Spending On Incentives Hits $46 Billion!
Spending on
travel and merchandise incentives reached $46.1 billion in 2006,
according to a new benchmark study by the Incentive Federation. The
study, conducted earlier this year, is based on responses from 1,212
U.S. companies handled by GfK, a marketing research organization.
The full report will be released next month.
Of that, about
$32.7 billion was spent on merchandise, or items used as part of an
incentive or recognition program targeting employees, sales people,
customers, distributors, dealers or consumers, and the study found
$13.4 billion was spent on travel.
Consumer
promotions were the most popular type of incentives, representing
about 27% or $12.6 billion of all spending in incentive travel and
merchandise last year. Non-sales employee recognition with
merchandise placed second, accounting for 25% or $11.35 billion.
Sales incentives (using travel) made up 14% or $6.6 billion, while
business gifts totaled 12% or $5.59 billion.
Other
categories included: sales incentives (merchandise) 11% or $5.1
billion, non-sales employee recognition (travel) 7% or $3.3 billion,
dealer incentives (travel) $800 million, and dealer incentives
(merchandise) $750 million.
Overall 34% of
companies used either travel or incentives last year. Of those, 10%
used travel while 31% favored merchandise as motivators. Companies
earning revenue of more than $100 million were more likely to use
travel and merchandise incentives than smaller firms.
The primary use
in the travel category was sales incentives (81%) followed by
non-sales employee recognition (58%), consumer promotions (52%),
dealer incentives (36%), and business gifts at 20%. In merchandise
incentives the breakdown was non-sales employee recognition (80%),
business gifts (66%), consumer promotions (53%) sales incentives
(34%), and dealer incentives (17%).
Agency Execs Say Clients Lack Loyalty, Strategic Direction
Nearly 70% of
U.S. advertising agency clients do not notify those partners before
hiring other agencies, according to a survey of 400 ad firms
conducted by multinational consulting company SCAN International in
cooperation with several partners. Furthermore, the U.S. percentage
is considerably higher than the international average, which spanned
between 50% and 80%.
The most
important issue for agencies, according to the findings, is
receiving sufficient strategic direction and briefings from clients.
Yet, agency respondents reported that more than a third of clients
are weak in this exact area.
With regard to
integration capabilities�another key area of concern for
agencies�respondents again said more than a third of their clients
are still performing weakly.
Another gripe
that agencies have with clients is their penchant to ask for
speculative creative work. According to SCAN's findings, agencies
far prefer strategic pitches. That's because speculative creative
work is compensated less than 15% of the time, and when it is, the
compensation is considered insufficient more than 60% of the time.
Although chief
marketing officers presently have average life expectancies of about
22 months, building stronger relationships between clients and
agencies is critical for their future success. The answer seems to
be developing the relationship at all levels.
Other
improvement areas cited by agencies include compensation,
understanding agency processes, sharing information/data, and
expertise/training.
In a somewhat heartening note, agencies ranked trust near the bottom
of the list at number nine, on the prioritized list of needed
improvement areas for clients.
Colorado. . .Destination For Arts Lovers
From
world-class museums in the cosmopolitan capital city of Denver to
trendy galleries in scenic mountain resorts like Aspen and Vail,
Colorado has it all.
Savvy travelers
cite year-round art walk and First Friday events, annual and
seasonal art festivals. In fact, Colorado is home to nine of the
country's top 100 art towns, according to John Villani�s �The 100
Best Art Towns in America.�
The Denver Art
Dealers Association represents Denver�s top art dealers and fine art
galleries. Exhibitions provide the first glance of new works by
young and establishing artists as well as present work by neglected
artists and widely known masters. There's a calendar of events at
www.denverart.org/calendar.htm.
Colorado
Springs has launched
PeakRadar.com,
a comprehensive guide to arts and culture in the Pikes Peak region
of Colorado. The site offers a large database of arts and cultural
events, as well as listings of arts classes and workshops,
organizations, venues, individual artists and performers, public art
and more.
