GiftCard Partners Blog

Thousands of marketing and payments professionals will converge at the 2017 Incentive Marketing Association (IMA) Summit in late July.

The 16th Annual Incentive Marketing Association (IMA) Summit is scheduled for July 26-28. We invite you to connect and collaborate with GiftCard Partners, among many other companies. The 2015 IMA Summit is being held in Nashville, TN and will deliver valuable tools and ideas that will benefit your business and improve your bottom line.

There were many workshops, panels and info-sessions at this year’s IMA Summit. GCP’s Deb Merkin moderated the highly attended panel discussion: Challenges of Moving Bulk eCerts/mCerts Through the Distribution Pipeline. There was an overarching theme that carried throughout the discussion amongst panelists and attendees; there is a clear need for technology based gift card industry standards. Starting with what they are called, there are many terms used – “let’s standardize” was the consensus. IMA will survey leaders in our industry to cull common terms and help create standards. Another standard isn’t quite as simple to create: a common technology platform or industry technology standards for eCerts/mCerts.  Some companies have a legacy system or a middleware provider with technology that isn’t compatible with the technology running a loyalty program’s platform (just one example). This issue affects retailers’ willingness to adopt eCerts/mCerts in the B2B marketplace, therefore meeting or not meeting the wishes of B2B customers and the consumers demanding technology based gift cards. The goal is common amongst all parties; we want to make it simpler for retailers to adopt technology based gift cards and for customers in the B2B market to purchase eCerts and mCerts in bulk. Plainly stated…standardization will be a win-win for our industry.    

The GCP staff is excited for all the insights, collaboration and networking to be had at the upcoming 12^th annual IMA Executive Summit 2011, August 7-9. The theme: Learn, Connect, Benchmark and Deb Merkin, Ed Shulkin, Melina Balboni and Diane Freeland will be on-hand at the event.