Chilli flavoured chocolate business gifts are becoming increasingly popular as firms take advantage of the many straplines that can be paired with the product.

Playing on the ‘hot’ theme, many are using the ‘red hot’ and ‘spice-up’ themes in their messaging to align with the unusual flavour of the edible business gifts!

Edible business gifts in chilli flavoured chocolate have long been on the market, but recent trends have seen their popularity soar.

Business gifts are available in a variety of luxury brands, including Burberry, Molton Brown and Godiva.

Luxury brands such as Four Seasons, Ventura Yachts and Verve Cliquot are common advocates of such high end business gifts.

The brands invest heavily in premium business gifts because they emulate their brand accurately and are in tune with their target markets.

The business gifts sector has responded well to changes in trends and lifestyle, with a wealth of ‘eco’ products now available on the market.

The most popular of the new ‘eco’ products in the business gifts sector is the 100% tree-free stone bag, which is biodegradable and made using a highly environmentally friendly process.

Such ‘eco’ business gifts are considered a premium item and are ideal for business trying to incorporate an element of environmental awareness/social responsibility in their marketing activity.

Many large suppliers in the business gifts can offer extremely fast turnaround times on products, with firms such as Propaganda offering a 5 day turnaround on a selection of products.

Propaganda’s 5 Day Express enables businesses to rapidly respond to market changes and give their products and services a last minute sales push through business gifts.

Only some firms in the business gifts sector are able to offer such a service to clients, as a substantial infrastructure is required in order to facilitate such a fast service.

Recent research has highlighted the effectiveness of business gifts by demonstrating that marketing professionals, who were questioned in the survey, consider promotional merchandise to be a vital ingredient in their marketing strategies for the year.

Over 85% of those surveyed suggested that they are likely to increase their spend on business gifts in the coming year, despite the economic climate.

Many believed that business gifts offer greater return than other forms of promotion, in particular advertising, as it is easier to measure campaign performance and reaches their target audiences on a more direct and personal level, resulting in higher conversion rates.

The 20th International PROMOTA Show will be held at Birmingham’s NEC on 17 – 18 February. As the only independent trade show run by and for its members, both visitors and exhibitors can access a host of benefits, including the opportunity to meet with prospective clients and like-minded peers. The event is extremely popular with companies from all over the business gifts sector.

Rod Duncan, Chairman of PROMOTA, said, “The show is shaping up to be one of the best in the association’s history. Members from around the world exhibited at and visited the 2008 show.” This year’s show is expected to be even bigger than previous in terms of the number of business gifts suppliers exhibiting.

With lots of innovation over the last year, there is expected to be a number of desirable and creative business gifts on show, including products not yet out on the market!

Click-it tins are a great way of promoting your brand at any major event. With great coverage for company logos and a wide choice of printing options, they offer the flexibility to support any campaign. What’s more, the contents of Click-it tins can be tailored to your requirements, from jelly beans to mints and chocolates, the contents can even be tailored to individual brands – some companies choose specific jelly beans in their brand colours which adds to the impact of the item.

As well as being a popular give-away with audiences, Click-it tins are also durable and have a long life cycle, as they are a popular desk and handbag item, with many re-using them to store pills and drawing pins, which according to research are the two most common items being kept in the tins once the contents has been eaten!

The late AA Milne’s beloved, world famous children’s character Winnie the Pooh is due to return to our bookshelves, 80 years on from his first literary appearance!

The Bear of Very Little Brain will make his comeback in Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, the first authorised sequel to Milne’s original 1920s stories. The launch will also see a new range of fun business gifts available for purchase.

Companies who produce business gifts have already begun to prepare for consumer demand by producing a range of branded ‘Pooh’ promotional items which also have room to feature key messages!

“We’ve been hoping for a good many years that we might one day be able to offer the world a sequel which would do justice to the original Winnie-the-Pooh stories,” said Michael Brown of the Trustees of the Pooh Properties. The range of business gifts are expected to hit the market soon.