mugs from each of their alma maters.
That type of personalized touch can be critical for ensuring a recipient feels valued and seen by the company doing the gifting. It was also one of the most complicated and involved campaigns Lucia had ever worked on, with multiple steps required to source, kit and distribute the mugs.
Almost all of the end-users attended different colleges, so each mug had to be individually ordered and shipped from that particular university’s bookstore to the Brilliant warehouse, where it was then repackaged with a custom box and handwritten note.
“I feel like if we were to do that today, there would be a much easier way for us to source quicker and execute it far better than we had done many moons ago,” Lucia says.
In Lucia’s case, Brilliant wasn’t responsible for decoration, but it was responsible for a personalized experience – and even just five years ago, the distributor lacked some of the technology to simplify that complex project.
Whether by using artificial intelligence to ensure back-end consistency or decoration technology to create fully customized, one-of-a-kind products, the industry is moving into an era where promo is more personalized than ever – and just in time, considering how much end-users value branded merch that’s truly theirs.
“People are looking for something that is more personal and feels more genuine as a gift,” says Rachel Hoskins, vice president of sales at Lees Summit, MO-based promo supplier Sock101.
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