Incentive - March 2008 - (Page 41)

right merchandise gift to go with that incentive travel program, our clients now have a vehicle, which is the Disney gift card. So whether it’s merchandise, food and beverage, or theme parks for how many days and how many tickets, it’s one card saying, “We’re giving you this, thank you so much for everything you’ve done, spend it on whatever you’d like. We brought you here, have a great time.” Organizations will still bring their incentive recipients together for private events, but they’re also giving those employees the flexibility to buy, and purchase what makes them feel good and do what they want to do at Disney. Bass Pro: I think exactly what Anne says. As a retailer, we sell 140,000 different items, some of them very technical. To give a person something that they really want in today’s world is really tough, and I think the gift card allows them to use it on what they want to use it on, and I think that the recipient feels good about it, because they can get exactly what they want. Along the lines of ease and acceptance, what are you all doing to make sure that the cards are easily redeemable? Bass Pro: For us at Bass Pro Shops, of course the card itself is good at all of our retail stores; it’s good online, and it is good through all of our catalogs. But our card is also accepted at our resort, it is also accepted at all of our restaurants—we have a small restaurant chain, Islamorada Fish Company, Hemingway’s; The White River Fish House. And so whether you want food, a resort, or whatever you want to do with it, the card will allow the consumer to do that. JC Penney: Same here. We also allow them to use them in the catalog or online. Also something that is kind of a fun feature is emailing the card instead of sending plastic. Hallmark Insights: We have the privilege of working with 350 great brands, and every time one of our partners adds cross acceptance—their sales go up 10 to 20 percent. The consumer is looking for that universal acceptance. Q Are cardless rewards really picking up dramatically now? handful of retailers, and we also offer, for employee spot programs, $5 denominations. That is very popular. In the Incentive gift card survey which was published in August, 13 percent of respondents said their average card is less than $25. Is this area of smaller spot rewards expanding the market? Bass Pro: My thinking on that is, it JC Penney: We are seeing both applications, because they are not always interchangeable. So we see certain applications with the e-card only being used, others with a choice of either e-mailable or plastic given—the program is split between both. It is interesting in that in a couple of programs where there is an e-mail versus plas- Q “Most of our card customers are able to just go online and check their points.” –Melissa Paladino, Omaha Steaks tic choice, the choice is usually the higher redeemer of the two. Omaha Steaks: At Omaha Steaks, in our corporate sales division, we only do gift certificates or gift cards. We don’t see requests for electronic much. For our incentive programs, everybody wants the cards. Hallmark Insights: We do programs for clients that they specifically tailor. The ecertificate is extremely popular. And the entire offer may be virtual, so there’s an e-mail notification that in turn they can convert to a gift card from one of the participating retailers that we partner with; that is a very powerful offer for certain b2b and consumer programs. depends on what type of retailer you are. For us, I don’t see the gift cards being that small, but again, I think, depending on the retailer[and the program], they could sell a lot of small cards, but I don’t really see the gift cards themselves being any smaller than what the merchandise options used to be. JC Penney: With incentive programs, in my experience, I have seen them range, most popularly, between the denominations $25 to $50 and sometimes somewhere more like $40 to $45. But at retail, as Bill has mentioned, I have seen it be much higher than that. Hallmark Insights: Our average is much higher than $25. But we have partnered with some of our retailers to go down below the $10 threshold, in programs where team members just accumulate them. How do program managers keep track of the gift cards? Are you involved in that at all? Omaha Steaks: Most of our card customers are able to just go online and check their points balance. It’s not something that we are really involved with, only as far as our online team makes that option available. JC Penney: We are typically dealing with clients that are buying them in bulk or in large quantities, so we really track the sales for the corporate buyer, but not if it’s a gift. incentivemag.com Q Q What’s the range of denominations your cards come in? Bass Pro: We offer anything from $10 to $5,000 and anything in between. And depending on what kind of program you’re doing, it will cover most. We have some programs with professional ball teams, where maybe they even get higher than that, but at that point we just give them multiple cards. Disney: We currently have all denominations up to $1,500 but will soon have gift cards available up to $5,000. Hallmark Insights: The largest denomination that we will issue is $10,000 for a Q | March 2008 | Incentive | 41 http://incentivemag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Incentive - March 2008

Incentive - March 2008 Contents Editor’s Note: Delivering on Diversity In The News Cover Story: Leveraging Diversity in the Workplace Incentive Interview: Paul Levesque on Why Awards Fail Case Study: AEIS’ Max!-imum Incentive Program Mine Employees’ Creativity with Innovation Incentives Incentive Must-Reads The Third Annual Gift Card Roundtable My Turn: Motivation or Bribery? Everybody Get Together In Her Shoes: Why Bosses Should Be Flexible Incentive Primer: Passport Problem-Solving potentials Here and Now Is CES Electronics Heaven? China and Crystal: More Than a Pretty Face Travel News Florida: What’s New on the Beach? Smooth Sailing for Incentive Cruising Come To Hawaii And Take It Fast Last Word: But Enough About You

Incentive - March 2008

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