Editorial: Pleasant surprises

by Hugh Filman Promotions & Incentives 04-Jun-08, 10:00

It's nice to still be surprised sometimes in marketing - especially when that surprise is a pleasant one.

There was more than one surprise in the results of our first Motivation Benchmark survey (see page 43 for full findings), which took in the views of our readers on the marketplace and particularly on which incentives they use and which they think are most effective. These are not the same thing it turns out, which came as perhaps a bit of a surprise in itself.

But the really pleasant surprise was that, amid all the economic doom and gloom out there, something positive came out of our survey that caught the attention of the industry insiders we went to for reaction on the results. A huge majority of respondents said they intend to boost their spend on motivation.

Another element that caught some people off guard was the strong showing of gift cards in the section that looked at which incentives the respondents use. The gift card usage figure of nearly 31 per cent was more than Andrew Johnson, director general of voucher body the VA, said he would have expected to see.

But there is plenty of evidence in this issue that the growth of gift cards should continue. We see that the use of gift card "malls" is growing in our feature on page 25. Our news stories on Sainsbury's decision to eliminate paper vouchers for consumers (page 6) and Pizza Express's big Father's Day gift card campaign (page 5) show some of the biggest high street names are getting behind plastic.

The more this move to plastic happens, the less gift card usage should surprise people in future. But by the time the next Motivation Benchmark rolls around, there are sure to be other areas that throw up unexpected results.