GiftCard Partners Blog

You spoke and we listened. We’re gathering and publishing results of our 2011 Gift Card Usage Survey and we’ll be including success stories in each eNews. Health and Wellness Incentives Wellness incentives have become good business. They reduce health care costs for employers and increase employee productivity.  To enhance participation, rewards are given to employees for filling out HRA’s (Health Risk Assessments). HRA’s are used to assess the lifestyle risk behaviors of individuals as part of the annual Periodic Health Assessment, work-site wellness program, or other community health activities.  Health and Wellness Programs are measurable; rewards can be given via a points system or for participating in healthy activities like joining a gym, or for achieving healthful milestones like losing weight, decreasing blood pressure or taking daily walks during breaks. Here are a few ways that our survey respondents are using gift cards to engage, motivate and reward:

GiftCard Partners recently reported that the
2011 Gift Card IQ Survey reveals good news for retailers & merchants when it comes to “bigger” incentive gift card budgets. Retailers and merchants may be celebrating an increased use of gift cards when other consumer spending categories have slowed, but the Corporate Gift Card IQ Report also announces good news for employers who use gift cards as incentives and for those who wish to use them. Some interesting information was uncovered in Incentive's September report, which outlined the respondents' a couple personal questions and it revealed more data.

Within 9 weeks of Starbucks launching mobile payment apps,customers chose to pay with their phones over 3 million times, according to an eMarketer interview with Starbucks VP of Digital Ventures Adam Brotman.  The apps provide convenience and control for customers, and speeds up those dreaded lines at Starbucks on weekday mornings.  Customer use of the app increases steadily as time goes on.   But where are mobile payment systems going? The innovation has to keep evolving if it is going to maintain its popularity.  Starbucks has already added an egift card component to the app, meaning that one Starbucks customer can gift another customer with the app through the mobile system.  This is a computer free, cash free, and credit card free transaction that can happen anywhere.  Imagine being able to receive gifts anytime anywhere, whether it is birthday gifts, or a reward from an employer. Mobile payments also help retailers track in-store activity based on mobile coupons.  Brotman explains "In response to an ad campaign ran by adidas via Google’s AdMob where 10% discounts were offered Schultz said “they were able to track that in-store activity, they saw that the weekly redemption numbers were up 50 percent. You still have users who are willing to engage with commerce now. As consumers we don’t operate in silos and as marketers we should either. When we work with retailers, we try to figure out their strategies and how we can enable that – we look at consumer behavior.”   Convenience for consumers, additional metrics and tracking for retailers.  Get rid of your cash, and shred your credit cards, just make sure you have your smartphone.  
For more information on mobile payments click here.

It should be no surprise that in a tough economy consumers are finally using those gift cards that are stored in their kitchen drawer (OK, that’s me), in their wallet or left on their  work-desk for a while. FirstData reported last week that closed loop gift cards (those specific a particular brand vs. credit branded) are in fact being used more due to higher prices for core consumer products. “Armed with this in-depth analysis and actual industry data provided by the 2011 Prepaid Midyear Card Performance Update, executives will have the necessary context and perspective to make better business decisions about their prepaid programs.” Gift card buyers are now also armed with what the general public wishes to consume – gift cards.
Read the report, First Data’s Executive Summary: 2011 Prepaid Midyear Gift Card Performance Update      

Another study out this week, by the Incentive Research Foundation shows again, what the GCP team has known for years, cash incentives are not always the most effective.  According to this new research non-cash incentives such as merchandise, travel, and gift cards prove more effective than cash rewards.  Employees find them to be more valuable.  They drive more competition in today's tough economy, and are viewed as a special treat, rather than cash that could be spent on bills, or groceries.  Non-cash incentives must be used for a special occasion, whether it is a trip, or "free" merchandise purchased through a gift card. The trophy value of gift cards and other non-cash incentives is also important in today's economy.  No one wants to lose their job, or feel as though their job is in danger, these kinds of incentives serve as better reinforcement of behavior than cash.  Employees take more notice of other employees receiving non-cash incentives, rather than a check that is often included in an employees regular paycheck.   So when beginning to think about end of quarter, or end of year bonuses and rewards, think outside the "cash box."  
For more information on the Incentive Research Foundation study click here.