Branded lanyards are hot property on the railway. But to answer your questions properly:

- I think gizzits can be worth the time, effort and cost if they are part of a comprehensive campaign/strategy and add value. Should never be stand alone item and simply ‘appear’ on desks/at worksites with no link to what on earth they relate to. Whacking a post-it pad on everyone’s desk with the latest logo does not make for an engaging brand launch! I always recommend the team involved floor walk to use opportunity to have f2f conversation with their target audience.

- Best gizzit was a tape measure to gauge diabetes risk, as created huge talking point and was tied into wider programme. Followed by a natty laptop bag at a different company when I was visiting another office overseas; shame they didn’t take into account everyone’s luggage allowance though and had to ship them all back… (again not revealing where that was, but am sure any bulk buy savings were cancelled out!).

- Worst, most inappropriate or lame gizzit – has to be those ‘bug’ things – the little balls of fluff with material coming out of their backsides with corporate messages in tiny unreadable fonts. Lame-a-rama – and usually closely followed by emails from Facility/IT departments reminding people of ‘clear desk’ policies and not to deface company property with such items.

Saddened to see you guys have decided to move on from your excellent blog. I’m excited by the new and increased focus on the LinkedIn group, which may well prove to be the catalyst to bring me back to LinkedIn, where I don’t tend to hang out much these days. All the best!