Let’s look a gift horse in the mouth, Reg Rumney suggests
Promotional material the Mail & Guardian staffers received this year ranged from the sublime — a useful desktop calculator — to the ridiculous: that is, the grey concrete brick that arrived at reception for me.
At first I thought it a veiled threat, but no, the label attached with string informed me it was actually an invitation to a media update on the Municipal Home Ownership Programme on behalf of the office of MEC Dan Mofokeng.
Media promotional gifts are common and not only journalists are targets. Advertisement agencies are showered with promo material to catch the media-buyer’s eye without actually bribing him or her.
Corporate gifts are another story. In this category I place the rather smart post-modern desktop calculator Mastercard handed out to journalists to mark the opening of an office here, and the Cross pens that Amalgamated Banks of South Africa (Absa) sent out. Could Cross pens be considered bribery? Almost anything that carries the corporate logo, aside from a car perhaps, is not remotely considered bribery.
I’m not so sure about the the lengths to which a Cape Town restaurant went to elicit publicity from us. A journalist at M&G’s Cape Town office was phoned by a PR company asking whether he’d be in at lunchtime.
At 1pm the PR representatives duly arrived, one carrying a tray of hors d’oeuvres — hummus, ratatouille and the like — and another carrying a basket of foil-wrapped parcels. The journalist was invited to pick a dish from the tray, and package from the basket. Inside each foil parcel was a hot pita bread wrapped in a napkin — and on each napkin was printed an invitation to a new Mediterranean restaurant that was to open
PR companies seem to be reaching desperation point in their attempts to come up with new ways to catch the weary eyes of jaded hacks. For example, Computer Associates sent us a fortune cookie in black box to invite us to their launch. The somewhat unpalatable confectionary contained the message: “We have to be smart cookies for over 95 percent of the Fortune 1 000 companies to choose us for their software “
Also “cute” was the pair of binoculars our arts reviewer Hazel Friedman received for the Mr South Africa preview, nudge nudge, wink
More thoughtfully, Siltek Distribution Dynamics sent to PCReview, for succour during the gruelling process of covering the annual Computer Faire, a kiddies cardboard school case containing: Simba Cheese Twirls, a Kit Kat, aspirin, Band Aid, facecloth, lollipop, whisky miniature, a small bottle of glycerine foam bath, a carton of fruit juice, and a tube of lip balm.
Along the same lines were the kits sent to some journalists with a seat at the Rugby World Cup. The kit contained among other things biltong and binoculars. Dimension Data sent out miniature cricket bats this year to invite journalists to an overview of the company at Bryanston Country Club.
The media promo gift award of the year must undoubtably go to M-Net. As well as ferrying journalists all around Africa, they were lavish with their donations of T-shirts, quartz watches, you name it, to financially hard-pressed hacks. (And you’re surprised they don’t get much bad press — aside from being owned by a fair chunk of the press.)
But they hit rock bottom with the pair of utterly tacky TV dinner trays — at least that is what we surmised they must be — that they sent to members of our editorial
Arts editor, and a woman uncompromising in application of her aesthetics, Sophie Perryer describes them as “useless except to form clutter — as with most PR gifts”.
Straight into Sophie’s bin went the Reconstruction and Development programme Oscar — a plastic, gold-coloured Oscar statue on a marble base — which still lingers on my desk alongside the block of wood on which is mounted a Red Nose, and a brass plaque that reads, “Thank you for the sake of our children.”
But Sophie does use the mousepad advertising the otherwise forgettable movie The Net.
Some promotional gifts are merely puzzling, like the flat black box of chips of thick tree bark which came with an invitation to a Sun International event. There was no clue about how the bark related to the event, or why anyone should go. Perhaps if one of us had gone all would have been revealed.
What was the red wax apple candle inside an apple-shaped wire basket about? I liked it but the ad agency that sent it to me didn’t in any way spell out what event it marked, if any.
At least the leather sandal key ring fitted the invitation it came with to a Zimtrade press conference at Footwear Africa 95
Finally, many office workers get some sort of gift from clients at the end of the year. I’m sure we’re all tremendously grateful for the countless calendars and diaries that flow in, even if we do get five or six similar diaries.
But what has happened to the traditional bottles of whisky and wine? South African Breweries sent a few dozen of its lagers along, as usual, but why are so few companies doing their bit for Scotland’s economy and our own vineyards? Do they think the press is so easily bribed that it will consider a bottle of blended Scotch an affront?
A notable year-end promo sent to the M&G by the Department of Transport’s Directorate of Traffic Safety was a boxed half-bottle of Premiere Cuvee Brut. The label on the bottle reads: “Dumb Perignon. Serve Well Chilled. Warning: When used on 7th Avenue it could result in a dead duck. Fatal when mixed with driving or walking in traffic. Help us spread the word and save lives!”
Accompanying the bottle is a fact sheet with a timely reminder that even before you reach the maximum blood-alcohol level of 0,08g/100ml, your ability to drive a vehicle safely or walk in traffic is impaired.
I’ll drink to that, with a glass of the Vergelegen Mill Race Red Anglo’s communications department has just dropped