Front of mind or top of head?

Which comes first? Your customers or your team?

It’s not really a trick question, more a chicken and egg statement of the obvious. You can’t really have one without the other, or a least you need both to have either.

Taking care of your customers is essential and it’s your team that do that, so it’s also essential that you ensure your team are fully equipped to do that. No customers no team. No team no customers. So best take care of both.

At Purple Patch our work is nearly always both promotional chicken and egg. We can help you to ensure that your customers remember you first, and to ensure that your teams are dressed to fly your brand’s flag to make sure that your reputation stays front of your clients’ minds.

We had a Zoom call the other day (yes, one of many) and were struck by the guy’s collar. Nothing earth shattering, but he had the company’s name on one side and their logo on t’other. Ever wondered why sportswomen and men have logos on their collars, or always don a sponsor’s baseball cap for the podium? Ever wondered why Red Bull’s prime branding goes on the helmets?

The answer is, well, telly. Or more specifically the interview’s focus (and in-action reaction close-ups) are nearly always just head and shoulders. Our interest and focus are nearly always on peoples’ faces and expressions (ditto on Zoom/ Skype) so to keep your brand front of mind, use your head. A huge logo on the chest rarely gets seen in close-up.

In a world where we’re likely to see a lot more of our customers through a screen, head and shoulders only, it’ll be wise to make your mark in the right place.

So how can we help you this week? Customers or team? Hats or collars? Or of course both? Collars, Cuffs, Chest & Hats & Face Masks …. We can brand it where it matters most.

Give Georgie a call or drop her a line.

A new British etiquette?

“Manners maketh man” said the venerable Educator and Administrator William of Wykeham, and so it’s probably down to his thirteenth century teaching that we, as a nation, are known for being incredibly polite, even when we’re furious. Which of course means that we are also acknowledged as being the world’s best at queuing. It is an internationally recognised truth and symbol of our impeccable manners.

 So it’s no surprise that we have immediately embraced the extended the 2 Metre social-distancing queue.  It’s possibly just a pleasing illusion, but even if the supermarket queues of 2020 look much longer, they seem to move much more quickly. Nothing pleases a Briton more than a smoothly moving queue. It is order and good manners in motion.

 Our only real rivals for the title of ‘politest nation’ are the Japanese, so perhaps it’s time for us to follow where they are currently undisputedly leading the world - wearing masks in public.

Last week The New York Times asked, “Is the Secret to Japan’s Virus Success Right in Front of Its Face?”  

Explaining that “one of Japan’s most visible responses has been near-universal mask wearing, seen here as a responsible thing to do to protect oneself and others, and as a small price to pay to be able to resume some semblance of normalcy.”

It’s been a matter of common courtesy in Japan for years that people who cough, sneeze, sniffle or just have general lurgies should cover up to avoid spreading their nasties to those around them. It’s good manners to wear a mask.

If you’re not convinced (or just confused by the muddle or our dear government’s policies), you can always trust the Financial Times. Quoting the medical journal The Lancet, the FT said that the best way to avoid infection was social distancing (queue well and save lives!), followed by wearing masks.

No matter if you just want to be seen to have impeccable manners, be seen as a millennial hipster with camo-patterns, or convey mystery and allure with a floral print, we’ve got you covered. Most importantly, we’ve got everything you need to keep your teams, colleagues and customers working (and queuing) safely. 

An unexpected kindness.

It’s always the small things that matter isn’t it?

One arrived in the post last week with the electricity bill and a flyer about gutter clearance services.  

It was only an A6 pocket notebook, but it was the good kind with a stiff cover and heavy-weight pages that take a pencil well. And a handwritten card with a simple, thoughtful, message and it made my day. If it is the thought that counts, this one added up to a lot.

The sender runs summertime events, where strangers gather together to eat and to be entertained, so his outlook is very uncertain, which added even more to this small gesture. A cynic might say that he was just touting for business, and I’d say ‘I don’t care Mr Cynic, next summer I’ll be there. He’s earned my ticket’.  Everyone has a right to earn a living and we’re always drawn to spend our money with people who show us care, respect and a little thought.

There’s something particularly pleasing about receiving unexpected gifts in the post. We know the Amazon orders are coming, along with the bills and bank statements, and the only surprises that come in envelopes tend not to be the good kind. The good things really stand out.

We’ve been helping companies to ensure that the right people remember them the right way, for more than twenty years, so we know that these kinds of gestures are what build and maintain real and valuable relationships. 

