9 Creative Deal Toy Ideas to Celebrate Success

Coming up with creative deal toy ideas can be a chore for bankers

Especially when they’re faced with the same predictable, stock design suggestions. Fortunately, there are a number of imaginative–though commonly overlooked— design alternatives.

Coming up with memorable deal toy ideas can sometimes be a huge challenge for bankers—and a needlessly time-consuming one.

It becomes even more challenging when, as is often the case, your client’s company or industry doesn’t readily lend itself to design concepts. Or at least, ones that are creative…or original…or practical, or perhaps, above all, affordable.

Beyond that, your MD may have certain expectations or preferences when it comes to deal toys—which may already have been made pretty clear to you.

What’s Your Role in the Design Process?

Of course, most deal toy companies are not going to expect you to come up with design ideas for your tombstone.

Still, many bankers—even senior bankers—like to take an active role in the design process. Some even consider making a contribution to the final result a point of pride.

And, anyway, handling deal toys should be one of the fun parts of your job, right?

Going Beyond Standard Deal Toy Ideas

Some companies, and even whole sectors, almost immediately conjure up creative, custom deal toy ideas.

Other deals can pose problems—even if it’s only that most of the relevant design ideas have already been overused.

In those instances, the default suggestion—often the only suggestion—is to base the design on your client’s company logo.

Basing a design on a client’s logo can work extremely well, and again, we do this all the time. But what if your client’s logo doesn’t really offer up many design possibilities? Or if it does, logo-themed deal toys may well have been done for them before—maybe to death.

Other Design Ideas You’re Likely To Hear

So what should you do?

You could, of course, accept the suggestion of simply opting for a conventional design.

Make no mistake: we suggest classic deal toy designs like this to clients all the time, and they can be highly effective.

But what if you want to see something slightly more imaginative, even if it’s just an alternative design that you might only consider?

Deal teams often begin the ordering process with at least a rough idea of what they want (or don’t want) for their deal gifts. You may just want to kickstart your creative thinking.

So where does that leave you?

Some Alternative Deal Toy Ideas You Should Consider

So either of these default suggestions could ultimately work for you. But if you’re initially looking for additional options or other possible creative alternatives, we’ve provided some suggestions below.

1. Play Off the Deal’s Project/Code Name

This is one of the most neglected sources for meaningfully customized deal toys.

Project names can really enliven design possibilities (see, for instance, the tombstone for Project “Martini” at the top of this post). If you’re looking for a design element that will make for a  truly customized, unique commemorative—one that will resonate with recipients for years to come—the intimate and closely guarded nature of a code name gives it considerable cachet.

We recently explored code-name-based deal toy ideas. The interest the piece drew among bankers prompted a sequel.

Code names can provide the basis for designs in a number of ways. In some cases, such as the piece commemorating the project “Big Bang” below, the code name can be the centerpiece of the design.

In the case of the project “River” design also shown here, the code name appears far more subtly.

2. Look for Deal Toy Ideas in The Relevant Locations (especially with cross-border transactions)

Your Texas-based client has no doubt already at least seen, if not actually received, deal toys in the shape of the state or country.

Many geographic themes make use of some obvious touchpoints, such as maps and flags.

But location-based designs don’t have to be that literal. The design of the deal toy below, for instance, plays off the Dutch fondness for bicycles. It commemorates a transaction involving hotel properties in The Netherlands. Additionally, the South Carolina design commemorates notes issued by an auto receivables trust. The license plate design is a nod to that, and also to the issuer’s headquarters: Greenville, South Carolina.

Other location-based design ideas can be more straightforward.

Again, maps are an obvious location-based design feature.

Similarly, the design below creatively works in the California theme while providing a necessary recess to anchor the drop shape.

Flags, currencies, and other national symbols can provide a number of creative possibilities. The design in the two pieces below makes creative use of two national flags.

Location-based themes also play to the increasing trend toward multinational transactions. Two deal toys for cross-border transactions appear below, one with a flag motif, the other using currency symbols.

The deal toy components can be seen more clearly below:

3. Base Your Deal Toy Idea on the Transaction Type

Over the years, we’ve often taken inspiration from the very nature of the deal itself, whether it involved Cinderella bonds, accordion tranches, a bolt-on acquisition, Dutch auction, swap, spin-off, PIPE transaction, etc.

The two spin-off-inspired deal toys below, for instance, reflect a current trend. The fourth design is a more literal rendering of a “block” trade.

4. Make Use of an Inside Joke or Bond

Running jokes are usually fodder for gag gifts, but sometimes they’re so central to the transaction that they become a focal point of the deal.

One highly successful design we manufactured featured a Pepperidge Farm cookie inside Lucite—the snack having been the staple of meetings between the parties during negotiations.

Another design playing off a more subtle bond of this sort is the tombstone commemorating Google’s initial public offering. The IPO deal toy was styled after a decorative staple of Google’s Mountain View headquarters: the lava lamp.

Again, this is the type of customization that makes for meaningful, enduring, and above all, valued deal toys.

5. Highlight the Significance of the Deal

Deals can often be ground, barrier, or record-breaking, and all of these suggest possible design options—nicely represented by the IBM piece in the following gallery.

6. Find Ideas by Combining Elements of the Deal

Combining aspects of the deal can transform well-worn concepts into something unique.

Two designs in the gallery below combine elements of the transactions both seamlessly, and creatively.

One crystal tombstone below combines design elements—a horseshoe, a carrot, and the state of Washington—to convey very precisely the specifics of the asset involved: a Washington-based company specializing in apparel for the equestrian sports sector.

The clever design for Kellogg’s Euro issue has artwork of the Keebler Elf—a quintessentially American brand mascot—fanning a wad of Euro notes.

7. Play Off a Distinguishing Feature of the Deal

Deals can be remarkable for any number of reasons: their contentiousness, for instance, or the swiftness with which the parties came to terms.

For one deal characterized by particularly arduous, grueling negotiations, we designed a 3-D piece showing Sisyphus pushing uphill a giant rock—bearing the opposing party’s logo.

The deal toy for The Blackstone Group in the gallery below is a great example. The turtle refers to both the pace and duration of the transaction (the cane and spectacles, on the other hand, relate to the nature of the business: assisted-living facilities).

8. Focus on the End Result

Deal toys involving process or service-oriented firms can often pose challenges. How, exactly, can you represent or depict that process visually?

In the case of a transaction involving a German manufacturer of turning and milling machines, there was always the option of centering the design on a photo or photos of the company’s equipment.

Instead, the chosen design ultimately drew on the verticals in which the company’s equipment was used. Those included watchmaking, optics, and the dental and medical fields.

The ring design, shown in the gallery below, reflected yet another space in which the company’s equipment found an application: the jewelry industry.

9. Work in the Real Thing

It’s hard to equal the allure and resonance of designs incorporating the actual subject matter of the transaction. Tombstones featuring Lucite embedments of this sort have ranged from drug vials to surgical implants to manufacturing components. Depending on your product—and your timeline—embedments could offer a unique design option.

The gallery below, for instance, shows a Lucite design showcasing another company’s flagship product: limestone.

Deal Toy Ideas at The Corporate Presence

At The Corporate Presence, we’ve been designing and producing creative deal toys for over 40 years. Whether you already have preliminary ideas in mind or are looking for design guidance from the outset, our team is ready to help get the creative process started. Reach out to us today.

David Parry is the Director of Digital Strategy for The Corporate Presence, and for Prestige Custom Awards, a designer and provider of custom awards, ranging from creative employee and client recognition pieces to the N.F.L. Commissioner’s Awards, and ESPN’s ESPY awards.