Your 2014 Corporate Gift Plan – First Half

Don’t wait until 2014 arrives and the year sweeps you away. Start planning now for your corporate gifting strategy. There

are so many opportunities. Here is a list of a few events that you can use for your corporate gift planning. New Years – Wednesday 01 January Champagne Flutes make a wonderful New Year’s Gift. To start off the year give your clients crystal champagne flutes as a welcome to 2014 gift. If you are worried that they make not drink alcohol, find a recipe for a non-alcoholic cocktail and include into with the gift. There are so many delicious non-alcoholic recipes to choose from that you can’t go wrong. Plan to hand these corporate gifts out very early in January. After everyone has spent their holiday money, they will welcome the moral boost of a new year’s gift. Most people will start work around 06 January, so you can hand out gift between 06 January and 17 January. Other new year’s gifts include Conference bags, Dairies or Filofaxes, desk organisers, i-pad covers, mouse pads, notebooks, USBs Back to School – 15 January Children will officially go back to school on Wednesday the 15th of January. However some schools may change the dates a little. Many companies will start a back to school campaign for corporate gifts. Ideas include backpacks, book bags or conference bags, Frisbees, lunch boxes, math sets, pencil bags, pencils, pens, sharpeners, soccer kits, water bottles and yoyos. Conference season – January to end February Many companies will start the year off with planning and conferences. Whether you have your conferences at the beginning of the year later in the year, plan ahead for your gifts. Conference gift ideas include: conference bags, conference pens, custom printed notepads, folders, hampers, lanyards, mints, notepads, speaker’s gifts, trolley bags, USBs Valentine’s Day – Friday 14 February As Valentine’s Day is on a Friday, you can bet all the restaurants will be fully booked, so get your restaurant bookings done

early. Chocolates remain a popular choice, but with diabetes being on the increase, you can choose items that are easier on the hips. For example a Valentine’s Day cookie mug, heart shaped stress balls, mints, red t-shirt. There are a lot of choices for Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s is a very big event in the corporate gifting calendar and an essential for corporate morale. Human Rights Day – Friday 21 March We celebrate this day each year to remind us of the great suffering and loss of life that accompanied the struggle for human rights. It is to remind us that people in South Africa will never again be denied their human rights. We encourage people to not only promote this event within their companies, but also to use their corporate gifting spend to help others. Choose a charity for example a children’s home, home for the disabled or an old age home. Items such as beanies, blankets, caps, fleece sweaters, towels and t—shirts are all useful items to give to children, the disabled and the aged. Freedom Day – Sunday 27 April Freedom Day is a public holiday in South Africa celebrated every year on 27th April. On this day in 1994, the first democratic and non-racial national election was held in the country. Corporate gift ideas for Freedom day include, banners, South African caps, South African Flags, South African t-shirts. Good Friday – Friday 29 March Good Friday is observed on the Friday before Easter Sunday. On this day Christians commemorate the passion, or suffering, and death on the cross of the Lord, Jesus Christ. While there are a number of other religions in South Africa, this day is still taken as a public holiday and is the beginning of a religious memorial that has its climax of Easter Sunday. Many people despite religious background will consume vast amounts of chocolate over the Easter weekend and retailers really pack out quite a spread over the Easter weekend. No matter what religion your clients are, many people welcome a tasty Easter treat. Great corporate gifts for this weekend are candy coated eggs, chocolate Easter bunnies, toy Bunnies, hampers, marshmallow eggs, sugar free eggs. A great idea is to host an Easter egg hunt for a local school. Family Day – Tuesday 01 April 2014 This was originally part of the Easter Celebration. Following the first free and fair elections in South Africa the day was renamed family day to include all religions. However originally it was to commemorate the resurrection of Christ who was crucified on the Good Friday. This was part of a prophesy that on the third day the Lord would rise again. The Easter Bunny is a rabbit-spirit. Long ago, he was called the "Easter Hare", hares and rabbits have frequent multiple births so they became a symbol of fertility. The custom of an Easter egg hunt began because children believed that hares laid eggs in the grass. The Romans believed that "All life comes from an egg." Christians consider eggs to be "the seed of life" and so they are symbolic of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Freedom Day – Sunday 27 April It celebrates freedom and commemorates the first post-apartheid elections held on that day in 1994. In 2013 we bid a sad farewell to Nelson Mandela who was a key player in the journey towards freedom for our country. Corporate Gifts for this Freedom day could include books like “The Long Walk to Freedom, Hand held South African Flags, South African Caps. Workers Day – Thursday 01 May International Workers' Day is a celebration of the international labour movement that occurs on May Day, May 1, a traditional spring holiday in much of Europe. May 1 is a national holiday in more than 80 countries, and celebrated unofficially in many other countries. Youth Day – Sunday 16 June The Soweto Uprising, also known as 16 June, is a series of protests led by high school students in South Africa that began on the morning of 16 June 1976. Students from numerous Sowetan schools began to protest in the streets of Soweto in response to the introduction of Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in local schools. An estimated 20,000 students took part in the protests. The number of people who died is usually given as 176, with estimates of up to 700. 16 June is now a public holiday, Youth Day, in South Africa, in remembrance of the events of 1976. In commemoration of this day focus your corporate gifts on education. Choose a local community school and donate corporate gifts such as backpacks, conference bags, diaries; lunch boxes, notebooks, pencils, pencil bags, pens, stationary sets These are some of the many opportunities for planning for your corporate gifts calendar. With proper planning you should be able to spread goodwill through the year to clients, staff and the community. Here are some planning details to take into account. Plan for Production time Remember the following processes: 1. Plan a budget for your event. 2. Find the gifts that you like. 3. Get quotes. 4. Plan properly, just because a corporate gift was in stock when it was quoted, does not mean it will be in stock when you order. 5. Order your corporate gifts 6. Pay your deposit 7. Send through a high resolution logo. 8. Get a layout approval. 9. Thoroughly check the spelling, pantones and position of the logo an if you are happy sign off. 10. Branding will take 3 – 5 working days after you sign off your layout approval. 11. Pay the balance of your order. 12. Take delivery of the corporate gifts or corporate clothing. 13. Allow for extra days during peak season. For more information about corporate gifts or clothing contact Belle Regalo on info@belleregalo.co.za or (011) 593 2450 or 082 948 7461 or visit our website: www.belleregalo.co.za

