Colliers International UK Plc is part of Colliers International, the world’s third largest commercial real estate organisation with 480 offices in 61 countries. In the UK Colliers employs 700 people in 13 offices across the country.

We initially worked with Colliers International UK Plc to create an online ordering system which allows all UK employees to order from a range of approved Colliers promotional merchandise produced by ourselves. The success of this online ordering system led to us pitching and winning the business for Colliers EMEA. This involved the design and launch of an online ordering system for Colliers UK and the whole of Colliers EMEA (33 countries). The new site incorporated all existing UK stock as well as a range of new products for the EMEA region.

The site has proved extremely popular with orders so far from Italy, Sweden, Germany and Latvia.

Interested in an online ordering system? Please contact one of our Account Managers today on 08707 500057 to discuss your requirements.

Above: The online ordering system for Colliers International

Above: A selection of some of the merchandise available on the store

We were recently announced as an approved supplier to Durham University for promotional merchandise. This involves producing a number of key items for them including cotton shoppers, folders and novelty products. All these items are sold online via the Durham University e-shop.

Durham University is the 3rd oldest university in England, after Oxford and Cambridge, and a leading centre of learning for 1,000 years. With over 22,000 students and 3,584 staff, the university now has an annual turnover of £255 million.

In order to work with Durham University, we had to go through a tender process which involved written proposals as well as interviews, presentations and a selection of samples.

We have already started producing items for the university and look forward to working with them further over the next three years.

Above: A selection of some of the merchandise already produced for Durham University

At Creative Emporium, we are always looking at ways to improve our service offering to our clients. We can now offer print fulfillment across a wide range of different formats from single page flyers through to fully bound brochures. Please find below a case study of some recent work we did for one of our clients, Aimia.

Aimia Case Study

Aimia is a global leader in loyalty management offering a full range of services including coalition loyalty, proprietary loyalty and loyalty analytics.

We were recommended to Aimia by Nectar, the UK coalition loyalty programme that Aimia owns and operates. We have worked with Nectar for the past 12 months producing a wide range of promotional merchandise and clothing.

Aimia required printed materials including brochures and leaflets to reflect its new brand at an external conference that they were attending. The lead time on these items was extremely short, leaving only three days for production once everything was approved.

One of our experienced Account Managers, Lesley, spoke to Aimia to discuss their requirements. With a limited specification, it was our job to recommend the correct materials and finish, to ensure a high end result that represented the new brand correctly. Lesley’s experience in print also enabled her to offer advice on how the leaflets should work with the recommendation of a tri-folded brochure for a selection of case studies Aimia wanted to print.

At Creative Emporium, we think it is essential for clients to see the finished product before they commit to an order, even with short deadlines. Digital samples were sent to the client’s home address due to the lead time and approval was received that evening enabling the job to run through the night to ensure the schedule was met.

All the printed material was completed and received three days later.

Head of Communications at Aimia said “The professional service that Creative Emporium provided was second to none. They offered excellent advice and the turn-around time was extremely fast. It was a pleasure working with Lesley who was able to guide us on the right layout and finishes and the end result was fantastic”.

We would welcome the opportunity to quote on any print requirements you might have and promise to price match any existing quotes that you have- call us today on 08707 500057 to discuss your requirements in more detail.

Deacons are a Life Fitness distributor based in Kenya who supply Life Fitness equipment and merchandise to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Southern Sudan and Rwanda. Their showroom is located in the Sarit Centre Mall in Nairobi Kenya.

In order to promote the showroom and business in general, Deacons purchased some dual branded merchandise and clothing from the Life Fitness e-shop (www.lifefitness-shop.com). The items are going to be used for a number of different purposes:

Publicity- Enhance brand awareness within the markets Deacons operate in by giving away dual branded items to prospective and current customers in the home and commercial gym arena. Deacons partnered with a local TV station in Dec 2011 when they run a series called “Slimpossible”, a weight loss contest that aired every Thursday with contestants competing to win prizes for the most weight lost. The finalists received the dual branded items in a live television event that generated huge publicity for the company.

Sales promotion and advertisement- Deacons plan to incorporate the dual branded products as giveaways during sales promotion in our showroom and in other remote/mobile promotional events within the market e.g. golf tournaments and sports events.

Direct and personal selling- Deacons also plan on giving away dual branded items when their sales people make contact with potential customers in order to increase brand awareness and recall.

Items ordered from the e-shop included t-shirts, towels, bags, caps, pens and mugs. All items were dual branded Deacons and Life Fitness. They have proved popular with customers who are particularly impressed with the quality of the items and their durability.

Jeddidah Thotho, Group Director at Deacons said “The items were received from the Life Fitness e-shop were produced to a very high standard with customers proud to use or wear them. The dual branded aspect assists customers in understanding the relationship between the distributor and the Life Fitness brand. It gives us a real competitive edge as we are able to differentiate ourselves in an extremely crowded marketplace.”

For more information on dual branding contact one of our Account Managers today on 08707 500057

This year we have decided not to send out any Christmas cards or presents and instead make a charitable donation on behalf of our customers to two charities close to our hearts.

