Author: David Parry

7 Employee Recognition Awards That Should Make You Cringe
What could be more frightening than handing out the same tired, interchangeable, off-the-shelf, clichéd employee recognition awards? Maybe receiving one.
Looking for creative employee recognition awards?
Good luck.
Because let’s face it: trying to find passable, let alone creative employee recognition ideas can be excruciating.
There’s an inescapable irony here: at the very time you’re seeking to recognize exceptional employee performance—to celebrate individual character and achievement—your options seem to consist almost entirely of pre-fab, cookie-cutter clichés and oddments.
Full disclosure: our company designs and manufactures custom employee awards—so, yes, we’ve got a vested interest in pushing alternatives to the usual schlocky fare. (Also, customization can—and frequently does—provide a fresh take on many of the ideas below).
Nevertheless, because of the nature and severity of the problem, we feel duty- bound to offer up this list—-and more as a public service than a sales pitch.
So, just in time for Halloween, we present….
First 7 Entries in the Employee Awards Chamber of Horrors
1) The incomprehensibly contorted Hunk-Of-Metal Award
Nothing says, “Job well done” as unmistakably as a mangled hunk of metal—-especially if the vendor has taken the additional time and care to give it some swanky name in an attempt to confer class and prestige. The Rochambeau. The Secretary General. The Earl of Sandwich.
2) The incomprehensibly contorted Glob-Of-Crystal Award
A close relative of the Contorted Metal Piece, this award’s cachet lies in its…uh, uniqueness. Extra points—and cash for your valued employee at some future yard sale—if there’s some sort of flame motif.
3) Almost anything in the shape of the number “1”
At this point, most executions of this idea are so trite–so incredibly platitudinous— that you might as well just hand your model employee one of those oversized sponge hands with the single outstretched finger.
4) Almost anything involving an eagle
“Eagle with talons”. “Eagle crouching”. “Eagle lurching”. “Eagle cresting”. “Eagle Diving”.“Lurking, cresting eagle with talons”…Does the world really need another eagle award? Do your employees really want to see another eagle award?
5) The pseudo mythological figure award
Who exactly is that heroically posed guy on the award, again? Is it…Prometheus? Wait, wasn’t he the guy who ended up chained to a rock? “Hey, can someone double-check what we’re honoring this guy for?!”
6) The ubiquitous Star trophy
Almost any off-the-shelf variation on this theme is almost too scary to contemplate. Again, a customized employee recognition awards alternative can make this idea work.
7) The “Ring-Around-The-Rosie” Award
The clear-cut winner in the team award category, this one typically depicts faceless stick figures of indeterminate gender formed in a ring and holding hands.
Is it too late to try out for another team?
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David Parry is the Director of Digital Strategy for The Corporate Presence, which specializes in deal toys and custom awards.
October 28, 2014
Deal Toy Ideas for Spin-Off “Mania”
Interesting Deal Toy Ideas for Spin-Off Transactions
“Hewlett-Packard, eBay, Barnes & Noble—the rash of spinoff announcements this year has been dizzying”.
The CNBC report quoted here goes on to note that 62 spinoff transactions are expected to be completed by the end of this year—-the most since 2000—and that the trend is likely to be sustained well into 2015.
Your most immediate interest in this trend might simply be getting a deal toy done; and toward that end, we wanted to provide some examples of potential designs.
Deal Toys Incorporating a “Spin” Theme
The “spin” theme is an obvious design hook for transactions of this sort, and one you may at least want to consider. There’s an almost infinite variety of deal toys with spinning elements that might suit your budget and timeline.
Of course, you may ultimately decide to forgo the “spin” idea altogether, and maybe opt for something related to the company’s core market, logo or other deal-related feature (see “Creative Deal Toy Ideas: 7 Frequently Overlooked Sources of Inspiration”).
Please keep in mind that—as we mention throughout this site—the burden of coming up with design ideas won’t fall on you. Any design input or preference you provide us is more than welcome; on the other hand, you most likely don’t have the time, energy, or inclination to sit around fleshing out potential deal toy designs. That’s OK. That’s our job.
Some Spinning Tombstone Design Tips
Back to spin-off designs…
Without getting too much into design specifics, we wanted to provide two very basic tips for spinning pieces of this sort.
- Cost Saving: many designs incorporate spheres for their spinning elements. This can be expensive—and may cause you to scrap the whole concept unnecessarily. A more affordable alternative are flat spinning discs—like those in the CareTrust tombstone shown here.
- Functionality: In a deal toy design of this sort, functionality has to be a paramount consideration. A common flaw with designs like this is top-heaviness. Our experience is that recipients of designs like this are bound to play with the spinning element—and if that immediately causes the piece to tip over, it’s not going to reflect well on you.
Again, we’re always available to guide you through the design process—whatever the type of deal or client.
October 9, 2014
The Lucite That Marks The “Most Profitable Deal in History”
Deal toy recognizes Blackstone’s foresight, tenacity—and ultimate success—in the purchase of Hilton Hotels
Blackstone’s $26 billion buyout of Hilton Hotels in 2007, a deal just pronounced the most profitable in history by Bloomberg Businessweek, actually went south pretty early on.
