SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT | MOST POPULAR |  RSS | | REPRINT
|
All-Access Awards
November 05, 2007
Sports gift cards for everything from events to equipment are a home run with incentive winners.
By Maggie Rauch
Whether you want your sales incentive to feed off the passion that employees have for their favorite sports teams or inspire interest in health and fitness, gift cards that let winners redeem for sports merchandise and experiences are an increasingly popular option.
"We are seeing a big increase in sales this year with Foot Locker being used in employee wellness programs," says Dennis Borst, president and COO of Foot Locker gift card sales, based in Santa Monica, Calif. In addition to its own cards, the company offers ESPNShop gift cards, redeemable online. "We are also seeing an increase in Foot Locker gift card use in consumer promotions and sweepstakes, especially in the promotion of the 'stay fit, stay healthy' product market."
To meet the demand, suppliers are stepping up their incentive game. While sports apparel and equipment are still popular incentive categories, providers are also creating cards or vouchers or online redemptions for event tickets, gym memberships and more.
Rewards That Fit
Companies' efforts to keep health care costs down by encouraging employees to adopt healthier habits drive much of the demand in the sporting goods category of incentives. And sports-themed vouchers, gift cards and other kinds of choice-based redemption are no exception.
In response to market demand, Carlson Marketing has added a group of cards called Health by Design that can be tailored to individual incentive programs, but which only include products that fit with a health and fitness or sports theme.
"We had several clients come to us, especially in the United States, saying they want to manage the health care cost in their companies," says Cy Moore, senior new business manager for prepaid cards at Carlson Marketing in Minneapolis, Minn. "They want employees to share information with them and get into weight loss programs." He says the cards have been used as enticements to fill out health surveys and in programs promoting healthy habits. Brands whose products can be included on the cards range from Cabela's outdoors sporting goods shops to 24-Hour Fitness gyms to any retailer that a Carlson client has a relationship with and wants to include.
"Clients have asked for things that have a healthy theme to them," Moore says. "I can do anything with a piece of plastic. That means I can go and buy cigarettes, gas, the things that have made me unhealthy. What companies are saying is, 'We care about employees and their work/life balance; if we help them to have better balance, then they are going to do better work for us.'"
Arguably the biggest names in sporting event incentives, Roadtrips and TSE Sports, have both gotten into the experience voucher business. Roadtrips, based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, makes packages available for redemption on Globoforce's incentive platform, letting incentive winners click their way to the Kentucky Derby or the NFL playoffs. And TSE Sports, based in New York, has begun offering vouchers for games.
"It gives them access to any event tickets and packages they want to buy," says Robert Tuchman, president of TSE. "It's like a Barnes & Noble gift card that you can use for books you want, only this time it's for any tickets you want for any event." Tuchman adds that many of the stadiums that sell tickets to professional competitions are now offering the option to include a credit for food and beverage stands at the venue, a good way to make the experience just a little more special.
Colgate-Palmolive recently found success using TSE's ticket vouchers in an incentive program for Kroger stores. The program ran for four weeks in the summer and had the goal of inspiring Kroger employees to design attention-getting displays for Colgate toothbrushes, toothpaste and soaps, and to place those displays in prominent places. Stores nationwide submitted photos of their displays to be judged by a Colgate- Palmolive panel. Each division of Kroger stores had three winners, who each received a voucher for tickets to sporting events that they could redeem based on their interests. Their value depended on how the winners placed in the competition.
"Kroger strongly supported it, and we saw improved return on investment, and we got better placement for our displays," says Lisa K. Williams, team leader, retail east, for Colgate-Palmolive in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Another popular option is Blackhawk Network's sporting events gift cards. The cards are redeemable for tickets to National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Hockey League and Major League Soccer games. They can also be used at NASCAR events and redeemed at some college sports competitions. And soon, Blackhawk will be adding various National Basketball Association teams to the lineup.
"About a year and a half ago, Blackhawk started this category because we saw demand from female consumers," says Teri Llach, marketing senior vice president for the Pleasanton, Calif., company. They needed creative prepaid solutions for gifts for boyfriends and husbands." The cards have since taken off in the corporate market, and Blackhawk showcased them at this year's Motivation Show in Chicago.
"We have a lot of programs in the works for next year," says manager of corporate gift cards, Ashley Sakai. "We're running an employee recognition/service program for a large retailer. [Employees] need to complete a series of mystery shops and earn points toward a gift card. The client asked that we add these cards to the rewards. It's new and different. They can take their kids; it becomes an event."
A Winning Tactic
For evidence that sporting goods and experiences motivate employees, look no further than leading Web-based incentive provider Globoforce. When given a wide array of choices, incentive winners often opt for sporting goods products, says Derek Irvine, vice president of marketing and client strategy for Globoforce, which has joint headquarters in Dublin and Boston. He says Globoforce doesn't limit award choices, but does have a growing and increasingly popular sporting goods category. "Most popular, certainly in United States and Canada, is shopping in department stores," Irvine says. "Number two in popularity is restaurant vouchers. Then I'd say it's neck-and-neck between sporting goods and shopping online at places like Amazon.com. What we find surprisingly popular is REI, particularly around the spring and summer season, when people are getting cycling and hiking gear."
Globoforce is meeting the demand by offering new options under its sports and fitness category. It recently added Foot Locker to its roster of partners in the United States and will soon roll it out worldwide. Its platform also offers Roadtrips packages for sporting events and an option called PGA Tours: A Ticket to Golf that gives incentive winners access to any one of 2,000 golf courses across the United States.
Sports gift cards and vouchers are big in incentives, and they wll be ones to watch in the coming months. Blackhawk's Llach says incentive buyers should look for more announcements soon—new participating teams and leagues, and a partnership in the fitness area with a company whose name has not been announced. "You'll definitely see us exploring other areas in sports and fitness," she says. "It's a prize that extends itself. There's so much passion surrounding the love for sports teams, and such a feeling of accomplishment surrounding fitness activities." g
|
SAVE | EMAIL | PRINT | MOST POPULAR | RSS |
|
|
| Back to Marketing Index |
|
|
