All-Access Awards - Incentive Magazine

Sports gift cards for everything from events to equipment are a home run with incentive winners.

Source: Incentive Magazine
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.