Incentive - January/February 2012

HEADLINES
Maritz Splits Up Business Lines

By William Ng
Leading incentive house creates separate employee motivation and
consumer loyalty operations to be more agile and targeted for clients

St. Louis-based Maritz’s move to create the overtly defined and branded Maritz Loyalty Marketing and Maritz Motivation Solutions businesses effectively splinters the former Maritz Loyalty and Motivation business.

The two new entities will be more independently run units and get more targeted investments and resources to aid their respective client markets. The two businesses have dedicated leadership that will be able to react more quickly to market changes and demands.

The Loyalty Marketing business is specializing in consumer loyalty programs for North America-based clients, while the Motivation Solutions busi-

TharpeRobbins Delivers
Safety Incentive Programs
Maritz Loyalty Marketing chief Bob Macdonald

incentive programs, and channel loyalty programs. Motivation Solutions has a rewards division that handles fulfillment of merchandise, gift cards and prepaid cards, and experiential services for both businesses.

“There were enough differences. It
made sense to focus two different
teams on the two spaces.”

—Paula Godar, Maritz Motivation Solutions

Two new safety incentive programs from TharpeRobbins aim to produce accident-free employees by engag-
ing them with recognition and rewards.
The Safe Work Program and the Safe
Driver Program introduced by the States-
ville, NC-based company recognize indi-
viduals and teams that practice program-
specified safety habits.
For years, TharpeRobbins has been running
safety programs for big-name clients, includ-
ing UPS (pictured) and Dayton Freight Lines,
and it plans to use the Safe Work and Safe
Driver programs to reach more users.
The programs allow employees to earn
points either individually or in teams for per-
forming behaviors defined as safe practices by
their companies and managers. They can then
redeem the points for merchandise and travel
rewards, including grandfather clocks, iPods,
individual trips, and even 14-karat-gold rings.

“The money spent on accidents every year is incredible,” says TharpeRobbins’ director of sales development, Lucy Ferreira. “It’s about looking at day-to-day behaviors and saying, ‘We can pay a lot of money in insurance or put some money into incentive programs and things that help our employees and managers remember proper behaviors.’ ” ■

—Alex Palmer

ness provides points-based, full-
service global motivation solu-
tions, which include employee
recognition programs, sales
“There were enough differ-
ences between how consumer
loyalty and employee engage-
ment programs were being
designed and operated” to
warrant the restructuring, says
Paula Godar, director of brand
strategy for Maritz Motivation
Solutions, even though Maritz
Loyalty and Motivation saw
useful “cross-pollination ben-
efits.” She says “it made sense
to focus different teams on the
two spaces” and that the ben-
efits to respective clients will be
greater while the move will not
be disruptive to them.