Looking at the picture , you think seeing a normal soup can of Campbell Soup, but in truth you see a great example for incentives addressed to the consumers.
But what is the aim of this kind of marketing? And why incentives could be the key of success for the future?
What are incentives?
The world of incentives can be a big domain. According to the Business Dictionary, incentives are defined as “inducement or supplemental reward that serves as a motivational device for a desired action or behavior”. In other words, incentives are any kind of means for motivating or encouraging somebody to do something.
Two dimensions of incentives
In general, you can distinguish two different types of incentives.
On the one hand, there are the incentives concerning the motivation of your employees for getting the better or even the best results. Many companies used in the past financial rewards as explained in the article by Alex Palmer. But as mentioned at the beginning, the current economical circumstances require alternatives to cash bonuses. Therefore, plans of businesses to adjust their incentives programs to the given conditions arise and become more and more important.
“Are we using non-cash incentives as much as we can?”
This statement of the article, given by Greg Stoskopf, a director with Deloitte Consulting’s Human Capital practice, is the relevant question nowadays. Not only money can motivate employees. Many agencies are specialized in non-cash incentives such as travel coupons or merchandise presents, so that there already are alternatives to financial bonuses.
On the other hand, incentives can also have the objective to entice consumers buying your product. For giving you a better impression of this field, I searched a little bit on the web and found the following example, published on promomagazine.com.
Example: Campbell Soup
The picture above represents the product of Campbell Soup, a company acting in the food industry. They use on-pack codes on their box as inducement to buy their tomato soup. As described in the short comment of promomagazin.com, the consumer has the chance to win something by buying these cans. Different prizes, including the first prize of a Caribbean cruise, attract costumer’s attention to the product.
Aside from these on-pack codes, Campbell Soup combines this campaign with the Universal Pictures film “The Tale of Despereaux”, which is a great deal for both of them.
To sum up, we can say that incentives were, are and will always be very important whether inside of your company for motivating your staff or outside on the market for enticing the consumers.
In times of the economical and financial crises, incentives play an important role, not only for the employees, but also for the consumers. To find the good combination of both is nowadays the challenge for each company and would probably be the right answer during these tough times.
This is a really intelligent and highly interesting post in the field of marketing.
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In my opinion you found a good way of balancing facts, for example by giving a definition of incentives, and a clever analysis of these facts.
I like the way you are writing it is direct, open-minded and very clear. It’s a pleasure to learn something new, this way.
In addition to this, I like the new design of your blog. Great colors