Power Session Proceedings  |  Paid Session Proceedings

This year's inaugural New York Brands Show offered attendees a host of educational opportunities, in addition to exhibitors representing hundreds of well-known brands and products. A dozen free Power Sessions featured case studies, program pointers and product "dialogs" covering a broad range of topics and trends. Here's a re-cap of 2007's Power Session presentations:

• The New Brand Medium
• Brands and People: The Missing Link
• Brand Dialog: Consumer Electronics
• Is Your Brand an Incentive?
• Incentive Program Design Best Practices
• Turning Your Brand Into a Three-Dimensional Medium
• Brand Dialog: Food and Wine
• Corporate Case Study: Sovereign Bank
• Brand Dialog: Clocks and Watches
• Corporate Case Study: Information Builders
• Brand Dialog: Gift Cards
• Internal Marketing: The Link Between Branding and Recognition

The New Brand Medium

Bruce Bolger, President of Selling Communications, Inc., opened Wednesday's program with an overview of the 2-day conference, telling attendees that many organizations have overlooked a key component of branding – the people who deliver on its promises. "From the people who answer the phone to the janitor on the shop floor whose failure to properly clean something could yield a defect in multiple products, employees contribute as much as anyone to how people perceive our brands," said Bolger. 

Ed Ford, Senior Vice President of the Michael C. Fina Company, followed up Bolger's remarks by debuting a landmark five-year study his company did analyzing the impact of brands on the award selections of nearly 2.5 million employees participating in non-cash recognition programs. Attendees were offered an exclusive look at the 100 most popular brand-name award selections, the top award categories and the most popular brands within each product category. "The next areas we need to tackle," said Ford, "are the future of the employee recognition industry, defining the concept of a 'total recognition' strategy, the cost factors involved and measuring ROI." 

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Brands and People: The Missing Link

"Moments of truth involving human interaction often have the greatest impact on how a customer feels about their brand experience," noted Rodger Stotz, Vice President and Managing Consultant at Maritz, Inc., adding that the gap between customer expectations (the promise of what an organization intends to deliver) and customer experience (the reality of what customers perceive they get) needs to be closed in order to take full advantage of your company's brand. "You always want the customer experience to equal or exceed the brand promise," said Stotz. He then cited the following stats that illustrate why it's important to maximize a brand's potential:

• 70% of people use brands to guide purchase decisions
• 72% will pay a 20% premium for brand choice
• Companies with successful brand strategies achieve 54% higher market value and 11% higher revenue growth.

"Incentives motivate people, people drive brands and brands drive business," said Stotz, reinforcing the notion that people are the critical link between incentives and business performance.

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Brand Dialog: Consumer Electronics

The first of four product-oriented sessions at this year's New York Brands Show, this panel of incentive industry experts – Sony's Jimmy Beyer, Rymax Marketing's Allyson Krichman, Tom Taraci of TJT Motivation and Joe Jagelka of Almo Fulfillment Services – covered what's hot in the Consumer Electronics category, looking at specific products, trends and features.

While iPods, home theaters, hi-def and "anything digital" dominated the roster of popular items, panelists agreed that all-in-one services (i.e., installation and set-up) and accessory-bundling (cables, power centers, etc.) were often overlooked by buyers but scored big with recipients. "Consumer Electronics continue to be a leading redeeming category, and major shifts in technology are driving demand," noted Jagelka, attributing the continued popularity of this category to high perceived value versus actual cost and the tremendous trophy value that electronics provide.

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Is Your Brand an Incentive?

For attendees who were looking for more information on breaking into the incentive market, Jim Kilmetis, Senior VP of Selling Communications, outlined some of the advantages:

• Companies pay you to market your products or services
• Your brand is positioned as something to aspire to
• Organizations target people who want what you sell
• Companies often buy in bulk over a period of time
• Incentive products can generate 10% to 25% of sales and/or profits
• It involves relatively low start-up costs
• It's incremental business with good yields
• It's a hedge against retail.

"Just remember there are certain challenges too," cautioned Kilmetis. "You have to have inventory on hand when it's redeemed, because a sale made today might not yield actual redemptions for six months or more. Also, it can take a year to get into many marketing programs, and you have to have ways to handle drop-shipping and customization. Finally, companies should have someone focused on the incentive market, with sufficient resources to maintain your commitment."

