We’ve talked about the dos and don’ts of promotional products. We’ve talked about the steps to choose the best promotional gifts for your marketing campaign. Now, let’s talk about what promotional gifts you must never use in your marketing campaign. This list will help you stay away from the items that put your customers off or leave a negative impression of your brand.

Gender Discriminatory Products

One major types of product you must stay away from are gender discriminatory products. Your gifts should never portray a negative impression of your brand. This means that it should not be stereotypical for any gender, race, or color. For example, giving out blue bags to boys and pink to girls is stereotyping. If you are not sure about your target audiences’ choice, it is always better to go for gender-neutral colors such as black and white. So, whenever you are choosing your brand’s promo products, always keep your customers in mind. Ideally, your promo gifts should appeal to the greatest number of people. If you try to segregate your target audience based on stereotypes, your marketing campaign will end up backfiring. However, this does not mean that you should not keep your target audience in mind. For example, if your target audience is teenage girls, you should gift them any fashion items that they might prefer. In such a case, it is a good idea to offer your customers a range of products to choose from. In this way, you will be offering them options and not hurting anyone’s sensitivities either.

Religious Artifacts

Another major type of gift that you must stay away from is religious artifacts. You never know what someone’s beliefs are. Furthermore, religion is a personal matter and everyone might not appreciate getting religious gifts when they shop at your store.

Boring Items

Whenever you are choosing the products for your marketing campaign, remember that everyone has a different taste. Do not go for boring gifts that no one would like to get. The point of your promotional marketing is to get people to remember your gift and keep it for a long time to come Giving a boring gift sends a contradictory message about your brand.

Political Items

Another category closely related to religious artifacts are political items. Again, political views are a highly personal choice. No one has the right to poke fun at someone’s political views.

Sometimes, brands find it funny to give out political items with funny memes on them. While this may get a laugh out of many people, chances are that you might end up offending someone. When it comes to business, even a single unsatisfied customer can ruin the influence of many happy customers. Therefore, never take the risk with political items that someone might find even remotely inappropriate or offensive.

Personal Hygiene Products

Personal hygiene products are usually not the best gifts to give. Not everyone appreciates receiving such gifts in public. Others might also view this as being insensitive or even vulgar. Thus, this can leave a permanent negative impression of your brand.

Think of it this way: Would you want people to think about hygiene products when they think of your brand? Of course not — unless you are a doctor or a dentist.

Broken or Malfunctioning Gifts

No one likes products that break easily or don’t even work, to begin with. So, it’s never a good idea to gift a malfunctioning hands-free to your customers. The hands-free represents your brand. So, when you gift something like this, it leaves a negative impression of your business. It clearly shows that you are not serious about your business or you are just unreliable. Therefore, you must check the products before giving them out to your customers. If you are ordering products in bulk, make sure that you get a sample and try it out first.

Food Items

Some brands like to offer food items such as cookies imprinted with your brand’s logo or candies with your logo on them. While this is a cool gift, it is not worth it in the long term. Whenever you are giving out a promotional gift, you must consider whether it is sustainable or not. Your promotional gifts must not serve as a one-off purpose. The more sustainable they are, the higher the return on investment you will get.

Disposable Products

Another no-go area is disposable products. Some brands offer a cup of coffee with their brand’s logo on the cup. While this may be a great gift, it is not long-lasting. Ideally, your gift should be useful for the long term. According to research, an average customer likes to keep around promotional gifts for at least one year. When you have such an amazing opportunity that your customer sees your gift every day, why waste it on a cup of coffee?

Also, there is no point in personalizing disposable items. For example, if you imprint your brand’s logo on tissue paper, it will not be worth much because the tissue paper is meant to be thrown away.

Contradictory Items

Let’s say that you claim that your business is eco-friendly. However, when you are giving out promotional gifts, you decide to give out plastic water bottles. This can leave a negative impression as if you are lying about your brand.

Funny Products

We all like to laugh at jokes, funny puns, and memes. However, some people take it too far and base their entire marketing campaign on a funny gift. However, you must remember that even if you are trying to be puny and clever, there will be someone who will either not understand the joke or just get offended by it. So, it is never a good idea to take such a risk for your brand’s image even if you feel that it sounds funny.

Low-Quality Items

Last but not the least, you should stay away from low-quality items. No matter how attractive something looks, if it is of low quality, it might break quickly. This makes your clients remember your brand as unreliable.

Takeaway

Now that you know about the gifts not to give, it’s time to start working on your promotional marketing campaign. If you’re out of ideas, you can check out our collection of bags. We can also imprint your logo on the bags and use your brand’s colors. There is a wide variety of options to choose from!