Corporate gifts are a primary advertising and promotional genre. The product range is huge, running the gamut from "branded" paper products containing the firm's name, logo and contact details, like calendars, note pads, appointment card holders, and similar stationery, to electronic organizers, mouse pads, mugs, and other merchandise with brand identity.

The sales technique is fundamental: Establish a market presence with the customer. As merchandising, this is a very cost effective method. Corporate identity is a primary advertising methodology. Corporate gifts do the job very effectively, and are easily budgeted as promotional items.

The market for corporate gifts is very large, and extremely competitive. Modern promotional materials have a very demanding market of their own. Quality is important. Corporate gifts are required to stand out, and look good.

The market environment is unforgiving, and shoddy products are not welcomed.

In the market context, the quality of materials relates directly to the promotional standard. High quality corporate gifts reflect well on the promotion. In upmarket promotions, extremely high quality is essential. Some of these upmarket materials are custom made for specific promotions, and every aspect of their presentation is a high budget exercise. These promotions are usually on contract, and the providers of corporate gifts are dealing with a very tough, demanding, market indeed.

Promotional materials generally are very big business. In the mainstream of corporate gifts, standard promotional materials like pens with the company name, or other basic promotional goods are bread and butter for the suppliers. Large corporations often have regular suppliers for their promotional materials, and their regular suppliers are usually those who've out-competed their rivals for quality and price.

Innovation is a primary characteristic of advertising and promotion, and corporate gifts are no exception. The corporate gift is the result of collaboration between clients, suppliers, designers, and production. The production of the vast range of corporate gifts is an industry within an industry.

That process sometimes creates some spinoff, where the promotional product acquires a value of its own. Occasionally, a promotional corporate gift even creates intellectual property, and becomes a collectors item. Market identity becomes a status symbol, and things like a fashionable product name can be in demand. The corporate mug or pen becomes an icon. Sometimes these things become extremely valuable. Coca Cola bottle openers and glasses from the 1960s, for example, are now major collector items.

Corporate gifts and special promotions also get a lot of attention in the merchandising and marketing industries, particularly advertising, when someone produces a really effective promotional tool. The corporate world, which is also highly competitive, tends to respond when a rival produces a high quality promotion including exceptional corporate gifts.

There's no real limit to corporate gifts as a concept. Almost anything can be used, and the only true definition of "corporate gifts" is that they're used as market identity tools. The advertising industry tends to develop marketing ideas, and merchandising in particular is rapidly becoming a massive driver in advertising. Corporate gifts are the epitome of the marketing ethos.

Red Fish Marketing, an Australian promotional merchandise supplier, is a good example of the sheer scale and range of the demand for diversity in corporate promotional materials and gifts, and what's involved in modern merchandising.

Red Fish have a very big range of merchandise on their website, http://redfishmarketing.com.au/, which shows how diverse demand for promotional materials really is. The Automotive section alone takes up 16 pages of products. The New Products page has 128 items. Every single one can be used as a corporate gift.

This kind of flexibility and product range is absolutely essential in marketing of any kind of promotional materials. In terms of corporate gifts, which are an integral part of basic marketing, the demand is for "different", "new", and "standout" materials.

"Average" really isn't good enough.

A particularly good example of the product range is Red Fish's Games Toys and Fun page: http://redfishmarketing.com.au/category23

There are anti stress items, electronic games, poker sets, magic beans, stuffed toys… You could start a retail franchise with their stock range. Finding corporate gifts is only difficult in terms of making a choice.