Dan Toombs

Eco friendly promotional gifts are what you make of them. They are a good way to show your customers and staff that you are concerned about the world we all share. They can also bring your business or organisation a lot of valuable good publicity. It is important to know, however that not all eco gifts are created equally. In fact many products that are not classified as ‘eco friendly’ are actually more so than the bulk of eco goods imported thousands of miles from China every year.

Usually when people come to us to purchase promotional gifts, they make it clear what they want from the start. This is the way it should be. It makes it much easier to recommend promotional products and ensure the customer is over the moon happy when we deliver.

Unfortunately, every now and then one customer gets through the net assuming we can read their mind.

This is what happened when Mr Harvey’s marketing executive Nancy phoned us looking for Parker Pens. By the way, their names have been changed to protect this ex-clients’ stupidity.

The order went through without a hitch. Nancy dutifully signed off our pre-production visuals and we even delivered a couple of days early which made Mr Harvey very happy.

At this stage I should inform you that the plastic Parker Pens Nancy ordered were supplied in attractive Parker brand gift boxes. All promotional Parker Pens are supplied in gift boxes.

Upon receiving the goods, we received an email from Nancy explaining how happy they were with the pens.

“We love them!” she wrote “But there is one small problem.”

I read on…

“Mr Harvey was wondering if you could have the pen boxes picked up. As a company, we are very eco-conscious and had no idea the pens would be supplied with these gift boxes. We feel gift boxes serve no real purpose.”

I phoned her immediately and explained how sending a lorry 200 miles to collect the boxes would not be eco-friendly at all.

A day went by and I thought everything was fine when the second email arrived.

“Mr Harvey is not happy. He wants you to pick up the boxes and use them for another customer or find a place where they can be recycled.”

I reiterated our stance.

To this she replied that Mr Harvey had business in Leeds and would bring them to us himself but he wasn’t happy.

I looked at the map and knew he would be driving at least 30 minutes out of his way to do this but… to each his own.

Mr Harvey arrived the next day. He was still visibly angry that he was ‘made’ to do this. I walked with him out to his car where he lit up a cigarette while complaining about the wastefulness of the pen boxes and that he should have been informed before they were delivered.

I recommended that he keep the gift boxes and use them for storing seeds. He didn’t laugh.

As he stepped into his car, he stubbed the cigarette out in his car ashtray. We said our last good-byes and he drove off.

Are cigarette butts biodegradable?