Also in this report:

Advertising with a string attached: p.24

Kool-Aid in touch with consumers: p. 25

Pepsi Stuff offers branded merchandise for points: p.28

Brands heighten desire: p.30

Two of Canada’s largest incentive companies will soon launch debit cards that will allow users to bypass the more traditional gift catalogues and go straight to the retailer to collect their prize.

Stephen Fraser, director of performance improvement at Carlson Marketing Group, says his company’s soon-to-be-announced ‘incentive debit card’ will allow employees who have earned incentive dollars to spend their earnings ‘anywhere, on any brand they choose.’

Fraser says incentive debit cards have become all the rage in the United States, where they first made their appearance.

Rob Follows, president and ceo of Maritz Canada, in Mississauga, Ont., prefers not to call his company’s Exclusively Yours Mastercard a debit card, although he concedes, ‘it looks and smells like one.’

He prefers the term ‘award services card.’

Follows says employees who hold such a card will receive periodic statements that show a positive balance in return for achieving specific objectives.

For example, an employee who sold $75,000 worth of widgets might get a $1,500 credit on the card.

Employees can then spend that balance at a list of participating retailers.

Follows says the card is to be used with ‘select high-value merchants on items that would be viewed by participants as having high perceived trophy value.

‘It can’t be used for gas or toilet paper – that isn’t an incentive.’

Follows says the card will be launched in Canada some time between April 1 and May 1, approximately a year after its debut in the u.s.