What Are People Spending on in Terms of Corporate Gifts?

Sometimes you may feel that your corporate gifting strategy is just based on a feeling that you get when looking through a catalogue, but there is a lot of data that can help you make more informed decisions. In this article we have presented some of the statistics available for promotional gift spending based on the US figures. We also look at how this related to our market and what gifting options are popular within these categories. Based on US studies corporate clothing remains a firm favourite for promotional spend, with t-shirts representing 13.8% of total spend. T-shirts represent $ 2.7 billion of the $ 19.4 billion distributor revenues for 2012, the year in which the study was completed. Other clothing items represented in the study were polo shirts, which

we refer to as Golf shirts or Lacoste shirts, coming in at 6.7% of the annual spend. Other shirts come in at 2.1% and other wearables at 4.8%. Making the total clothing spend at 39.6%. If you add the cap spend at 5.6%, then you get to 45.20% of the total corporate gift and promotional gift spend. Corporate clothing can bring profit for your company in terms of quality, standards and reputation. Just spending a little money for your corporate clothing can pay you back in terms of much costumer and better reputation for your company. Corporate clothing can be used for promotional give away. But you can also kit your staff and clients our with leisurewear such as sweatshirts, tracksuits, customised cycling gear etc. When they are wearing it at gym or a sporting event that brings exposure to your brand. At Belle Regalo our figures confer with this our clothing sales being on a year to day basis 50.36% of our total sales. This year was a big t-shirt selling year for us, with corporate shirts or lounge shirts and golf shirts being other good sellers. Other big areas are bags at 8.7%. However it is interesting to note that in the US from 2009 to the close of 2012, bags had

decreased by 21%. The study does show which bags have caused the decline, as there are so many types of bags to choose from: Drawstring bags, shoppers, totes, shoulder bags, backpacks, conference bags, laptop bags, sports bags, double decker bags, trolley bags and eco-friendly bags Top sellers would definably include drawstring bags, document bags, lunch bags or coolers. These are low to medium cost bags that can suit most budgets and are very well received. Writing instrument sales in the US were 8.1% of total spend on promotional items. There was an 8.1% increase in the market from 2010 to 2012. Pens do remain a firm favourite as a promotional item. There are a number of good quality low cost pens to include in your corporate gifting budget. They are an excellent conference gift or hotel gift. Drink ware came in at 6% of the total promotional gift spend in the US. One of the great drinkware items is the ceramic coffee mug.