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Incentive Program Design Best Practices 

Maritz's Rodger Stotz joined Doug Press, President of The Incentive Group, to offer attendees a checklist of critical factors involved in designing successful, measurable incentive programs. "Success leaves clues," said Press, urging attendees to utilize a solid history of data to baseline and plan performance improvement. "To make your program defendable, you need to show incremental unit sales and payout, but only after results have been achieved."

Stotz noted that tracking and administration are often overlooked, but can have a major impact on a program's success. He stressed the need for timelines, progress reports, data collection/reporting systems, participant databases, market intelligence and tracking redemptions and costs in building a successful program. He also advised attendees to run a number of "what if" scenarios when doing budget planning to make sure they're prepared for any problems that might crop up. "Incentives are like fire," concluded Press. "They can keep you warm, or they can burn you – use them wisely."

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Turning Your Brand Into a Three-Dimensional Medium 

Paul Kiewiet, Chairman of the Board of Promotional Products Association International, and Mark Harris, Strategic Procurement Manager, Marketing Execution, at Coca-Cola USA, looked at how promotional products can be integrated into marketing programs, as well as how Coke extends its brand power through the use of promotional products. Kiewiet began by explaining how logoed merchandise and apparel are one of the most cost-effective ways to build a brand message, citing the staying power they have among recipients. "Of all the advertising and promotional media, only promotional products have the ability to touch all five senses – sight, sound, taste, touch and smell," he said.

Mark Harris noted that Promotional products may be effectively employed as a stand-alone advertising medium or added to the marketing mix to create impact. "They're a source of useful information, they enhance impressions about both the brand and product, and they contribute to the consumer's intent to buy," he said, adding that what counts is not so much what promotional products are, buy what they accomplish as a medium to achieve engagement, communication and integration.

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Brand Dialog: Food and Wine 

The first day's slate of Power Sessions was capped by two experts from the food and beverage industry – Alan Marschok, Principal at Corporate Wines and Spirits, and Lisa Landry, Director of Mail Order at Legal Sea Foods – who discussed the motivational aspects of brand-name edibles. Landry cited examples of how Legal Sea Foods has extended its brand via promotions involving the Boston Red Sox and other partners, and also explained how the company is using "new media" like YouTube to gain recognition among a broader audience.

In addition to describing the growing market for wine as an incentive and reward item, Alan Marschok fielded questions from the audience about labeling, packaging and some of the legal issues involved with shipping these products in light of recent court rulings. Following the session, attendees were invited to an exclusive wine tasting to sample the products, where panelists shared additional tips on preferences, bulk purchasing, pricing and other areas related to incentive programs.

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Corporate Case Study: Sovereign Bank 

In a real-life example of how incentives can impact business performance, Sovereign Bank VP Diane Murphy and Dave Dittman, Senior VP of Dittman Incentive Marketing, talked about their experience implementing a number of incentive and reward programs under the umbrella "Sovereign PRIDE" – an acronym for People, Results, Innovation, Dedication and Excellence.

One of the programs that Dittman and Murphy described in detail was SovReferrals. "Every service-oriented business has a need to drive customer referrals," Dittman noted. "In the past at Sovereign, referrals were made through multiple methods but in a disjointed manner. Essentially, there was no standard referral or referral feedback process, which resulted in lost sales opportunities and team members spending valuable business time tracking results." With the introduction of SovReferrals, all this has changed. In just six months, average weekly referrals went from 1,000 per week to over 5,000 per week.

"We took the leap that cash isn't necessarily king and discovered that a mix of cash and non-cash programs really works," said Murphy. "Our experience has shown us that cost-efficient, high touch incentive programs are meaningful to our people. We believe we're truly encouraging the right behavior that defines what makes Sovereign a great company – we're definitely achieving what we call a 'return on people.'"

