It’s that time of year again! Stop Elfing Yourself for a moment and consider the annual conundrum: the perfect gift to give your clients.  It has to show how appreciative you are of their business, it has to show your company’s personality. But it also has to be generic enough that it won’t break any corporate gift-giving regulations or, worse, offend anyone.

Office Depot is seeking to answer that question this year with their campaign “The Perfect Gift Project“.  On the surface, it looks like a good mix of social media, crowdsourcing and helpful ideas. However, it falls short.

First, it requires connecting to your LinkedIn account. I understand that this is about gift-giving for business clients but LinkedIn isn’t used for frivolous things like “which fruit basket do you like? Choose one! Vote now!” 

But the fatal flaw is that the gifts are unimaginative and pedestrian. If Office Depot wants people to become brand evangelists, they have to give us something to preach about. Personally, I wouldn’t give any of these gifts to my clients.

So, points for trying but this is often the result when “creative campaigns by committee” happens.