There exist many occasions for which you’ll want to consider investing into personalized trophies. In this blog post I describe five such occasions.
Additionally, I’ll explain what personalized trophies are, your benefits when giving them out and how to best personalize them.
Personalized trophies and awards are custom made objects via which one honors specific individuals, teams or organizations. They are different from standard trophies and awards because the design is not generic and mass produced but personalized.
Personalization can mean different things. The trophy and award can carry a recipient’s name and title. The name of an event. Custom branding elements like a logo. A category which the award is linked to, e.g. Sales. The trophy and award can even be made using custom materials.
Personalized trophies and awards elevate the occasion and grant benefits to all parties involved.
Elevate the event: Personalized awards elevate the event. Participants are more likely to perceive the organisation, brand or individual that are handing out personalized awards to be professional and serious about quality.
Present values: Giving out personalized trophies and awards helps establish a culture of recognition. Awarding an individual’s or team’s achievement shows that the awarder values and is willing to celebrate the work they have put in.
Communicate the brand: Trophies that carry a company logo, its colors or unique copy help communicate the brand. Not only towards the participants of the event itself. To other stakeholders, like suppliers, consumers and clients, too. Via images and videos that are being shared after the event.
Increase motivation: People who receive an award with their name on it, feel personally recognized. This can help them to keep on giving their best and push their limits. Their hard work is being validated and an award serves them as a physical reminder of their achievement.
Foster relationships: Personalized trophies and awards show that the giver notices and values the recipient’s achievements. This alone can help foster relationships, e.g. between an employer and employees. Team members who know their achievements are seen and recognized are more likely to be loyal towards the organization. Other employees might look up to the person who has won an award as a role model. Thus elevating the recipient’s status amongst his peers.
Create competition: Personalized trophies and awards can serve as a vehicle for people to improve their game. Be it in sports or other organisations. Some people will feel inspired to reach new heights. This hopefully fosters a healthy type of competition.
Personalized trophies and awards are a powerful tool to recognise someone’s extraordinary achievements. This has a positive impact in a multitude of areas.
There exist many occasions that are suitable for giving out personalized trophies. Here are five of them.
Anniversaries are special dates that commemorate the occurrence of a meaningful event in the past. These occur annually, communicating the passage of time. An anniversary at which personalized trophies might be used are a celebratory event about the foundation of the organization or the launch of a significant product.
Brand celebrations are events organised by an organisation to recognise certain milestones, successes, or special moments referring to the brand. They serve to position the brand in a positive light, strengthen team dynamics and/or customer relationships. As such anniversaries are always brand celebrations, too. Other brand celebrations are rebranding initiatives, product relaunches and customer milestones.
Besides anniversaries and brand celebrations there are many other events at which you’ll want to consider handing out personalized trophies and awards. These are often focused on one particular group of people, be it a company’s own employees, their suppliers or their customers. Recognising significant achievements of any of these groups with personalized trophies will elevate the experience.
Events could be related to holiday celebrations, e.g. a Halloween party at which end the participants dressed in the most creative costumes win trophies. Another possibility are charity events, celebrating positive work and achievements the broader community benefits from.
As a student, back in 1999/2000, right during the millenium change, I worked at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Cancun, Mexico. The hotel was one of roughly fifty Ritz-Carlton hotels in the world. One of the many things I do remember is that competition was an integral part of the organisational culture. Each month the quality department was putting up lists with certain numbers to a pin board, next to the entrance of the employee cafeteria.
The numbers referred to 15 different categories which each single hotel of the Ritz-Carlton network had in common. The categories were guest satisfaction measurements relating to aspects like reservation, valet parking, check-in, cleanliness, room service, billing, overall value for price…
This way each hotel team could continuously see how they were performing. In comparison to all other hotels. The best ones would earn awards.
The Ritz-Carlton managed another type of competition which was more focused on the individual hotel. All employees had to always carry small sheets of paper and a pen with them. Whenever you’d find out a guest’s preference, e.g. a particular type of beverage they liked, you’d write it down and throw it into a mailbox. A team of three people who formed the guest satisfaction team would then input these preferences into a database. Whoever collected the most preferences was the winner of the competition and got an award.
There are many other competitions organisations come up with: sales results, cost reductions, profitability, number of new clients. It depends on the organisational culture, but the more they are able to gamify them, the more fun and successful they tend to be.
Organisations set goals and when they achieve them, it is time to celebrate. There exist a lot of achievements that warrant a personalized award:
- a project completion
- a brand’s entry into a new market
- the one millionth customer
- sales milestones
- new product or service development (think about a personalized award in the shape of a light bulb here #innovation #idea)
- recognition of long-term employees who are part of the company for 5, 10, 25, or more years
- living company values
- leadership or customer service excellence
- the best team
- top individual performer
- sustainability achievements
- retirement
- community impact
Whatever it is, personalized trophies and awards can help elevate the occasion. By honoring the recipients and reinforcing company values related to recogntion and excellence.
To personalize a trophy means to customize it to the specific occasion. The most important aspects to take into consideration are the brand behind it, the theme of the occasion and the individuals involved. Depending on the circumstances, there can be other aspects such as “How visible is the trophy on images or videos?” or “How easily can it be transported?” or “What packaging is needed”? that one needs to consider.
The type of personalisation will depend on the brief. Budget plays a major role here. If it is low, materials such as acrylic glass are a good option whilst a more premium material such as metal most likely won’t be doable. Especially for low volumes, the right manufacturing technologies need to be chosen in order to avoid high set up costs. This could mean laser cutting acrylic glass instead of producing a 3D plastic object via injection moulding. Trophies can be made from many different materials: metal, glass, crystal, wood, acrylic, resin, MDF, marble, leather…
Fully custom trophies and awards have a unique shape whilst personalized ones can mean a standard product which is then e.g. engraved with the name and date of the event + the name of the recipient. These are two very different options, since fully custom trophies will first require the development of a concept.
Personalized trophies will reflect a brand’s style, in terms of logo, artwork and colors. If the event has a unique theme the trophy might reflect that, too. For example a trophy for the national champion of a tennis tournament could be made by combining aspects of the country and the sport.
Some trophies can include lighting or moving parts to highlight certain elements. By personalizing a trophy one creates a unique and more meaningful type of award. One that, amongst other awards standing next to it on a shelf, will for sure stand out.
There exist many occasions during which the use of personalized trophies and awards make sense. Choosing the right type of trophies, the ones which match a brand’s, an event’s and a target audience’s unique character, will elevate the experience the most.
In the next blog post I’ll be presenting custom trophy ideas. These will hopefully inspire you to come up with your own ideas for personalized trophies and awards.
Ivica Baraba
"In PES I get to work on many custom trophy projects. I’ve been doing this since 2004. It intrigues me to delve into brand worlds and determine what products can help a client achieve their business goals. It is an exceptionally creative and dynamic industry to be a part of.”
