Incentive - August 2008 - (Page 64) AWARDS electronics merchandise is a safe choice for motivational programs because of the category’s enduring popularity with participants. “One of the things that is always present is the appeal of electronics in general,” says Dave Peer, vice president, client services for Chicago-based Hinda Incentives. “It’s a category that has a ready-made market of people who want to upgrade.” The importance of the electronics category is clear to corporate incentive planners like Joan Miller, chief marketing officer at Boston-based Summit Partners, who oversees gifts for business partners at the firm’s investment meetings. “At our annual meeting of investors in May, we gave our limited partners Tivoli Audio radios with the Summit Partners logo engraved on top,” she relates. For the private equity and venture capital firm, the high-end audio gift is “ideal,” Miller says. “Our investors told us they were delighted to receive the radio.” Corporate electronics makers report Digital cameras like this Sony DSC-H50 always make popular, and well-used, gifts its Vegas Movie Studio high-definition video production suite hit stores in August. It’s an exciting departure for the company known for hardware. ELECTRONICS Trends in Tech Merch From iPods to home theater and back again, the electronics merchandise marketplace continues the exciting path of innovation it’s been on for the past couple of years. Certain subcategories, such as highend audio and GPS are seeing higher demand than others, with consumers’ appetites whetted by technological developments. Boston-based Tivoli Audio is just one example of the burgeoning high-end audio market, providing innovative electronic incentives for apparel makers like Timberland and retail heavies like Nordstrom’s, in addition to financial businesses like Miller’s Summit Partners. “In corporate incentives, brand items are key. You can’t throw cheap, gimmicky products to an incentive program—it won’t feel like an incentive,” says Bob Brown, president and COO of Toshiba. “They want quality.” Later this year Tivoli is rolling out NetWorks Global Radio, which receives and plays Internet-based radio content. Meanwhile, portable GPS units are finding their way into more and more incentive programs, thanks to dropping price points and new features like wireless connectivity from makers Monster Power 8-Outlet Blackout PowerCenter Surge Protector Planner Resources Sony, motivation.sony.com Apple, www.apple.com Panasonic, www.panasonic.com Tivoli Audio, www.tivoliaudio.com Hinda Incentives, www.hinda.com Premier Incentives, www.premierincentives.com Bose, www.incentiveconcepts.com Garmin, www.garmin.com TomTom, www.tomtom.com Magellan, www.MagellanGPS.com Nikon, http://specialmarkets.nikonusa.com Canon, www.info-now.com/canon Fujifilm, www.fujifilmusa.com “In corporate incentives, brand items are key. They want quality” —Bob Brown, Toshiba resilient demand for their merchandise, despite some fiscal pressure on their incentive clients. “Budgets overall seem to be going down a little bit in 2008,” says Jimmy Beyer, national sales manager at Park Ridge, N.J.–based Sony Premium Incentive Sales Group. But like other makers, Sony continues to push the electronics envelope in areas from digital cameras to home theater to software: Two new versions of like Garmin, Magellan, and TomTom. Gary Slavonic, partner at Dallas-based Premier Incentives, says GPS systems are big. “In Texas we’re working on a rewards program for a large energy company. One of the rewards is a GPS, and it’s one of the most highly redeemed items in the program.” In the category of flat-panel televisions, TV technology continues slowly to shift away from plasma to LCD, as manufactur- ers Sony, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, LG and other makers roll out cheaper, higher-quality LCD units. “We’re starting to see more penetration of LCD as the quality improves, but plasma is still popular,” Slavonic observes. “Size-wise, forty-two inches is kind of a sweet spot out there.” Home-theater peripherals like component cables and power supplies from Monster Cable are attractive additions to incentive catalogs, too, he says. And digital cameras are still riding a wave of popularity, as new, more sophisticated models with higher resolution hit the market from makers like Nikon, Canon, Sony and Fuji. “Point-and-shoot digital cameras are very popular, and we’re almost reaching an overkill point with resolution,” says Slavonic. “Some of the point-and-shoot category cameras are in the nine- or ten-megapixel range, which can produce images that are too big for many users’ computers.” Sounds like those users will soon be looking to upgrade their computers, and that’s more good news for electronics merchandise in incentives. 64 | Incentive | August 2008 | incentivemag.com http://motivation.sony.com http://www.apple.com http://www.panasonic.com http://www.tivoliaudio.com http://www.hinda.com http://www.premierincentives.com http://www.incentiveconcepts.com http://www.garmin.com http://www.tomtom.com http://www.MagellanGPS.com http://specialmarkets.nikonusa.com http://www.info-now.com/canon http://www.fujifilmusa.com http://incentivemag.com
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