A lot of people in our business are promoting branded face-masks and shields (and of course we can do them for you too), but we felt we’d rather promote something positive. Something small and meaningful, because you don’t need me to remind you that now is a good time to let people know that you’ll support them and help them. 

We’d be delighted to help you now too.

Georgie

023 8045 4628

How to get ahead?

Elementary my dear Watson. Get a hat.

More specifically get a hat that fits, and by fits we mean get one that is right for (and will delight) its recipient. The first and most golden rule of marketing is to know your audience. You have to know what they like, and just as importantly what they don’t like.  What will suit them and what will they want, and maybe wear?

A perfect example of this was the innovative bike seat covers and wheel reflectors that our clients at the Royal Society of Chemistry dreamed up for their pedal-pushing professors, not to wear, but to utilise, and we’re delighted to say they’ve been using their heads again, but this time with hats of course.

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Unless you’re in the Chemistry game the fact that 2019 is the International Year of the Periodic Table may have slipped your notice, but for test-tube wranglers across the globe its 150th birthday is kind of a big deal.

So to celebrate the Royal Chemists commissioned us to make elemental hats; one each for every one of the 118 elements - from Hydrogen to Oganesson - that are the building blocks of all that matters on earth.  

We’re eagerly awaiting pictures of the various conferences and parties with auditoriums full of eminent scientists in multi-coloured caps, but we’re sure that they’ll go down a treat.  “Ha ha, Professor Bruschev is Moscovium, and Fraulein Schmitt has got Germanium! And look, Dr Clark Kent is wearing Krypton!” The right hats for the right audience, no doubt.

The point is, of course, that if you’ve got a perfect idea for something that will delight your customers, members or conference attendees, we can probably make it for you. Or if you are struggling to think of the right cap-fit-wear-it solution, we’ve got decade(s) of experience in putting our customers’ good names onto everything from bikes to boats and hats to shoes. Tip to toe so to speak, so please do give Georgie and Anna a call.

If (like some of us), you spent more time in Chemistry lessons staring out of the window than  at Bunsen burners and Liebig condensers you might have forgotten the wonder and joy of the mother of all charts, here’s a quick guide to a few nice and obscure ones with names inspired by places:,

Seeing red? That'll be Europium.

If you look at a genuine Euro note under ultraviolet light, parts of it should glow red. This light is the luminescence from a phosphor compound containing the lanthanoid metal Europium, which derives its name from the same source as the banknote. Banknote counting machines can detect forgeries from the lack of this element. See, Europe is good for the economy.

Deadly, but handy? That’ll be Americium.

Americium emits deadly radiation - but every home should have some - it’s used in smoke detectors to, er, detect smoke. So protective yet dangerous in more than small doses.

Finders keepers? You’ll need Californium

Californium is used in portable metal detectors, for identifying gold and silver ores, and to detect metal fatigue and stress in aeroplanes. Not really funny, but like its neighbour Einsteinium, it is a toxic radioactive metal, that has no known biological role. Make of that what you will.

And if you still want more, join in with Tom Lehrer’s periodic table singalong. Happy Birthday to Mendelev’s masterpiece.

We can put your good name onto almost anything you can imagine. 

Team Clothing + Workwear + Promotional Goods + Corporate Gifts + Stationery

All four one and one four all

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Any anecdote that starts with “when I was travelling in India…” should rightly be greeted with a silent eye-roll, but bear with us, this story has four good points. If you’re not a fan of short, whimsical travel stories you can scroll to the bottom for a humorous video about the World Champenships, and where we gently encourage you to buy some lovely pens.

When I was travelling in India in the mid-nineties my bag was stolen during a very hot and very slow train-journey, and at the end of the line I made my way to a tiny rural police station in search of a report for the insurance claim.  My battered Lonely Planet guide advised that a ‘fee’ would probably be required to oil the wheels of justice, and speed up an official report. As the magnificently moustached Constable was carefully documenting the facts of the crime in his beautiful Hindi script, I was mentally preparing a negotiation and trying to calculate the Sterling to Rupee rate. Mid sentence his biro ran out of ink and he flung it in the bin with an expletive to send it on its way.

“You have a pen?” He asked politely.

I rummaged in my bag and produced a fine artist’s felt-tip. He smiled, rolled it in his fingers appreciatively and said, “Unfortunately, this is no good for the report, it will not press through the carbon paper”, indicating the three different coloured sheets required for a report in triplicate.

He carefully put the pen in his shirt pocket, next to two others.

“You have another pen?”

