Promo - April 2008 - (Page S17) who enrolled 3% cash back on purchases made using Dunkin’ Donuts stored value cards. Blabolil sees a major cross-promotional opportunity for consumer goods marketers to tie live events, Web ordering and fulfillment together through a physical or e-card. Instead of incurring the costs involved in transporting quantities of goods to consumer and trade shows (and often finding that too few or too many of various products are on site), exhibiting manufacturers can let consumers view and try items at the show, then sell them cards preloaded with the desired amounts and PIN’s enabling them to go online, view the company’s full product line and purchase. Starbucks and Visa created a card that leverages multi-uses, multimedia, co-branding, loyalty marketing and cause-related marketing, all in one dynamic program. The Starbucks Card Duetto Visa can be used as both a Visa credit card and a reloadable Starbucks card. Customers can set up their Visa account to automatically reload their Duetto Dollars account—good for purchases at Starbucks—each month, or whenever their balances run low. They earn 3% back in Duetto Dollars on each reload. In addition, the user earns 1% back in Duetto Dollars each time the card is used. And the first time a Visa purchase is made on the card, Starbucks donates $5 to the Local Initiatives Support Corp. (a group of community-based development organizations). Starbucks also gives every new Duetto cardholder a $25 Starbucks credit. number of companies are going the gift card route. Gift card rebates are faster and less expensive, and they bring the added benefit of driving consumers into stores or onto Web sites, where they’re likely to make purchases beyond the value of the card. According to Parago World Bank, 250 million rebate checks worth $5 billion were issued in 2006 (equaling nearly one rebate for every person in the U.S.). “Cards only account for about 10% of the rebate market currently, so there’s enormous potential for gift cards in this area,” says Michelle Smith, vice president, business development for O.C. Tanner and past president, IMA. But that percentage is growing as companies warm up to the idea. Some examples: 4Frigidaire ran a promotion last year in which consumers received rebates in the form of an American Express gift card, with the amount denomination rising according to number of products purchased (from $50 for one product purchase all the way up to $500 for five products). 4Best Buy has offered branded rebate cards to customers who sign up in its stores for AT&T Yahoo DSL. 4Retailers and manufacturers are encouraging consumers to opt for rebates in card form by offering to increase the amount. Discover Open Road Card users can boost or even double their rewards when they redeem them for gift cards or instant e-certificates from 100 Discover merchant partners. What happens when the consumer doesn’t use the entire amount? Some retailers issue new gift cards for the remaining amount. Others also hand them out for returns (some only when returns come back later than 30 days). < S 17 How to Select Incentives (continued ) <Demographics are important, but you can’t base all your assumptions on them. For example, differences among some generational groups “are often not as large as people might think,” says Paula Godar, director, brand communications, Maritz Motivation. Lifestyles, attitudes and other factors come into play in determining an individual’s incentive preferences. Performance improvement specialists advise companies to seek professional help when designing programs. “It’s no longer just a matter of ensuring that incentives are not too malefocused,” says Michelle Smith, vice president, business development, O.C. Tanner. “We now have four generations in the work force for the first time, and we need to be very sensitive to cultural diversity. The wrong incentives selections can end up being not just disappointing, but perhaps offensive.” < GIFT CARDS FOR REBATE INCENTIVES Rebates work. But processing them and issuing checks is expensive, and the time lag can frustrate consumers. That’s why a growing SPECIAL ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT
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