Last updated on May 21st, 2024 at 10:30 pm

I was thinking the other day about business gifts and promotional items that are suitable for the smaller business (or even the larger one) to give to their clients or prospects when I remembered going to an online marketing exhibition in London and seeing packets of jelly beans.

Now then, I am sure that like me you can remember your childhood and have fond memories of some of the old fashioned sweets that you used to buy.  For me it’s things like Kola Kubes, Flying Saucers, Sherbet Fountains and Fruit Salads/Black Jacks, I can remember as if it were yesterday (in fact it’s nearly 60 years ago) the excitement of getting my pocket money and going into the local sweetshop to choose some sweets – the “important” decisions that were made, should I buy something like a sherbet fountain or would it be better to buy fruit salads at 4 for an old penny, or even 2 ozs of Cola Cubes and make them last for a long time.

This led me on to thinking about the use of sweets (candies if you are reading this in the USA) as a marketing tool and I started to look around the net to find out if anyone still made these kinds of sweets (I knew that many of them might still be made as I remembered a sweetshop in Peterborough that used to sell old fashioned sweets).  It didn’t take too long before I came across a site based in the UK called aquarterof.co.uk that not only sells all kinds of “retro” sweets but can also personalise the packaging so that you can use them as business gifts, staff incentives or even, on a personal level, as wedding favours to put out on the tables at the reception.

Looking at their website they can even put together a box from the decades so if there is someone special that you want to send some sweets to you can choose a box from the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s or even the 80’s.  These boxes have what looks like a wide selection of items in and seem to contain over 3kg of sweets. While these may not be suitable as an everyday business gift I know a very successful salesman that makes a note of special birthdays for clients and sends something that marks that birthday (maybe this is something that you could do if a client is celebrating a 30th, 40th, 50th or 60th birthday for example).

Imagine the surprise if you used some of these sweets as novel business gifts – I know if I were to get a pack of these through the post or at an exhibition it is something that would stick in my mind, especially if they reminded me of my childhood, and after all is that not the whole purpose of a business gift if you are honest – to remind clients that you exist or to introduce yourself to new prospects.