And The Winner Is... Awards & Incentives!

In today's competitive business environment, successful companies recognize that incentives and awards play a crucial role in helping them reach their objectives. Study after study has shown that employees and clients respond better to whatever is being asked of them if an award or incentive item is the prize for their participation, notes one supplier of incentive ideas, whose items are shown here. Well-planned and well-executed incentive and award programs, which your promotional consultant will be able to create for you, provide the solutions necessary to effectively meet these objectives. When employees are challenged and motivated, greater response is achieved.

Money Isn't Everything

Whereas cash used to be king, it has been dethroned as the reward of choice by savvy marketers. Why? As one top salesperson for a pharmaceutical company told me, "when I used to get cash for hitting my sales numbers, I'd spend it paying bills; let's face it, once it's gone it's gone."

Here's a tip from another supplier of awards: when you want to give a recognition award, you identify that person or group, acknowledge them and give them something to commemorate the achievement; when giving an incentive item, you'll want to rouse and motivate a person or group to elicit a better performance.

Recognition signifies that someone notices and cares. It satisfies a person's essential needs and leads to new motivation, improved performance and higher self-esteem. By giving recipients tangible, memorable, upscale items, not only are you acknowledging their accomplishments, but your thoughtfulness is a constant reminder to them every time they look at or use their prized possession.

The awards and incentive market, currently with estimated sales well over $20 billion, is growing because it continues to perform where other forms of motivation (the aforementioned cash) don't. Whether they're used as sales incentives, safety incentives, business gifts to thank clients, or performance programs to acknowledge employees who excel, awards and incentives don't fail.

Take A Page From Their Book

But don't take my word for it, consider these examples:

* When wearables retailer Tommy Hilfiger wanted to generate consumer excitement and drive store traffic and sales for the back-to-school season a few years back, the company's "Boys/Kids" division teamed with Nintendo of America for an integrated promotion targeting 8-to-20 year olds. Nintendo agreed to the partnership in an effort to boost brand awareness in this key demographic area.

The companies used customized, imprinted sports merchandise and travel as incentives and jointly financed the campaign. Nintendo included the Tommy Hilfiger logo into a snowboarding game and Hilfiger created a line of Tommy Nintendo sports products, including sweatshirts, jackets and T-shirts. Permanent interactive Nintendo displays were placed in Tommy Hilfiger sections in leading department stores allowing consumer to try out Nintendo games. A "hacky sack" fanny pack was offered as a gift with purchases of $50 or more, as well as a rebate on Nintendo games. Additionally, the program included point-of-purchase materials and an in-store sweepstakes offering vacations and high-end imprinted sports equipments, like snowboards and apparel.

The results speak for themselves: Hilfiger's sales exceeded projections by 64% and were almost double that of the same period the year before and Nintendo saw 3 million consumers sample their in-store games, 5% of the game rebates were redeemed (a record for the company) and over 30,000 sweepstakes entries were received.

* When market research showed the U.S. Postal Service that consumer interest in stamp collecting was significantly declining, they contacted their promotional consultant and designed a campaign to reignite interest in the hobby and position themselves as an important educational and cultural organization. Of course, they also wanted to increase the sale of stamps and create potential new revenue streams for overseas partners.

The USPS ran a contest, the theme of which encouraged children to express their dreams, hopes and views of the future through illustrations, and was designed specifically to be rolled out to postal administrations throughout the world to encourage international contests. Kids entered by submitting designs for a new stamp and the USPS promised to run the winner's design on a commemorative stamp. It used trips, computers and imprinted computer accessories as incentives.

The U.S. contest was executed through colorful promotional pieces written in language understandable to kids that were displayed in post offices and mailed to participating classrooms. The postal service, through its relationship with educators, was able to maintain ongoing communication with participating classrooms to encourage involvement.

Promotional materials prominently featured the various incentive and promotional items as the rewards.

The USPS campaign delivered big time when it exceeded goals by a considerable margin, with more than 120,000 American children participating in the U.S. program and over 30 countries signing up for their own local versions of the promotion. Over half of U.S. participation came from classroom activities and the USPS saw children, for the first time in a while, give stamp collecting their seal of approval.

The Envelope Please...

As these two examples show, incentives work and work well. But awards, too, hold a special place in everyone's heart. Though winning an Oscar™ is an honor reserved only for those in the movie industry, the company that makes the golden statues has a long history doing awards for the promotional products industry, and a large portion of its business comes from the high-end imprinted and engraved recognition items they craft. They are just one of the many companies represented in the showcase of awards and incentives items that follow.

When it comes to employees, recognition shouldn't be just for those who perform well; it also sends a message to other employees about the type of performance that gets noticed at a company. Recognition creates role models and communicates the standards of the kinds of accomplishments that constitute an award-winning performance. By lavishing attention and accolades on your best clients and employees, you'll be treating them like the stars they are - and who wouldn't love that?

Michele Bell is editor of Imprint.