If you look up Vistaprint’s Wikipedia entry, you’d think that its business centers around small business printing needs. That was, indeed, its niche, but for the holiday season this year, it’s branding itself as the source for personalized gifts.
The holiday section of its site features the headline “Make some magic this holiday.” It explains, “After the year we’ve had, custom cards and gifts can mean even more.”
Its solution to making gifts more meaningful is to make them personalized – so much so that they are clearly marked for the recipient and can’t be regifted. That inspired the theme song it went with for its promotional video, a variation on Nat King Cole’s classic “Unforgettable” rendered as “Unregiftable.”
The year we had and the shadow cast by COVID-19 influenced not just the theme of the video but even how it was produced. As explained by MediaPost, “This is the first time Vistaprint cast real-life family members.”
They certainly deserve credit for thinking outside the traditional casting box both for general authenticity and for pandemic safety.
Another interesting note in the article is that “Vistaprint has retained behavioral psychologists who will share gift giving tips and tricks with followers on social, including findings from the study and what makes seemingly simple gifts extraordinary.”
So far, comments on the YouTube video indicates that audiences love the song. Whether they love the idea of giving “unregiftable” gifts is another matter. One of the comments pointed out:
“How is this meant to appeal to anyone except the most meanest-spirited customers? Honestly, it seems like you’re marketing to people who want to punish their gift-recipients, or people who have contempt for their gift-recipients and see their own feelings as more important.”
In truth, though, you don’t have to resort to personalized gifts to push your own feelings on another in the gift. It really comes down to knowing what the recipient likes.
If the grandparents would love a blanket covered by pictures of their grandchild, that makes it a good gift. If, however, they feel they have enough blankets, and this would just be so much more clutter, then remind yourself that clutter, to use Marie Kondo’s term, doesn’t spark joy.
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