Branded merchandise and storytelling: choosing a product that tells your brand’s story

Before looking at a single product, write down what your company can tell that is true. Three sources almost always come up:

• The trade: what you do, the gestures, tools and materials you handle every day.
• The region: the town, the region, the landscape or the local know-how you are attached to.
• The values: what the company stands for, the way it works, what it refuses to do.

Keep just one of these leads per campaign. A product that tries to talk about the trade, the region and environmental commitment all at once ends up saying nothing. Then write the story in one sentence, as if you had to explain it to someone discovering your company. If that sentence does not come, the product will not find it either.

The most direct link is that of the trade. An engineering consultancy can give a notebook and a pencil, tools of sketching and thinking. A construction company can choose a tape measure or a multi-tool, objects its clients see on building sites. A restaurant can offer an apron or a kitchen utensil, a travel agency a luggage accessory.

The benefit of this choice is twofold. The product is consistent, and therefore credible: nobody wonders why you are giving it. It is also useful to people who often share your professional world. Beware of the opposite excess, however: a product that is too technical, reserved for specialists, loses the recipients who are not. Look for the product of the trade that also speaks to non-specialists. The sector pages, such as the one dedicated to construction, give ideas that are already sorted.

When the trade does not lend itself well to a product, the region takes over. A regional treat in a marked box, a product made in Europe for a company that champions local proximity, a throw whose colour evokes a familiar landscape: the geographical link works very well, especially for business gifts. The drinks and treats family and the Made in Europe selection are good starting points.

Values require more rigour. A product meant to embody environmental commitment must be consistent in its material, use and lifespan, otherwise it tells the opposite of what was intended. Our selection of eco-friendly promotional products helps avoid this gap. Likewise, a company that highlights care, precision or conviviality benefits from choosing a product that proves it: a refined finish, a clean and discreet marking, a product shared by several people.

A product on its own leaves the recipient to guess the story. Most of the time, they do not guess it. A few lines are enough to make it explicit: a card slipped into the parcel, a tag attached to the product, a text printed on the packaging. A good message has three parts:

• Why this product: the link with your trade, your region or your values, stated simply.
• What it says about the relationship: a thank-you, the anniversary of a collaboration, a project carried out together.
• An invitation, if it makes sense: come and see you, discover a project, get back in touch.

Write briefly, in a formal register if the relationship is professional, and without empty phrases. Sign with the name of an identified person rather than the company alone: the message immediately gains in sincerity. The logo does not have to carry everything. On the product itself, a discreet signature or a short phrase linked to your story sometimes says more than a large logo.

The way the product arrives counts as much as the product. The same notebook does not have the same effect if it is slipped into a trade show bag among other leaflets or handed over in person at the end of a meeting, with a couple of words of explanation.

Plan the hand-over according to the occasion. For an important client, careful packaging, for example a custom gift bag, and a hand-over by the person who manages the account. For a team, a group distribution at a key moment, with a short speech explaining the choice. For a postal mailing, a parcel that opens in a considered order: the card first, then the product. In every case, decide who hands it over, when and with what words. This scenario is prepared at the same time as the order, not the day before the event.

Storytelling has its pitfalls. The first is the invented story: a regional connection that nothing justifies, a stated value the company does not practise. Recipients quickly notice. The second is the overly long story, which has to be read carefully to understand a simple product. The third is the anecdotal product, chosen for its wink but unusable, which ends up at the back of a drawer with the story it carried.

A simple test: show the product and its message to someone outside the project. If they understand the link within a few seconds and want to keep the product, the story works. For products intended for your own teams, the guide to employer branding merchandise takes this thinking further.