“As the financial crisis hit and the economy tanked”, the cover story notes, “it appeared that Blackstone and its partners had paid too much, used too much debt, and couldn’t have picked a worse moment to close the deal”.
Add to that the 2008 demise of deal participants Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, the resulting involvement of the New York Fed, as well as litigation involving a rival hotel chain, and the inevitable “Heartbreak Hotel”, “Not So ‘Suite’ Deal” headlines must have seemed apt.
But Blackstone persisted in its strategy; and in doing so, managed to upend private-equity clichés by combining shrewd debt restructuring with sound operational management. In the aftermath of Hilton’s December 2013 IPO, the firm is now looking at a paper profit on the deal of approximately $12 billion.
None of which we had anything to do with.
We just designed and produced the deal toy; but we’re convinced now, more than ever, that we did a pretty good job with that part of the deal.
We wanted to share again the Lucite 3-D rendering of the Waldorf Astoria, and also offer our congratulations to Blackstone—and, of course, to Hilton.
Related:
Twitter Adds Another Deal to its Timeline
The Google IPO Deal Toy: Celebrating the 10-Year Anniversary
Featured Deal Toy: The Facebook IPO
The Lucite That Marks The “Most Profitable Deal in History”
September 16, 2014
“Help! The Lucites in My Order All Look Different”
Lucites in your deal toy order will vary. That’s just the nature of the Lucite production process; but where and how your Lucites vary is the real issue.
“I’m here in our conference room with my colleagues…”
Unscheduled calls beginning with these words tend not to end well.
But in my experience, the caller, usually an analyst, typically goes on to say something like:
“We’ve taken each and every Lucite in our deal toy order out of the box and lined them up on the conference room table. Many of them look different. Some Lucites are even different sizes. Some Lucites are thicker, some are taller. We measured them with a ruler. Our dinner’s tonight. I don’t know what to tell my MD. I want answers.”
Lucites Are Not Mass-Produced No. 2 Pencils
If we were talking about, say, surgical instruments—and not Lucites—a lack of product uniformity like this would be troubling, to say the least.
But let’s face it, we’re talking about Lucites; and though no one could reasonably expect you (or most anyone else) to know this, Lucites are different.
The Lucite production process is extremely labor-intensive and many of the production steps are performed by hand. Each Lucite piece, for instance, is sanded and buffed by hand—and this causes slight differences in their height, width, and thickness.
Your MD Probably Knows Something You Don’t
Similarly, the position of anything you place inside the individual Lucites—and this would include either the paper or clear materials containing your deal text—will vary as well. Here again, anything to be inserted in the Lucite must first be layered into a semi-liquid substance by hand; and the Lucite is then placed inside an oven. And as anyone who bakes can tell you, the process itself creates subtle differences. Shifts occur during baking process, and even the position of the piece within the oven can cause subtle variations.
In fact, part of the cachet of Lucite deal toys is that they are so very customized, and they do vary slightly—something, ironically, your MD probably already knows and appreciates.
Keep in Mind Your Client’s Perspective
Remember, we’re talking here about relatively subtle differences in a Lucite production run; if those differences are extreme, then you may have a quality control issue. But just as a matter of perspective, keep in mind that your clients will be looking at each Lucite piece individually—and will not, immediately upon receipt, proceed to line every single piece up. They will instead be distributed to individuals who will look at them as distinct, individual pieces.
March 21, 2014
I Screwed Up Germany’s Largest IPO
Mea culpa…
Or, in this case, mea culpa, Terra Firma….
…and J.P. Morgan…and UBS…and most of all, to both Teléfonica Deutschland and Deutsche Annington.
In a recent blog post, we—more specifically, I—mistakenly referred to the Deutsche Annington IPO as Germany’s largest in the past 5 years.
The ultimate size of the offering by Terra Firma, which was only one part of the related transactions commemorated by the Deutsche Annington deal toy, didn’t quite qualify it for that distinction. Whatever other claims could be made on behalf of the Deutsche Annington deals, as well as the participating banks—and they were and are considerable—this one proved inaccurate. I sincerely apologize to all the banks involved, and want to give both my thanks and apologies again to the banker who alerted us to the error. The post has since been corrected.
On the bright side, it turns out that the deal toy for the IPO that actually was the largest in Germany in the past 5 years was, thankfully, also designed and manufactured by The Corporate Presence. We are very pleased to feature it here.
March 4, 2014
A Closer Look at Twitter’s IPO Deal Toy Showcase
Custom deal toy celebrates Twitter’s November 2013 IPO

Just seven years separate these two tweets.
Since Jack Dorsey sent the inaugural tweet above on March 21, 2006, among other things, Twitter has, developed a global user base of over 230 million, achieved a market capitalization of approximately $35 billion, helped fuel political uprisings in several countries, given rise to both a Library of Congress archive and a sitcom, helped shape a presidential election—and, finally, produced two noteworthy deal toys.
At The Corporate Presence we’re happy to have designed both of those deal toys—each marking a significant growth step, not only in Twitter’s history, but in that of both global business and media.
The first deal toy (shown here) from 2011 commemorates the investment by JP Morgan Chase in a fund with a significant stake in Twitter.