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Brand Dialog: Clocks and Watches 

The New York Brands Show's third "Brand Dialog" session focused on clocks and watches, a product category that has enjoyed a long and successful history in the rewards and recognition industry. A panel of experts – Movado's Joe Zanone, Bulova's Adrienne Forrest and Tourneau's Andy Finn joined moderator Leo Jakobson for a lively discussion of what's new in this "perennial favorite" category.

Finn neatly summed up the reasons why clocks and watches have been such a strong player in the incentive business: "Why watches? They can be worn every day, they're functional, useful and fashionable, they have status appeal, trophy value – and best of all, they're looked at an average of 40 times a day by the recipient."

As for product trends, panelists agreed that sports-oriented and multi-functional timepieces are hot, as are carbon fiber materials and two-tone combinations – especially black-and-white and black-and-gold combinations.

"In this business, it's all about materials, materials, materials," said Joe Zanone. "Gold, diamonds, carbon fiber, iconic modern design – this is where you see the ultimate marriage of functionality and style."

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Corporate Case Study: Information Builders 

Jerry Duci, Director of Field Sales Development for the global business intelligence/software firm Information Builders, discussed how his company worked closely with Ira Ozer, President of Motivation Partners, Inc., to set up a multi-faceted, enterprise-wide incentive program to help increase sales and profits.

Ozer led off with an overview of the 10 steps that define a successful incentive program – Planning, Linkage, Administration, Proper Parameters, Award Selection, Communication, Training, Tracking, Measurement and Feedback. "You need to continue measurement to determine if changes in behavior are a short-term spike or whether they're truly lasting and integrated," Ozer told attendees.

"Our field sales organization is spread out across more than two dozen locations," added Duci. "We needed a program that was flexible, easy to administer and had a large selection of merchandise. An online catalog and point system was the perfect solution. Our sales reps and sales managers love these programs, and we've been able to achieve measurable results – face-to-face calls have increased 20%, new items and dollars have been added to the pipeline and we've generated new business through the program."

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Brand Dialog: Gift Cards 

Panelists for this product-oriented session included Jim Menadier, CFO & General Manager of Corporate Incentives for American Express Incentive Services, Talbot Roche, Senior VP of Blackhawk Network, InComm Senior Director of Partner Acquisitions Candy Whitley and Moderator Anil Agarwal, CEO of Prepaid Media.

"Selective-spend cards are the current 'buzz' concept that bridges the gap and fulfills the demand between general purpose prepaid card products and single merchant gift cards," noted Menadier. "This kind of product is ideal for corporate solutions targeting specific demographic needs like shopping cards, home solutions cards and theme/life event cards, as well as catering to industry-specific needs like healthcare, dining and fuel."

Talbot Roche shared some of the eye-popping statistics that gift cards enjoy: "Studies show that 95% of U.S. consumers bought or received a gift card in the past year, and gift cards were the second most popular gift purchase after clothing. More importantly, 69% of companies say they prefer gift cards over cash as incentives." Roche, whose company markets the Gift Card Mall kiosks that one sees everywhere these days, feels that gift cards have a number of advantages as incentive/reward items – they offer a multi-channel approach, customization and one-to-one fulfillment.

"In the corporate environment, prepaid solutions work to influence behavior to get results," summed up Menadier. "And gift cards represent a powerful solution."

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Internal Marketing: The Link Between Branding and Recognition

"Your Recognition System reinforces your brand because it involves three important relationships," said Tom Miller, President of the Miller Company, "the company-to-employee relationship via Service Programs, the manager-to-employee relationship through Performance Programs, and the employee-to-employee relationship through Peer-to-Peer Programs."

Miller explained how these relationships need to drive program design, communication, award selection and administration if recognition programs are to succeed. His co-presenter, Bette Gaines-Snyder, Director of Slot and Employee Events for the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino, offered attendees a number of "best-practices" tips based on the company being named a winner of the 2007 Recognition Professionals International (RPI) Best Practice Award.

"It's employees who make brands come alive," said Miller. "And as former General Electric Chairman Jack Welch once said: 'The best companies know, without a doubt, where productivity – real and limitless productivity – comes from. It comes from challenged, empowered, excited, rewarded teams of people. It comes from engaging every single mind in the organization, making everyone part of the action and allowing everyone to have a voice – a role – in the success of the enterprise.'"

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