Corporate gifting reinvented –meaningful, mindful, custom-made

Companies are migrating from co-branded swag manufactured in bulk to more thoughtful, personalised and green gifts, as corporate gifting grows post-pandemic

WRITTEN BY: KATE BIRCH

While working as the manager of multiple urgent care clinics in Tacoma, Washington, Lou Elliott-Cysewski came up with an idea that would change her future and that of the planet.

“My dedicated team and I were often given gifts like cheap plastic tumblers decorated with motivational quotes as a ‘thank you’ for our hard work. I grew tired of these gifts, which I felt reflected a lack of care for the providers working hard at the understaffed clinics.”

Upon discovering that the swag industry (promotional products) was nearly 80% waste (more than US$24 billion in corporate swag is binned each year), Lou saw an opportunity to leverage corporate procurement activities to solve global problems like waste, climate change and equity.

In 2018, Lou founded Coolperx, with the mission “to transform the swag industry from a toxic polluter into a credible, brandbuilding force for people and the planet”.

Today, Coolperx is not just a multimilliondollar mission-driven business, but the first net climate-neutral and social purpose merchandising company in the world helping some of the world’s biggest businesses – among them Google, Microsoft, and Amazon – through both their procurement and sustainability initiatives.

Using the ClimateCost Index, a proprietary and accredited Scope 3 metric created by Lou and her team, Coolperx helps clients ascertain a holistic and highly accurate analysis of their environmental and brand impact and make informed swag procurement decisions. The company is also the first online B2B gift and brand merchandise marketplace for worthy manufacturers to sell their products to corporate clients.

“Currently, only 21% of typical swag products are kept by recipients for any length of time,” declares Lou, who was listed as one of the Top 100 Trailblazing Entrepreneurs of 2021 by the Enterprise League.

“This is not only a stark lack of ROI, but it’s a huge liability for brands. When a company makes public statements about its commitment to environmental sustainability and then turns around and distributes meaningless, toxic swag to its community, it is engaging in a particularly egregious form of greenwashing and destroying credibility.”

Lou tells Business Chief that as a society, we have steadily increased our fixation on consumerism, and the tradition of giftgiving has been taken to the extreme as an overt symbol of over-consumption. “Instead of gifting people carefully selected items, companies all too often opt for cheap, plastic products that the intended recipients will keep for a few months, if even that.

“But we’ve now reached a tipping point. Consumers and employees want to support companies that live up to their commitments to the planet, including in their corporate gift-giving practices.”

Mindful gifting and quality product on rise

The tide is turning and the corporate world is looking increasingly to ‘mindful’ gifting – a welcome transition given that the corporate gifting market is in growth and estimated to increase from US$258 billion in 2022 to US$312 billion in 2025, a 6.5% CAGR over three years, according to a recent Coresight Research report

“The corporate gifting market continues to show healthy growth, due largely to organisations expanding gifting beyond the holidays to year-round gifting occasions,”

Steven Winnick, Senior Analyst at Coresight Research tells Business Chief.

Coresight’s report reveals that while organisations are gifting less frequently

Corporate Gifting By Numbers

59%

Employees who are more likely to stay with their jobs when receiving gifts regularly

6.6%

The average annual rate by which the corporate gifting market will grow over the next three years, from US$258 billion in 2022 to US$312 billion in 2025

US$24 billion

The amount of corporate SWAG that gets thrown out each year. And, the logoed stuff that you take to Goodwill? They bundle it and sell it by the pound where it gets shipped to a developing country and most often burned, says Lou.

52%

Percentage of organisations that outsource elements of corporate gifting to external companies, but just 8% cite using an end-to-end corporate gifting platform for managing and executing corporate gifting

(2 to 5 times per year over six or more times annually) they are investing in pricier and more mindful gifts. “Mindful gifting is a distinct trend with organisations gradually understanding the value of sending out quality gifts to their employees and partners/clients,” Manik Bhatia, Senior Analyst at Coresight says.

And the data backs this up, with ‘quality of product’ the top criteria in terms of importance to gift buyers, followed by ‘timely delivery to recipient’ and ‘simplicity of process’. This points not only towards increasing mindfulness among corporate gift givers, Manik explains, but is an indication that “we may be gradually migrating from co-branded swag manufactured in bulk to more thoughtful corporate gifts”.

AI powering personalisation and choice

With this move to more mindful gifting comes a preference for personalisation and choice with the gifting industry “advancing in important ways, especially e-gifting innovations, which are providing greater flexibility and customisation options for both the gift-giver and recipient,” says Steven.

With e-gifting – HR, marketers, sales, or employees are able to send gifts digitally in