I rummaged again and found my favourite biro. A white-barreled Bic with four different coloured plungers that deployed four different ink colours; red, black, blue and green.  He was deeply impressed, and although he tried to hide his profound interest in this miraculous new technology with calm study - slowly clicking through the four options several times - there was a twinkle of delight in his eyes. A man whose written authority had always been limited to monochrome was now pondering the potential power of technicolour.

He finished the Hindi part of the report in the same blue as he’d started, but then transcribed the Hindi into English, taking care to write each sentence in a different colour. Twenty four sentences, in a prefect rainbow of alternating colours. He signed his name in the final box with a flourish of red, then paused and signed it again in blue. And then in green. And then in black.

He beamed at me, handing me the top sheet for my insurance claim and passed the other two bland black carbon copies to his deputy who laid them in his in-tray with the requisite formality.

I made a good display of reaching for my wallet, but he waved my gesture away with a smile and patted his chest pocket where a new, far more powerful weapon of justice had been safely holstered. I  thanked him, shook his hand and wandered off to catch another train, wondering how much bemusement my report would cause with the good people of the insurance company.

This story doesn’t have a special point except to say that we love four colour Bic biros, and we know from world-weary experience that everybody, all across the globe, loves four colour Bic biros. They make a sensational gift and the grateful recipient will remember the donor forever. So after you’ve watched this frivolous video about the Bic World Champenships, give Georgie and Anna a call and they can put your company’s good name on the finest scribbling sticks known to humanity.  We thank you. Everyone will thank you.

PS: We love them so much, we’ve just bought a barrel-load for ourselves to be used as Purple Patch gifts, but we’ve gone one big step further - we’ve ordered the special ones. Black and red are not for us. We’ve gone for Blue, Green, Pink and of course Purple! Don’t tell me you don’t want them too!

Plant a pencil and watch it grow into something delicious.

Firstly, perhaps should we apologise, or maybe we should take some kind of credit?

This time last month we jokingly said that,  “....it’s entirely possible that we’ve already had all the summer we’re going to get this year, and we haven’t even reached the Solstice. We are, however, a hopeful nation that can tolerate all kinds of annual adversity from rain in June to chaos on the railways and not making it out of the World Cup group stage (again), as long as some kind soul regularly provides us with a nice cup of tea…..”

Like the famous commentator's curse, we seem to have triggered a scorcher and a world cup run that united the nation. So, sorry we couldn’t do anything about the railways, but as for our part in the month of scorching sunshine and the uplifting joy of not being totally rubbish at  football, you’re welcome. Hope someone made you a nice cup of tea.

Alas the lovely people of Denmark didn’t have much joy against Croatia and France (no shame there clearly), but they have come up with a handy idea that might add a little something to your enjoyment of this endless summer - pencils that turn into plants. Yes, really.  

If there’s a better metaphor for how high quality corporate gifts plant the seeds of loyalty, that germinate into the flowers of profit, we’ve yet to see it.

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Here’s how Sprout pencils work:

1. Call Georgie & Anna and order your choice of colour with your corporate logo emblazoned on each one.

2. Give loads to your favourite clients and staff.

3. Encourage them to write, draw and doodle until only the stub is left, then plant their pencils upside down in any suitable container.

4. Feel their delight as the chosen herbs spring to life, then add them to salads, pasta, stews, gorge themselves and feel happy.

5. Smile as they reward the giver of such joy by placing a huge order.

6. Repeat steps 1 - 5.

Regardless of whether you choose Sprout pencils in color or in grey, they are a joy to use. And when it’s time to stop writing and start planting, you’ll find it’s just as much fun to watch the seeds turn into plants. All Sprout seeds have been selected because they are easy to germinate. So you can enjoy vibrant flowers, fragrant herbs or fresh vegetables, on your window sills or in your herbaceous borders (check RHS guidlines for planting).

All aspects of the Sprout pencil are sustainable and non-toxic – from the biodegradable seed capsule to the 100% natural clay and graphite core and PEFC/FSC-certified wood.

If it’s not clear how you should plant a pencil, here’s a handy video.

Now you are ready - call us today, and watch the power of the pencil drive your business to the blooming gardens of profit.

No rain, no rainbows

This being Great Britain, it’s entirely possible that we’ve already had all the summer we’re going to get this year, and we haven’t even reached the Solstice. We are, however, a hopeful nation that can tolerate all kinds of annual adversity from rain in June to chaos on the railways and not making it out of the World Cup group stage (again), as long as some kind soul regularly provides us with a nice cup of tea.  Preferably in a good mug with a couple of unfussy biccies.

