Corporate Award Ideas: 5 Unique, Inspired Examples

Most corporate award ideas are anything but inspired. Which isn’t surprising. A quick online search will show that corporate awards tend to cluster around two very different and distinct categories.
On one hand, you’re likely to see ready-made, mass-produced awards that might seem all too familiar. These include the same menu of generic, formulaic designs that you tend to see on any number of vendor sites. After sifting through the 173rd image of the exact same crystal eagle or star or Lucite #1 numeral, you may understandably be asking a simple question.
Aren’t there any other options for recognizing achievement within your company or organization?
There are. But you may find the alternatives just as frustrating and unappealing.
Because the same search will also turn up an entirely different genre, these pieces consist mainly of weirdly contorted crystal and metal creations with equally pretentious names. These designs might very well be appropriate as decorative additions to your living or dining room, but what exactly do they have to do with your company—and, more significantly, the employees you’re hoping to honor? As many people loathe these kinds of pieces as like them. Do you really want to honor someone with something so potentially polarizing?
Isn’t there some sort of middle ground here?
Is it possible, for instance, to have corporate awards that are customized in ways that would actually be meaningful? Perhaps something tailored after your company or organization’s logo or its mission? Or the specific occasion or accomplishment being honored? Or something else that would potentially resonate with your recipients and contribute to the award’s perceived value?
Corporate Award Ideas That Aren’t Simply Recycled
The shortcoming of most corporate awards is that they convey (or reflect) absolutely nothing about the organizations bestowing them. They’re completely interchangeable.
Most of these awards are so lacking in identity that they could be from virtually any company—in any industry.
Corporate awards are obviously intended to honor the dedication, commitment, and achievements of your employees. However, they also provide another opportunity, one that is directly connected to this primary purpose.
Corporate awards also provide an opportunity to showcase what sets your company apart. It’s an opportunity to define your organization’s identity: to assert your organization’s core values and brand, and make clear their connection to the individuals and accomplishments that are being honored.
Awards that do this also tend to have far greater cachet and resonance among recipients.
5 Standout Corporate Award Ideas
The Golden Saw Award: A crystal corporate award designed in the shape of a circular saw blade.
The Golden Saw Award
For Georgia-based Swift Straw, this distinctive crystal award visually represents its corporate mission (providing pine straw and mulch for use by landscapers nationwide). But it also echoes another aspect of the company’s mission. The saw blade design with sharpened teeth plays off the concept of honing and refining skills, a theme that is central to the company’s culture of innovation. It also reflects Swift Straw’s commitment to disrupt and modernize a once-staid industry.
KFC Bucket Award: A corporate award designed for Kentucky Fried Chicken modeled after the company’s iconic bucket
KFC Bucket Award
Granted, not every company is lucky enough to be able to leverage as a design feature something as instantly recognizable as the KFC bucket. On the other hand, your award design might be able to play off something that already has that level of familiarity among your employees—the potential group of recipients. Also keep in mind that effective corporate award ideas should raise awareness of your brand going forward, something the Golden Saw award above has made clear.
The Fist Bump Award: A crystal award designed by The Corporate Presence for the North American Blueberry Council.
The Fist Bump Award
There are innumerable ready-made, off-the-shelf pieces potentially available for this custom award. (Just think, for instance, of the countless “thumbs-up” awards you may have seen online). What makes this such a successful signature award is that it playfully brings into focus the mission of the organization: the North American Blueberry Council.
A Lucite award celebrating the FDA approval of a cancer treatment containing a vial of the actual drug within the award.
Immunogen Product Development Award
This Lucite award, recognizing team members instrumental in gaining FDA approval for an ovarian cancer drug, goes beyond a mere visual reference to a product. It incorporates the actual product. Embedded within the Lucite is a vial containing Elahere.
Learning Resources Years-of-Service Award: A crystal award inspired by the Learning Resources logo.
Learning Resources Years-of-Service Award
This award obviously isn’t the first to take inspiration from an organizational logo. What is appealing about this particular crystal design is just how simply and seamlessly that logo is integrated into the design, dovetailing unobtrusively with the shape of the piece. As a category, years-of-service awards tend to be dominated by cookie-cutter, off-the-shelf pieces.
By contrast, this design demonstrates that corporate award ideas don’t have to spring from some involved, “artsy” vision. Like this piece, a truly custom award can be understated, and yet still further a company or organization’s brand.
Corporate Award Ideas from the Corporate Presence
The awards above represent different companies and industries and also vary in the underlying achievements they honor. They also differ in size and in the materials they’re made from.
The one common denominator, however, is that they all depart from the mainstream, default, cookie-cutter awards readily available online. And they all make statements, whether subtly or forcefully, about the organizations they represent–and the members of those organizations they have been chosen to be honored.
At The Corporate Presence, we’ve learned over the course of 40+ years that there will be times when you need to source an off-the-shelf award. That may be because you only need one of two pieces, or you need them in a matter of days.
But beyond those special circumstances, consider reaching out to us when your next award opportunity looms. We can help you take full advantage in designing and producing a truly signature award design that will not only reflect your culture but also resonate with those being honored.
Get the design process started. Reach out to us today.
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