[ R E WA R D S ]
ENGAGEMENT
IS LESS ABOUT
THE ACTUAL
REWARD THAN
IT IS ABOUT THE
EXPERIENCE OF
BEING REWARDED.
Points-based rewards programmes can be difficult
to understand and often not worth the effort of
carrying the card around. Fortunately, that’s been
changing over the years, and programmes have
evolved to be more attractive to participants.
Deon Olivier, executive director at Tritech Media,
explains what’s changed. “In old-school loyalty
programmes, points value was ambiguous,” he says.
“Over the years, rewards have been redefined.
Now, five cents in points is equivalent to 25 cents or
more in actual spending power.”
And the good news for programme members
is that South Africans are taking the lead from
developed markets in boosting the spending power
of points, and eBucks is a good example. It used to be
that 2 000 eBucks equalled R200 when redeemed.
Not so impressive. But what if you can redeem your
2 000 eBucks for a R350 head torch at Cape Union
Mart? That’s good value.
A TREAT
OR A
NEED?
36
Other programmes, like Pick ‘n Pay’s Smart
Shopper Smart Switch, puts the incremental value
on top. Here, 80 Smart Shopper points will get
you a R100 voucher to use at Yuppiechef.
“It’s all about flexibility and choice,” says Olivier,
“letting people choose how and where to redeem
their points to get what they perceive as greatest
value.” The challenge then is maximising the
perceived value of the total reward offering.
Ideally, the rewards experience should imprint
the “feel good” of being rewarded, reinforcing the
behaviour that earned the reward, and creating a
lasting, positive association with your organisation
and your brand. But it has to be the right reward –
not what management wants, or the sponsor punts
as “the latest thing”, but rather what supports your
programme mission, reflects your brand standards
and appeals to the values of your target individuals.
And it has to appeal at a level that sparks personal
engagement with the programme.
It’s a tricky balance of elements: the right reward,
packaged in the right way, presented at the right
time, substantial enough to impress and affordable
enough to sustain in the reward mix.
SORTING REWARDS MYTH FROM FACT
The long-running debate around the motivational
merits of cash versus some form of tangible reward
has taken on some interesting nuances with the
publication of the Incentive Research Foundation
(IRF) 2015 Landmark Study on award preferences.
Produced in partnership with the Incentive
Marketing Association and Intellective Group,
the study offers a contemporary take on what a
rewarding rewards experience looks like. And
landmark it is, promising to be “the largest, most
broad-based, theoretically grounded, statistically
complex study on the total award experience
performed to date”. The four major findings shake
up much traditional thinking about rewards and
the rewards experience, as explained below:
THE EXPERIENCE IS MUCH MORE
THAN JUST THE REWARD
The physical reward is still a big part of creating
a motivational experience, of course. But the
THE ECONOMIC REALITY OF LIFE IN SOUTH AFRICA IS THAT MANY PEOPLE
– EMPLOYEES AND CUSTOMERS ALIKE – DO DEPEND ON REWARD POINTS
AND GIFT CARDS TO COVER THEIR MOST BASIC MONTHLY EXPENSES.
MORE AND MORE, GIFT CARDS ARE PART OF REWARDS BUDGETS
AND THEY ARE DELIVERING GOOD RESULTS. MAYBE THAT’S NOT SO
SURPRISING, CONSIDERING THAT GIFT CARDS AND VOUCHERS TOP
REWARDS CHARTS AROUND THE WORLD. BUT THE POPULARITY OF
CARDS AND VOUCHERS, IN SOUTH AFRICA AT LEAST, COULD BE FOR ALL
THE WRONG REASONS. REWARDS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE A FEEL-GOOD
TREAT FOR EXTRA EFFORT, NOT A LIFELINE TO BASIC NEEDS.
R E WA R D S & L O YA LT Y S A
survey found that on average between 40 and
50% of an employee’s preferred total award
experience has nothing to do with the physical
reward. Presentation mattered more, as well as
the opportunity for professional development that
came with the reward.
EMPLOYEE WORK ENVIRONMENT HAS A
LARGER IMPACT THAN THEIR GENERATION
Employees across income, role, gender and
generation gave the same weight to the matter of
who presents the award, how it is communicated,
and the professional-development implications.
Even millennials were no different than their
non-millennial cohorts in the weight that they
placed on these elements.
PEOPLE DON’T AUTOMATICALLY
PREFER CASH AWARDS
Small awards do correlate to a high preference for
cash, but on average 65-85% of people would select
a non-cash award if all other experiential elements
were optimal.
INDIVIDUALS ARE JUST
AS UNIQUE IN THEIR
CONSUMER SHOPPING
AND LIFESTYLE
HABITS AS THEY ARE
IN THE PREFERENCES
FOR REWARD
AND RECOGNITION.
REWARD PREFERENCES ARE HIGHLY UNIQUE
Out of 452 respondents, 99% had a unique set
of preferences for how they would like to be
rewarded and recognised – different from
every other person in the study. This strongly
suggests that individuals are just as unique in
their consumer shopping and lifestyle habits
as they are in the preferences for reward
and recognition.
Ultimately, engagement is less about the
actual reward than it is about the experience
of being rewarded. Of course, your reward
offering has to strike an emotional chord with
your target audience, support your programme
goals and be flexible over the long term, but
those are basics. You can find thousands of reward
options that fit the bill, but the big challenge is
composing a truly engaging mix. It’s not so much a
matter of cash or non-cash rewards as it is
about personalisation, perception, timing and
most of all – choice. ■
change customer relationships or employee
work habits,” he adds.
Incentive value aside, straight cash is an
expensive reward standard to maintain. You have
to up the reward stakes at some point, and that just
means bigger investment, not necessarily better
return. And to put it into a loyalty context, you can’t
reward with margin-crushing special offers on a
regular basis without degrading your brand value
(and shareholder value). Unless, of course, you’re
already in the game of competing on price.