Breaking into The All-Time List
The more recent deal toy, also shown here, celebrates the initial public offering, the second-largest internet IPO by an American company, surpassed only by that of Facebook (The Facebook IPO deal toy was also designed by The Corporate Presence, as was the Google IPO deal toy, marking the third-largest transaction on this list).
Underwriters for the issue included Goldman Sachs, in the lead role, as well as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Allen & Company, and CODE Advisors.
David Parry is the Director of Digital Strategy at The Corporate Presence.
Related:
The Google IPO Deal Toy: Celebrating the 10-Year Anniversary
Featured Deal Toy: The Facebook IPO
The Lucite That Marks The “Most Profitable Deal in History”
February 7, 2014
Featured Deal Toy: Germany’s Largest Residential Real Estate Company
In her determination to accommodate her client’s design wishes, Jane Whitaker had hit a brick wall—literally.
The banker had reached out to The Corporate Presence’s London office for a deal toy design for a landmark European real estate transaction. Terra Firma, a U.K.-based private equity firm, had in July, 2013 listed its portfolio company Deutsche Annington on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, an issue worth approximately €500 million.
Deutsche Annington is Germany’s biggest residential real estate firm, with over 190,000 units across the country.
The client wanted a deal toy commemorating both the IPO, as well as subsequent October offerings (including a U.S. 1 billion dual-tranche bond, the largest-ever U.S. bond issue by a European property company. J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley served as joint global coordinators and joint bookrunners for the transactions).
A Deal Toy Befitting a Landmark Deal
There was little time before the deal’s scheduled closing dinner, but the client understandably wanted a design reflecting the scale and significance of the transactions. The client’s immediate preference was to incorporate a brick wall in the deal toy design—a real brick wall.
Jane recognized that using real brick would pose some practical as well as aesthetic issues—especially after the client suggested that the design incorporate keys to convey the properties’ residential character. Any design that involved drilling secure keyholes in actual brick would simply have been unachievable—especially given the time constraints.
Making use of high-resolution images of brick, and alternate materials, Jane’s deal toy design was able to achieve the effect the client was after.“Knowing the capabilities of different materials—knowing what will really work best in a given design and situation— is a huge part of our job, and of what differentiates us with clients”, she explains.
“For the door keys, we were trying for a slightly old-fashioned look, rather than simply some modern, generic door lock. We ended up using fire brigade keys, and having to source almost 300 of them! But we definitely got the look the client wanted—and all in time for their closing dinner”.
January 10, 2014
Featured Deal Toy: Southeast Asia’s Landmark Retail Transaction
Southeast Asia’s Landmark Retail Transaction
The Hong Kong office of The Corporate Presence recently helped commemorate what has become widely viewed as a watershed transaction, for both Indonesia, as well as the entire Southeast Asia region.
The offering by CVC Capital Partners of 1.17 billion existing shares in Indonesian retailer Matahari—with total proceeds equaling approximately US$1.36 billion—was noteworthy on several scores:
- The Largest Department Store Offering Globally since 2009
- The Largest Deal in Indonesia since April, 2008
- The Largest IPO in Indonesia
“We were delighted to have been chosen to handle the design and production of this lucite”, explains Leslie Ho, who is based in TCP’s Asian headquarters in Wanchai. “It was clearly a very high-profile deal—and one that a number of banks had sought to participate in; that made our selection all the more satisfying.”
“Most importantly”, Ho continues, “the bankers were really pleased with the way the Matahari deal toy turned out. Getting a high-profile assignment like this obviously doesn’t count for much unless your clients are satisfied as well.”

David Parry is the Director of Digital Strategy at The Corporate Presence, where he has worked in sales and marketing for almost 20 years. A graduate of Brown University, he also directs Scholarly Awards, a subsidiary of The Corporate Presence specializing in custom Lucite awards for colleges and universities.
October 4, 2013
Featured Deal Toy: The Facebook IPO
The Facebook IPO
For our inaugural installment of “Featured Deal Toy,” we have chosen a transaction that, among other things, did not actually occur this month.
Or even last month, for that matter.
In fact, it didn’t even take place this year.
Even so, it would’ve been pretty hard for us to choose anything else. After all, beginning with a May item in The New Republic marking the first anniversary of the IPO—and focusing specifically on our deal toy design—Facebook has had even more press than usual.
With Facebook stock since climbing above its IPO price, its mobile strategy appearing to take shape, and profits for the most recent quarter considerably exceeding estimates, the issue—and our memento—are now looking even better.
In any case, The Corporate Presence was honored then to have been chosen to design the Facebook IPO deal toy, and are especially pleased to revisit it now.
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David Parry is the Director of Digital Strategy at The Corporate Presence, where he has worked in sales and marketing for almost 20 years. A graduate of Brown University, he also directs Scholarly Awards, a subsidiary of The Corporate Presence specializing in custom Lucite awards for colleges and universities.
Related:
Twitter Adds Another Deal to its Timeline
The Google IPO Deal Toy: Celebrating the 10-Year Anniversary
The Lucite That Marks The “Most Profitable Deal in History”
September 19, 2013