The first of these is:

Walk the Walk

Walk the Walk is a charity dedicated to raising money for the treatment and cure of breast cancer. The charity does this by raising money through walking events, the most famous of these being the “Moon Walks”, full marathons that begin at night and finish at dawn! Walk the Walk is a grant giving charity so all money raised is given to breast cancer related causes. To date the charity has raised over £75 million! For further information on Walk the Walk please visit www.walkwear.org

Why we chose them- Walk the Walk is a fantastic charity dedicated to raising money for the cure and treatment of breast cancer. The fact that they are grant giving means they are able to give money to underfunded projects throughout the UK and reach people effected by breast cancer who might not otherwise have direct access to alternative therapies and treatments.

Secondly we have donated to:

Make A Dream

Make A Dream is a Leeds based charity making “Dreams” come true for sick and terminally ill children throughout Yorkshire. “Dreams” have included meeting the Arsenal Football team, going to Disneyland and meeting Ant and Dec! To find out more about Make A Dream please visit www.makeadream.org

Why we chose them- Make A Dream enables us to support a local charity with a national reach- helping ill children throughout the UK achieve their dreams and giving them respite from their day to day life. A great charity to be involved with and one we wanted to recognise this Christmas.

May we take this opportunity to wish all our customers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and we look forward to working with you in 2012 and beyond!

We were recently awarded a framework contract by CEPOL- the European Police College, for the supply of promotional merchandise and corporate gifts. This involves producing a number of key items for them including pens, pads, USB’s, pin badges, folders and bags. The maximum duration of the contract is four years.

CEPOL brings together senior police officers across Europe with the aim of encouraging cross border co-operation in the fight against crime and maintenance of public security and law and order. Established as an agency of the European Union (EU) in 2005, CEPOL organise between 60-100 courses, seminars and conferences per year. The activities usually take place at the senior police training institutes in the different EU member states.

The merchandise produced for CEPOL will be used at these training institutes throughout Europe.

The contract involves supplying corporate gifts- something we have a lot of experience in, contact one of our Account Managers today on 08707 500057 to discuss your corporate requirements.

As regular readers of our blog will know, each Creative Emporium staff member gets one day paid annual leave each year to volunteer for a charitable or community cause. This runs alongside annual holiday leave so employees can take one day a year to partake in voluntary work and/or give something back to their communities.

Over the past two years, several members of our team have used their volunteer days for a wide range of different activities from cleaning up the local community to organising galas!

Our latest volunteer, Dave Lister, assisted his local community and environmental group to undertake free home energy audits for people in his area.

The project involved visiting houses and using a thermal imaging camera to detect points where heat is being lost through gaps in areas such as insulation. Once detected, Dave and the rest of the group gave advice on how people can plug leaks and insulate their homes better.

Overall the team managed to visit a number of properties with plans to expand the project further as the winter months progress!

For those of you that don’t know, Dave is our company Environmental Officer demonstrating not only does he take his environmental responsibilities seriously in the office but in his local community as well!

Above: A thermal camera image highlighting heat loss from a property

On Sunday, 6 members of the Creative Emporium team completed the Great North Run! A big thank you to everyone that sponsored us to do the run with over £1500 raised and still some money coming in!

All the money will be going to St Gemma’s Hospice in Leeds- for more information on St Gemma’s click here

The team finished in the below times- well done to Darren on beating us all!

Darren- 1:46:06

Christos- 1:58:57

Richard- 2:09:18

Gavin- 2:24:58

Lesley- 2:35:26

Hannah- 2:40:25

There is still time to sponsor us so please donate! http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/creative-emporium 

Discussion in the office now is which run to do next?! Any suggestions welcome!

We’re running! Yes Creative Emporium have decided to attempt the Great North Run! Darren, Gavin, Richard, Lesley, Hannah and Christos are representing Creative Emporium on the 18th September 2011 to raise money for St Gemma’s Hospice, Leeds.

St Gemma’s provide specialist medical and nursing care for people with life threatening illnesses, along with support for their families too. For more information on St Gemma’s please visit www.st-gemma.co.uk

We would really appreciate your support in raising money for this fantastic charity and every penny counts so please donate- no matter how small your contribution, it makes a difference!

To make a donation please visit http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/creative-emporium 

Thanks for your help and remember to visit our blog next week to see how we got on!

We began working with Specialized in 2009 producing a range of ad-hoc promotional merchandise including branded t-shirts, pens, wristbands and keyrings. The success of this relationship has now led to the creation of an online merchandise store enabling Specialized dealers in the UK to purchase promotional merchandise for product launches and events in the UK.

Specialized rely on a dealer network in the UK to sell and distribute their products and accessories. For this reason, it is extremely important to constantly look at ways to improve the service offering to dealers so that their dealer network could easily order a wide range of promotional merchandise, all from one place. The promotional merchandise range was selected by Specialized by working closely with one of our Account Managers, Lesley, to ensure the right products were chosen.

Emily Hamilton, Event Manager at Specialized, said “The site has created a great marketing tool to support our dealer network, helping them to provide great merchandise for their own store events and store giveaways. The site has helped to create a high level of service to all our dealers in the UK.”

Above: Selection of Specialized merchandise

About Specialized:

Specialized Bicycles was founded in 1974 by riders for riders. Headquartered in Morgan Hill, California, with global distribution, the company focuses on making everyone’s time on a bike better by delivering functional and technically advanced equipment that provides a performance benefit.

For more information on Specialized, please visit http://www.specialized.com/gb/gb/bc/home.jsp