The stunning
new Frederic C. Hamilton wing at the Denver Art Museum was designed
by famed architect Daniel Libeskind, and hosts �Artisans & Kings:
Selected Treasures from the Louvre.�
In Grand
Junction, the Western Colorado Center for the Arts opened its
�Masterpieces of Colorado� in August. This unique exhibit features
more than 60 paintings of Colorado landscapes by artists from the
late 19th century to the present, including Thomas Moran and Vance
Kirkland.
The Aspen Art
Museum has world-class exhibits of contemporary art housed in an
historic brick building on the scenic Rio Grande Trail. The museum
offers educational workshops, gallery tours by prominent artists,
and art talks.
The Lab at
Belmar, in Lakewood, combines elements of a museum, think tank, and
public forum. Focused on contemporary art and culture, The Lab
offers international art exhibitions, lectures, performances,
symposia and publications. Currently on view at The Lab is �Heads,�
Fang Lijun's large-scale installation consisting of 15,000 sculpted
heads, cast in bronze and covered in gold leaf.
The Colorado
Springs Fine Arts Center�s new 48,000-square-foot wing, which opens
in August, will host an exhibit of nearly 50 photographic portraits
of the late Mexican artist Frida Kahlo by famed photographer
Nickolas Muray.
And this fall,
the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver unveils its new building,
designed by renowned architect David Adjaye.
Discover more at
www.colorado.com/arts.
Nielsen Introduces New Tracking System For Commercials
The Nielsen
Company has launched a new web-based commercial tracking system
called KeepingTrac (KT). The system enables clients, for the first
time, to know whether their commercials ran the previous day
according to their media plans. Prior to the launch of KT, clients
typically had to wait weeks for a report on commercial airings.
Carat is the
first company to sign up for this new system. This gives them the
opportunity to track commercial airings on a daily/weekly basis, see
if gross ratings point (GRP) commitments have been achieved,
determine whether buying guidelines (including demographic targets)
have been met, and modify advertising campaigns in real time as
necessary.
KT provides
next-day confirmation of television commercial airings for the
national broadcast networks, national cable networks, and local
broadcast stations in all 210 designated market areas in the United
States. It also matches the ratings data against the media buy
schedule.
Major
Media Sources Exchange Services
TV Guide Online
and Glam Media (www.GlamMedia.com),
number one in reach for women online, announced a syndication
agreement giving Glam Media the right to use TV Guide's patented
interactive program listings grid on its site and within the Glam
publisher network of 370+ popular lifestyle sites, which have a
combined reach of more than 20 million unique users in the United
States.
As part of this
agreement, TV Guide will be a featured content partner for the TV
section of Glam's new entertainment channel to be launched later
this year on
www.glam.com. TV Guide Online is a division of Gemstar-TV Guide
International, (NASDAQ:GMST).
TV Guide broadband will also provide Glam with short-form
entertainment video programming ranging from celebrity interviews to
TV Guide picks for the hottest shows on television. Specific terms
of the agreement were not disclosed.
Hotel
General Managers
Here�s
The Easiest $100,000 You�ll Ever
Bring To The Bottomline!
Collect
cash, as usual, from the guest accounts staying at your
facility that require the use of professional AV services.
And rather than shouldering your ongoing employee costs, or
your current vendor�s cash agreement for AV services,
here�s a much better alternative:
Work
with a proven national vendor (a sterling 25-year track
record) who will provide all of the AV services for your
hotel on a 100% TRADE BASIS! (Payment to be in the form of
hotel rooms and/or trade dollars.)
Your hotel�s annual AV billings must be a minimum of $200,000, and this
offer is available only in the continental United States.
For a
confidential introduction contact Bob Meyer via e-mail:
bmeyer@barternews.com.
(Please type in AV Services On Trade in the subject
line of your e-mail.)
Attention Trade Exchange Owners:
If your
member hotel(s) have a minimum of 10,000 sq. feet of meeting
space and annual billings of at least $200,000 for AV
services this is a great opportunity to earn substantial
cash service fees on the hundreds of thousands of trade
dollars your hotel member will be paying the vendor. Contact
Bob Meyer at the above e-mail. |
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