Posted on January 25, 2008 by David Bookout

The thought started with a knife, recently sent by a small to medium enterprise ( SME ) client with a small note, which read “What do you think of the logo treatment?”, and blossomed from there. I’m new here, so we’ll see how it smells.

A kind gift some might say, and I thought so too, until I began to percolate on it a bit, and speculatively explore the relevance between the gift and the clients brand building strategy. Then, the more I percolated, the more I came to the conclusion that there was no relevance.

The knife was nice enough, and truth be told I was recently thinking about how nice it would be to have a nice knife by my side, you know, when I’m out in the yard, tending to yard things. It seems like I always need to cut something open, or separate one thing from another, knife kind of things. I even went so far as to go by the knife case in the local hardware store, and take a look at what I might get myself, you know, as a Holiday present, a sort of celebration gift, because I’d already been thinking about knives. But, I didn’t do it, I didn’t purchase. Then the box came, and I ceremoniously opened it to find…Chatchkey!

Now, let’s fast forward to December of 2008. You have budget control, and have the dubious distinction of “getting something interesting, getting something memorable” for friends and loved ones to remember the business by. So, what do you do, get some chatchkey, smatchkey thing that doesn’t quite support ( size wise ) the logo / tagline lockup, and perhaps betrays the brand strategy?

NO! In instances like this it is often better to do nothing at all.

Some companies, in some industries, have to chatchkey.

However, if your really trying to build a brand, you need to think a bit deeper and do the following: First, look for something that supports your market strategy, and provides value to the client base and desired audience. You don’t want items that are going to take a nice vacation in someone’s kitchen catch all drawer before a one way trip to the landfill.

Second, include in your considered set, items that fully support the brand strategy, can carry the logo / tagline lockup with consistency, and don’t betray the brand’s look / feel / tone & manner. For example, if your a manufacturing services company trying to build a brand positioning for; quailty, speed and consistency – don’t get a mass produced knife that needs to have the logo / tagline folded up to get it on the handle.

Third, purchase items that are different, yet have parallels to your offer, and are consistent with your budget, and / or industry “gift” guidelines. For example, we used to attend a big yearly show, and host a small, invitation only hospitality suite. We were in the custom manufacturing business, and made the invitations out of stainless steel, in a numbered series, with one of four avant-garde images we had developed to portray the brand character. These became so popular that people would collect them, ask for specific numbers and put them up in their cubicles.

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