Incentive - December 2008 - (Page 4) DECEMBER 2008 www.incentivemag.com EDITOR’S NOTE Tired of Being a Whipping Boy Yet? ast month I saw something in the consumer media that I never thought I’d see. Larry King invited Edward Liddy, the chairman and CEO of AIG to “have his say.” It was a refreshing change to the usual approach the print and electronic media take when covering incentives of all kinds. That approach portrays incentive travel as “fat cats partying” and merchandise programs as “bribes.” On King’s show, Liddy had the opportunity to eduEditor In Chief Vincent Alonzo cate the public on a business model that is based on independent brokers and how incentives and training programs play a crucial role in getting AIG’s products the attention necessary to move successfully through that sales chain. He was even able to touch briefly on how such activities are self-liquidating. It was the first time, in my recollection anyway, that our industry’s side of the story has ever been told to a mass audience. And that’s our fault. As an industry we do a terrible job explaining to the public at large exactly what incentives do and how they work. Over 10 years ago, John Jack, the great incentive executive who worked at BI for decades, did some inspired research with the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and Mazda Motor Corp. that proved the effectiveness of non-cash awards vs. cash awards in actual incentive programs. The results of each program were published in Incentive. All these years later, the editorial staff still gets occasional requests for them. I assume people are still asking for these field tests because no others have been done in the interim. Granted, proving the superiority of non-cash awards over cash awards is a complicated field test to pull off. But that’s not the data we need to have at the ready when the consumer press runs a story on the next AIG. What we need is documentation of selfliquidation. We need companies to have the courage to open the books and publish the financial results of their programs. Incremental revenue generated—$1,000,000. Program cost—$400,000. Net for the company—$600,000. For years companies have been afraid to release this data, and a case could be made for keeping it private. But that was when there was no SmokingGun.com, or numerous similar Web sites, where exactly how much an organization paid on spa treatments for its incentive winners might pop up. The paradigm has shifted. Today you should be afraid of not releasing the data. Editorial and Executive Offices 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003-9595 (646) 654-4500, Fax (646) 654-7650 Vice President & Group Publisher Nella Veldran (646) 654-7325 EDITORIAL (646) 654-4500 Editor In Chief Vincent Alonzo (646) 654-7361 Senior Editor Leo Jakobson (646) 654-7642 Managing Editor Alex Palmer (646) 654-4435 Online Editor Stacy Straczynski Special Projects Director Karen Gines Research Director Nancy Lazarus Editorial Intern Alexandra Haake Online Editorial Intern Karen Yi L ART Art Director Jennifer Ruf (646) 654-7704 PRODUCTION Production Manager Anita Wise (646) 654-7298 CIRCULATION, SUBSCRIPTION & ADDRESS CHANGES (847) 763-9050, Fax (847) 763-9037, E-mail iv@halldata.com LIST RENTAL Postal info (845) 731-2731, E-mail info (845) 731-3854 REPRINTS Mike Shober (800) 290-5460 x129, incentive@theYGSgroup.com PERMISSIONS & LICENSING Barbara Grieninger (646) 654-4675, barbara.grieninger@nielsen.com MEDIA KIT www.managesmarter.com/mediakits ADVERTISING Associate Publisher Monique Agaliotis (646) 654-7638 Midwest Marvel Jasnoch (507) 663-1480 Florida Arthur Hyman (561) 736-5374 West Coast and Hawaii Peter Edmunds (714) 963-3499 International/Caribbean Diane DiMaggio (646) 654-7332 MARKETING Marketing Director Robert Kuwada (646) 654-5159 Vincent Alonzo Editor In Chief vince.alonzo@nielsen.com President: Greg Farrar • Senior Vice President, Human Resources: Michael Alicea • Senior Vice President, Marketing: Mark Hosbein • Senior Vice President, Finance: Derek Irwin • Senior Vice President, Entertainment: Gerry Byrne • Senior Vice President, Marketing, Media & Visual Arts: Sabrina Crow • Senior Vice President, Retail: David Loechner • Senior Vice President, Online: Linda McCutcheon • Senior Vice President, Building & Design: Joe Randall • Senior Vice President, Central Services: Mary Kay Sustek • Vice President, Licensing: Howard Appelbaum • Vice President, Manufacturing & Distribution: Jennifer Grego • Vice President, Audience Marketing: Joanne Wheatley 4| Incentive | December 2008 | incentivemag.com http://www.incentivemag.com http://www.managesmarter.com/mediakits http://www.SmokingGun.com http://www.incentivemag.com
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