When you travel to another city for a conference, it's nice to be greeted with a special gift thanking you for attending and representing your organization well. It's even better when this box is full of conference essentials—like the one we created for Hashicorp's team at Afrotech 2022.
THE CONCEPT
The Hashicorp team came to us looking for a few different items for this conference. In addition to the welcome box for their team, they also wanted to revive a previous team gift (which was very well received) to serve as a giveaway item during their recruitment process at the conference—genius. They also wanted to find some special yet subtle ways to sneak company branding in with the gifts and giveaways.
THE EXECUTION
This isn't our first time creating a custom conference welcome box. So we know a thing or two about optimizing the experience.
Traveling with liquids is impossible for anyone flying in, bringing your own water bottle can be cumbersome, and opting for plastic bottles all week is taxing on the wallet and the planet. So we went with infinitely recyclable aluminum bottles of still Just Water, which can be reused throughout the week and keep its contents cold for hours.
Next up, we knew snacks had to be involved (who among us has never had their stomach rumble during a workshop?). Individual packs of Partake cookies, OH Mazing granola, and Pipcorn cheese balls were there to quell the hunger.
The branding came in with the logo on the outside of each box, on the gift note inside, custom buttons and stickers we tucked among the other products, and a branded t-shirt for each person. These were a subtle but thoughtful nod to the company, allowing attendees to rep their team as much (or as little) as they wanted to.
Our favorite parts of this gift, though, will probably be enjoyed after the conference ends. The "Just Write" notebook from an independent artist and our best-selling book of the year (Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab) were about more than the conference or even the company.
Including these gifts was another way for these Hashicorp leaders to encourage their colleagues to take a moment for themselves in the coming months. And maybe even give them something to discuss beyond the work.