Coffee mugs have endless possibilities for use. The most natural is for the use of tea, coffee. Hot chocolate, warm milk. But we have found that some of our clients use our coffee mugs as pencil cups. I have to admit that was a surprise. A coffee mug is a safe choice for corporate gifts. Pens and pencils are often lost or even thrown away and bags are used for s specific purpose. But a coffee mug is used time and time again. Coffee mugs are placed in the top five items as a preferred corporate gift. At Belle Regalo we prefer to Kiln fire our coffee mugs. The mugs are decorated by hand using water sliding decals and then baked in a linear kiln at 780 Degrees Celsius. The heat allows the decal to bond to the glazing of the mug. When it is cooled, it is permanent and dishwasher safe. Although USBs drives made up 3% of total promotional gift spend, as a group USBs and other electronic and technical products represent 10% of the overall market. Great technical gifts include, cable management, car chargers, earphones, IPad Covers, laser pointers, stylus pens, USB hubs, USBs and webcams to name but a few. What we found very interesting was that incentive awards are rebounding with the economy. This category has grown by 105% since 2009. This means that there is an optimism that is showing in where people are spending. This study gives some perspective on where people are buying. It can give you hints on what are popular choices for your corporate gifting strategy. For more idea on corporate gifts visit us on www.belleregalo.co.za or e-mail us on info@belleregalo.co.za

Why Choose Corporate Clothing as Corporate Gifts

Corporate clothing used to be a “Nice to Have” item, but times

have changed so much that it is now an essential item. When times are tight, companies tend to move a lot of their spend to corporate clothing. There are a number of benefits of this. Corporate clothing is good value for money We often judge the corporate gift spend by how frequently the corporate gift is used. If the corporate gift is used infrequently then the cost per use of the corporate gift is high. If the corporate gift is used frequently then the cost per use is low. With corporate clothing the clothing items are used frequently and then the cost per spend is relatively low. Corporate clothing improves the company’s image We all know someone whose dress sense is not professional or appropriate for business attire. Corporate clothing bring a uniformity of style to the work place and if chosen correctly enhances your image. Corporate clothing is well received across the income brackets Not all staff member are able to afford good quality clothing for work. This may be because of low salaries, but it could also be because they have other financial priorities like educating their children, caring for a relative of that they have bought a new home. With the budget tightens, and then often the personal clothing budget diminishes. Buying corporate clothing can also assist these staff members to look and feel professional without using their personal budget for clothing. Corporate clothing can improve morale In winter many people are often grumpy. This is understandable as our instinct is to remain in bed on cold winter days with some hot chocolate. If people are honest then most people would rather not go to work on a cold day. Giving your staff warm winter jackets as a corporate clothing items, have more are reaching benefits than other corporate gifts at this time of the year. Large Variety of Corporate Clothing to Choose from Gone are the days that you could only choose a dri-mac or a golf shirt as a corporate clothing item. Corporate clothing has evolved to include a wide variety of corporate clothing ideas. You can choose form a number of Blouses, Caps, Dresses, Golf shirts, Jackets, Jerseys, Lounge shirts, Skirts, Sweaters, T-shirts. Within this range there are so many colours and styles to choose from that corporate clothing has become a versatile and well received corporate gift. Corporate Clothing can be fun Many companies have an annual family faun day or sports days and then corporate clothing can be fun. For family fun days there are wade variety of t-shirts, caps, tracksuits, sweaters and other corporate apparel to choose from. Cycle challenges also are a fun way to boost company morale and you can have custom cycling gear made. In fact the 94.7 cycle challenge is coming up and companies are already starting to submit entries Another fun way to use corporate clothing to boost morale is to attend soccer and rugby matches together. Belle Regalo offers a wide variety of supporter’s gear as part of our corporate clothing range. This includes the official SA rugby clothing range. For more ideas on corporate clothing and our range of corporate gift visit us on www.belleregalo.co.za or e-mail us on info@belleregalo.co.za

Belle Offers a Wide Range of Corporate Clothing and Corporate Clothing

Belle Regalo offers a wide variety of corporate clothing items.

Our range includes: Blouses, caps, custom made cycling gear, First Ascent clothing, formal jackets, golf shirts, jackets, jerseys, lounge shirts, shorts, skirts, tracksuits, trousers We also offer a wide variety of Corporate Gifts Backpacks, business card holders, clocks, computer bags, conference bags, coolers, desktops, drawstring bags, flasks, hampers, key chains, moleskine notebooks mugs, multi-tools, notebooks, pens, travel bags, wine accessories, women’s gifts Belle Regalo offers a full branding service on items purchased from Belle Regalo. Our services include: Debossing, digital printing, embroidery, engraving, foiling, kiln fired mugs, pad printing, silk-screening. No branding will take place until you have signed off your artwork approval. This gives you an opportunity to check spelling, layout etc. until you are happy enough to proceed with the actual branding. For more information visit us on www.belleregalo.co.za or e-mail us on info@belleregalo.co.za