Awarding Excellence in Motivation September 24, 2008
By Alex Palmer
At yesterday's Circle of Excellence luncheon, the Incentive Marketing Association (IMA) presented awards to the 2008 award winners. For the past eight years the program has aimed to honor five of the most outstanding recent incentive programs, giving credit to the client, planner and reseller involved in the program from design to implementation. This year's winners' circle included a diverse range of companies and programs.
LJ Hooker Financial Services was honored for its workflow software platform for loan referrals, which simplified the company's efforts to manage a network of brokers, agents and offices across multiple regions. It also boosted results, with 19,000 referrals in 2007, and 8,000 of those converted into home loans.
Winning for the best consumer offer was Subaru Canada's STI Club Card Program. The program offered customers who purchased a 2006 or 2007 model Subaru Impreza STI a $2,500 prepaid reward card that they could spend on accessories, service, extended warranty or other related expenses. Sales of the Impreza STI increased 28 percent and 218 prepaid cards were distributed.
The second dealer distributor honoree was on the other side of the globe: the Internet products dealer, BigPond, based in Sydney, Australia, won for its BigPoints program. This sales incentive awarded points for selling the company's products, with store managers and call center team leaders also earning a percentage of the overall points for their team. The redeemed these points for merchandise and experiential awards.
Another Australian company, Toyota Sales Society, was also honored for its dealer distributor program, which recognized and rewarded their 3,539 staff members. Besides a 94 percent participation from eligible employees, Toyota saw an increase of 10.7 percent in sales over 2006.
The information and technology company Modis won for its sales program (coincidentally also titled the "Circle of Excellence") which included an incentive trip to The Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida. The program had a celebrity theme of "Starring You at The Breakers" and was a hit for the approximately 80 participants. The company boosted revenue from $472 million in 2006 to $513 million in 2007.
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