Corporate Gifts Mark a Return This Season

They’re the presents you can’t return or exchange. Some ended up in the circular file. Others were consumed in a single sitting.

They’re corporate gifts--and this holiday season, they made a comeback.

After a lull during the leaner economic times earlier in the decade, giving gifts to business clients became fashionable again this year along with that other recessionary reject, the Christmas party.

“This year has been a very, very good year” for corporate gift-giving, said John Buchanan, vice president of marketing at the San Francisco Gift Center, a wholesale gift mart. In the last week before Christmas, he said, some corporate gift buyers had used up their initial orders and came back for more.

But there was a distinct ‘90s flavor to the presents that business people bestowed on one another this holiday season, gift specialists and executives say. Alcohol, paperweights and fruitcakes were definitely out. Cheese and salami trays were considered gauche.

Gourmet food, from flavored popcorn to exotic fruit packed in liqueur, was very big. So were personal-care items, such as bath salts, lotions and aromatherapy candles. And the all-time crowd-pleasers--coffee and chocolate--were given with a vengeance this year.

“Everyone says they’re into health-conscious things, but they’re really not,” said Susan C. Brown, president of Professional Priorities Inc., an Irvine-based corporate gift service.

The 8-year-old firm just finished its busiest year, starting last January when Brown began searching for Christmas gifts. In June, she started tying bows, and by midsummer she was prodding customers to make their holiday gift decisions.

Among the big themes this year, Brown said, were imported chocolate confections, hand-painted boxes instead of baskets, and golf-related gifts.

Make no mistake, this season didn’t mark a return to the conspicuous consumption of the ‘80s, when holiday offerings sometimes included expensive vacations, watches, jewelry, antiques and tickets to coveted sporting events.

Indeed, some companies continued to discourage giving and receiving holiday gifts this year. Others said they put strict dollar limits on presents. Some gave only to charities, and then sent cards to clients naming the recipients of their largess.

Garth Blumenthal, general manager of Mercedes-Benz dealer Fletcher Jones Motorcars in Newport Beach, said he frowns on holiday gifts for customers, in part because he doesn’t want to offend anyone with non-Christian beliefs. Instead, the dealer sends customers gift baskets filled with gourmet coffee, biscotti and key rings on their first anniversary of buying a new car.

Still, many businesses played Santa Claus with their clients this holiday season. Many say they tried to achieve the appearance of understated elegance or originality with their gifts.

“I just love to give something that means something, not just, ‘What in the hell is this?’ ” said George Rea, director of distribution for Toshiba America Electronic Components Inc. in Irvine. “I used to get fruitcake. Yuck.”

Instead, Rea opted for individualized corporate gifts, such as a golf-themed package complete with a golf atlas, balls and tees for an associate. His favorite was a football, autographed by former New York Giants star linebacker Lawrence Taylor, that he gave to his New York representative, a big Giants fan.

When it came to pleasing those discerning executives, small pieces of hand-blown glass, crystal and other objets d’art were popular choices, gift buyers say.

But for anyone who wanted to be very hip, very ‘90s, and win the undying gratitude of that special client?

“One word comes to mind: ‘Cigars,’ ” said Sheri Cameron, CB Commercial Real Estate Group’s director of research for Orange County.

Cameron, often the only woman at business meetings, received several stogies as gifts this year after taking up cigar-smoking as a way to bond with her male colleagues. But she stuck with Godiva chocolates for her clients, only because she was afraid of displaying her ignorance in choosing the right cigar brands.

“Next Christmas, it is my intention to be educated on this, and to give cigars appropriately,” she said.

The cigar craze didn’t go unnoticed at Gump’s, which is coming off “a very, very good year,” said Sandy Turow, director of corporate gifts at the upscale department store based in San Francisco. “The humidor, of course, is the hot thing.”

By late last week, Gump’s had sold out of its $335 rosewood humidors, which keep air moist for storing cigars. And Turow was still receiving calls for them.

For those who missed out on the humidors, though, another big seller at Gump’s this year--in keeping with the growth of foreign trade--was an international clock cased in solid rosewood for $200. “It’s quality, it’s ‘90s,” said Turow.

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For Mike Baghramian, president of Bager Electronics in Fountain Valley, the holidays are a once-a-year opportunity to express gratitude to clients and associates. In the electronics business, he said, “our world almost moves in seconds. You really don’t have any time to thank people.” So he sent engraved pen-and-pencil sets, desktop clocks, and 5-pound Ghirardelli chocolate bars.

In the entertainment business, gift-giving is de rigueur.

Last week, Jill Larson, assistant to the president at Larson Sound Center, an audio post-production firm in North Hollywood, was knee-deep in boxes of crystal bowls that were being sent to clients.

Larson herself has been inundated with paraphernalia from the shows the firm has worked on. There have been Swiss Army watches from “Wings,” leather backpacks from “Weird Science” and briefcases from “Frazier,” among others.

Gag gifts, however, fell victim to the prevailing trend toward political correctness. And that makes Terence Morris a bit nostalgic for pet rocks.

“It’s really sad, but there’s not much humor anymore,” said Morris, national sales manager for AMC Trade Shows, which runs the biannual Los Angeles Gift Show.

Companies “err on the side of being bland,” added Buchanan of the San Francisco Gift Center.

Yet the occasional bad-taste gift hasn’t disappeared. Larson recalled receiving a costume jewelry pin designed in the shape of a large diamond engagement ring from an employment agency. “That would definitely qualify as the worst,” she said.

Bill Pecce, president of Nexus Technology, a semiconductor manufacturers’ representative in New York, hopes for a better response to his holiday gifts, which he bluntly acknowledges are intended to impress customers.

For the last few years, he has hired Brown in Irvine to fashion unique packages, from salmon pate and other delicacies arranged on a fish-shaped wooden board to baskets stuffed with caramels and chocolate-covered almonds.

“It’s a helluva marketing tool,” he said. “That’s why I do it.”