Recession or not, corporates still pick calendars for gifts

Jyotsna Bhatnagar

They may not find pride of place on the walls of living rooms adorned by M F Husains or desk-tops crowded with designer bric-a-brac, but calendars still retain their perch as the best way to keep in touch with the passage of time. For that reason, there is scarcely an office or household across the globe that does not hang a calendar, in whatever size or shape. Realising its potence as a long-term tool for creating corporate awareness, it isn’t surprising that even in these times of global recession, pink slips and ad cuts, calendars remain a top new year priority for companies.

Many top Indian corporates take great pains to ensure that their calendars become “sought after” possessions year after year. Says A R Kurup, general manager, Corporate Communications, with the Ahmedabad based Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd (CPL), “As far as our annual calendar goes, we cannot afford to cut corners with the product, which has, over the years, established a niche for itself, not only in the entire pharma sector, but overall as well.”

And so, the CPL top brass goes to great lengths every year to ensure that its calendar is not only a “theme” calendar, which conveys a sense of continuity throughout the year, but also promotes CPL’s corporate strengths effectively, in addition to being visually appealing enough so that doctors will want to display it in their clinics across the country. Last year, CPL’s calendar had seasons as its theme; this year, it celebrates the rhythm of life by focussing on the prominent raags appropriate for the various seasons. At the same time, it promotes the CPL corporate culture and its top pharma brands. At Rs 30 a piece and a print order of two lakh copies, the company has shelled out a cool Rs 60 lakh on the exercise.

Other large corporates, too, are ensuring that those in the business of designing and printing calendars are kept busy. Says a top executive of creative whiz Alyque Padamsee’s Repro India Ltd, one of the largest studios for designing, processing and printing calendars, “Though we are aware that many small and medium size corporates are discontinuing calendars, most of our clients, comprising some of the top corporates, have remained with us. In fact, we’ve added a few more names to our client list this year.” The Rs 60 crore outfit prints an astronomical 50 lakh calendars a year for companies ranging from cement major ACC to CPL to ICICI and the Tatas. But as a rule, pharmaceutical companies and banks are the sectors that churn out the maximum calendars.

“Most corporate clients have their annual calendars created and customised for them,” the Repro executive reveals. Not surprising, since corporates across the board believe that the calendar is the best way of keeping in touch, of reaching out to people and of spreading corporate consciousness. At the same time, it also speaks volumes about the company’s image as well as the character of the corporate. “As a gift, a calendar is probably the most decent gift with the maximum functional value, not to mention its fantastic recall and reminder value throughout the year,” maintains a corporate insider.

On the flip side, however, a calendar may become the proverbial hot potato—too hot to handle as happened with another leading pharma company, Torrent Pharmaceuticals Ltd. TPL discontinued the practice of bringing out calendars, not because it couldn’t afford to, but because the demand for them became impossibly high. “Rather than antagonise anyone, we chose to stop printing them altogether,” says K Altaf, general manager, Corporate Communications, TPL. Till two years ago, TPL was shelling out close to Rs 1 crore to produce about one lakh calendars. It has now chosen to stay in touch with the medical fraternity through less visible, but equally effective and functional, gifts such as leather crafted diaries and desk calendars. All said and done, the idea is to ring in the new year in a way that will keep the cash registers ringing the year through.