Strategy also builds reputation, branding, talent retention and NPS; business should move BRL 234 billion in the US, Europe and Brazil
A discipline that integrates the promotional marketing repertoire, the incentive is returning to the agenda of the companies and bringing new energy to the agencies that explore the segment. After the inertia generated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which paralyzed the area, as explained by businesswoman Silvana Torres, CEO and founder of Mark Up, the need to leave home, combined with the desire to experience special experiences, is responsible for the resumption of awards such as form of reward for the productivity of sales teams and other components in company structures.
BVs (volume bonuses), a tool used by media channels, for example, are a way to encourage business loyalty through this incentive. This occurs in retail and in other channels as well. But, despite being on the incentive spectrum, it differs from what the specialized players propose.
The incentive, however, is not just support for sales. It also includes brand reputation, improvement of the NPS (Net Promoter Score, former customer satisfaction survey), branding and, mainly, talent identification and retention. This analysis by the businessman is one of the pioneers of incentives in the Brazilian market: Gilmar Caldeira, Star Premium’s manager partner.
The incentive market with travel rewards picks up again in 2023, not only in Brazil, but also in Europe and the United States, and is expected to surpass 2019 numbers by 19%. An applied research institute projects a volume of BRL 234 billion only on incentive trips. This resumption brings some news: it has to be an experience and not simply a trip with formal itineraries. It needs to have wellness activities, social responsibility actions and a lot of Team Building. The main reason is the pent-up demand for travel in the last two years, the home office pushed team leaders away. People miss integration and the exchange of everyday life. It all adds up to award-winning talent with incredible destinations that have been delayed for two years. The most interesting thing is that during this period, when the winners were offered to exchange the trip for another type of product, more than 70% refused and preferred to wait for more than a year for their trip, emphasizes Caldeira.
It is important to point out, according to Caldeira, that in the marketing toolbox, incentives are no longer solely oriented towards sales, as many still think. People who perform well are an organization’s greatest asset. Then we have the trends of Employee Centricity, Employee Experience (EX) and many others, reasons Caldeira, who lists the desirability.
One of the preferences are sunny destinations, as there is always a new country in the spotlight. Travel is also combined with sport, as was the last World Cup in Qatar. Who doesn’t want to see a Champions League game, watch the Super Bowl, an NBA game, a tennis match at Rolando Garros and, of course, a Formula 1 race? For Brazilians, the United States always comes first; and soon after, the classics of Europe, such as Paris, London, Rome and Madrid. A great differential are also combinations with shows and musicals on Broadway, or tours of bands like the Rolling Stones around the world. This killer option is a huge object of desire. Fairs are more oriented towards professional training and are rarely offered as prizes, but we have trips like the Cannes Film Festival which, for advertising, is a prize that combines culture, benchmarking, trends and relationships. And festivals and conferences such as Web Summit/Lisbon, SXSW/Austin and NRF/New York. The world has become too small for discoveries and trends, says Caldeira.
ROI
Travel is desired and encouraged when it comes to adding value to the chain that reaches and exceeds business goals. With this, we prove even more the importance of this format to promote a great engagement among employees, making them feel valued, recognized and integrated, observes Silvana.
Incentive trips are certainly among the most desired first prizes. According to the Incentive Research Foundation, properly designed and executed incentive travel programs can increase sales productivity by 18% and generate an ROI of 112%. Furthermore, data from Aberdeen Research show that 100% of best-in-class companies (those with the highest customer retention and sales growth) offer this type of award to recognize the success of work at the end of the year, he says.
According to Silvana, it is noticeable that actions like this are important for the live
marketing, especially considering that they were fully resumed after the restrictions caused by Covid-19. The incentive trip is a prize that brings a remarkable experience, contemplating more than free tickets and accommodation. The commitment of organizations to the resource makes it possible to approach the team and generates an opportunity to carry out personalized deliveries. We already had winners who were getting to know the sea for the first time. This is a real event for attendees, customers and the company as a whole.
history
This asset, however, is not new. The incentive comes from the time of Ancient Greece, where the competitors of the Olympics (read races) won laurels (laurels of victory), busts and things like that for their good performance. The United States is the cradle of the incentive, in the mid-1920s, when the first strategies were applied in the American automobile industry, under the promise of granting trips to employees who managed to increase the production of vehicle units, Ford being one of them. pioneer in this regard.
An emblematic example is that of Henry Ford, who once said the following sentence: You could take my factories from me, burn my buildings, but if you give me my people, I will build my business again. If these strategies already worked when the Ford Company was still a small company, over the years this tool has been perfected until it has become indispensable for most companies. Since then, companies in the most diverse areas of activity have started to adopt rewards for all the effort that goes beyond the work contracted by their employees, aiming to always encourage them to go beyond the basics, seek new ideas and challenge themselves to obtain ever better results. We can say that investment in people is the big trend in the corporate market today, and those who haven’t adapted to it are already falling behind in the race for the future, ponders the CEO of Mark Up.
Caldeira, which has already developed more than 4,500 incentive projects with around five million people impacted, is also doing a memory exercise. The first incentive campaign registered in the world took place in 1889, in the USA, with an NCR (National Cash Register) project with resellers awarded with a visit to the company’s factory and headquarters, on a journey that was accessed by train and horse to the company. Soon after the 1929 crash, it gained strength in the resumption and recovery of post-crisis companies, and from then on the numbers grew by an average of two digits per year. The market that has the most references and numbers is the American one, which registered US$ 134 billion in 2019 (non-cash awards, that is, products and trips). In the USA alone, more than 25 million people receive awards for travel alone, and the industry has already been responsible for 18% of hotel occupancy volume, details Caldeira.
Read the full interview in this week’s issue.
