The Last-Minute Holiday Gift Guide for Agencies

You thought shopping for your 16 nieces and nephews was a challenge.

But choosing gifts for your agency colleagues is making a trip to Toys R Us on Christmas Eve sound like a vacation. You don’t want your bad gift to become the subject of the next office happy hour or the thing people remember when you win your first award at Cannes (One can hope.).

If you're struggling to get into the festive spirit, yet don’t want to be the Scrooge who opts out the tradition of goodwill, then peruse our list of pin-worthy gifts for six different professionals in your office.

Brand Strategist

They know what topics are trending before your 13-year-old niece does. Culture and cool are just part of the job, so picking up a gift at your local drug store is not going to cut it. How could you possibly buy a gift for someone who thinks they started the shruggie (also known as a smugshrug) trend ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ on the West coast and uses words like curiosity quotient, haptics, and moodgeisting in casual conversation?

Check out this list of curated gifts for the cultural sage in your office:

Agency Owner

There’s nothing more trying than figuring out what to buy for your boss. Should you go silly? Will that send the message that you don’t respect the agency or your boss? Should it be serious? Will that make you seem like the “boring” one who can only work on traditional projects and dull accounts? How much do you spend? If you spend too much, will your boss think you are a brown noser? If you don’t spend enough, are you sending a message that you think your salary is insufficient? It’s a windy, dark road that only leads to misery. 

Review this list of boss-worthy gifts:

Copywriter

Your resident word jockey is the person you turn to when you stumble across a grammar joke online, though you’ll never again ask if the Oxford comma is still relevant -- you’ll never get back those hours. But with the “Mad Men” season finale (part 2) quickly approaching, you’ll need someone to analyze and obsess over every detail with. Get in her good graces with a gift that’s worthy of her literary tastes.

Pick a gift for the logophile in your life:

Account Manager

This person is the barrier between you and the client with the outrageous requests, the last-minute changes, the clipart mockups, and the emails at midnight. She deserves a present for her super human-like powers to manage expectations, organize complicated projects, and charm even the most hostile client.

Get a gift that helps your client wrangler unwind:

Creative Director

Your creative director does more than stand over a designer's shoulder, ordering her to change a color or align the text to the left. Her ideas are what transform a boring brief into a masterful piece of art -- that sells. And that's what makes your clients happy. Reward her with a gift that inspires -- hopefully, it will help her forget that time you suggested cutting costs by using stock photography. 

Impress with these design-inspired gifts:

Follow HubSpot's board The Creative Director | Agency Gift-Giving Guide on Pinterest.

Public Relations Director

You admire this person’s persistence in the face of some tough journalists, her ability to make even the most snooze-worthy product interesting, and her high tolerance for Starbucks iced coffee. And she’s saved you from more than one mistake that could have landed your client on this year’s list of epic brand fails. 

Give a gift that shows you know the demands of your resident flack:

Follow HubSpot's board The Public Relations Director | Agency Gift-Giving Guide on Pinterest.