We can source corporate branded sweeties if required, but we’ve found that most target demographics are more than content with pretty much anything that comes from the noble house of McVities.  Biscuits are fleeting gifts (they’re here today and gone… er … today too), but high quality beverage containers are a gift that will be treasured and used for life. Or at least until that berk in Accounts ‘borrows’ it and uses it for a Cup-A-Soup, forever tainting it with an inexplicable minestrone flavour.  

Welcome then to our annual dose of summer inspiration of quality merchandise that will put your brand into the hands and hearts of the great British consumer, which of course includes an astonishing range of fine drinking vessels for any and every occasion that might require a fortifying cup of tea.

A Great British cup of tea for the Great British workforce, in a Great British mug. Yessiree, our brand-bearing and brightly shining reusable coffee and/or tea cups are not only beverage-agnostic (they'll keep anything hot, hot), but are also manufactured here in this green and pleasant land.

We should also say that we are experts in the rehydration field and on the rare hot sunny day when a when a cuppa won’t quite do the trick, you need good-quality reusable, refillable, planet-saving, sensitively branded water bottles. David Attenborough would approve, and what greater accolade could you ask for?

Are you equipped and ready to meet your customers?

Summertime is also event time. From music festivals to county fairs and from regattas to trade shows, it's the time of the year to get out and say hello to your customers.  And when you've said hello how will they remember you?  Here's our quick guide to six summer show essentials to make sure that your name stays with them long after the fun has finished.

No rain, no rainbows

We hate to mention the rain again, but like good Cub Scouts it’s best to be prepared, so perhaps it would be prudent to stock up on umbrellas, and we can provide everything from the huge Golfey things big enough for you and a chum, to the tiny spring-loaded ones that fit in a reasonable sized pocket or handbag (and that you can flick out with an imaginary ‘ffschiiickk’ sound like you’re a Jedi firing up a light sabre).

Being coastal dwellers, waterproof jackets are a bit of a house speciality at Purple Patch, and we can put your good name onto every kind precipitation-defeating outfit, from professional offshore grade smocks to fetching his and hers gilets that will keep off a little light mizzle.

We also can print on waterproof bags so you can fall off your Stand Up Paddleboard safe in the knowledge that your phone is secure and dry. We have tested this in real-life conditions and it works, providing that you’ve remembered to put your phone back in the bag post selfie, and not absent-mindedly popped into your pocket. In which case it’s really not the bag’s fault. Also tested.

If you still can’t decide how to make your summer event or marketing push a memorable success, have a fossick through our online catalogue. Be warned, it contains a subsection called ‘lifestyle’ that has Ice Scrapers. Super-useful, but sheesh, please not snow and ice yet weather gods, not yet...

Whoopsie-daisy clumsy. The saving grace of a sticky bottom.

We’ll forgive you if you’ve forgotten this traumatic event, but last year we nearly dropped our keys down the loo.  If you don’t recall, disaster was averted because we had a lovely floaty key-ring which saved the day.   

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The need for a brilliant branded buoyancy device must have struck a chord, because we still get emails in response, months later, admitting to similar near-misses and ordering floating key-ring savers just in case there’s a next time.

It seems that we’re not the only ones with a clumsy streak. Everyone is afflicted with hapless butterfingers when it comes to liquids, and we hear regular tales of things dropped overboard, coffee spilt on keyboards and rain-soaked damage.

So by way of public service here are a couple more ideas that might help turn the tide of this maladroit and destructive aquatic epidemic.  Imagine the gratitude and relief that your logo will inspire on these essentials for the blunderingly accident-prone.

Helpfully, one of our suppliers has even done some short and wonderfully dry videos showing – in case you can’t imagine – how these useful gizmos actually work.

Dry bags. Bags that keep things dry. Any questions?

The saving grace of a sticky bottom.

A travel cup with, not only a proper water/coffee/tea tight sealed lid, but also a sucker on the bottom. Look at her – she can’t even push it over using all of her might. You know your clients will love you forever if you give them these calamity preventers in the fetching colour of your choice.

Speaking of liquids and bottoms, don’t forget the ultra-smart solution that some very bright scientists came up with to counter their problem of damp bums – rain-proof saddle covers. Forget the plastic shopping bag, these seat-savers are the cyclist’s best friend.

You always remember the saviour who helps you out of a sticky situation, so give us a call and let us put your logo on something that will save your customers’ blushes from misadventure and mishap. They’ll forever see you as a friendly protector, and then buy loads of your stuff.