Awards for the year’s best premium incentive campaigns were recently bestowed upon a diverse group of six marketers by the Incentive Manufacturers & Representatives Association, Naperville, IL, in its annual Gold Key Awards.

This year’s list of winners includes CPGs, an industrial equipment seller, and a champagne marketer, and involved three consumer offers, one safety program, one sales incentive, and one trade show traffic builder.

A panel of independent marketing professionals judged the programs and selected those that most successfully used incentives to influence and motivate consumers or employees.

A TOAST TO REMEMBER

CATEGORY: Consumer Offer
PROGRAM: Uncork the Memories

To keep the mood bubbly while selling cameras and film during the flash-happy wedding and graduation season, Louisville, KY-based Brown-Forman Beverages Worldwide put custom-labeled rolls of Fuji film on 250,000 bottles of Korbel champagne. Over a six-week period, the bottles were distributed through select grocery and drug store outlets. Bottles that didn’t carry the film on-pack instead had a $1 coupon for film from Elmsford, NY-based Fuji or a $3 rebate with the purchase of film and champagne. Korbel purchased approximately 200 Fuji cameras to use as dealer loaders and sales incentives.

The effort boosted sales of Korbel Champagnes & Brandies by 32 percent. “Champagne is a celebratory beverage, and capturing that on film was just such a unique idea,” says Allison Homer, senior account executive with Louisville-based PriceWeber Marketing Communications, which handled the effort.

SLIPPERY WHEN WET

CATEGORY: Sales Incentive
PROGRAM: Driving Volume Displays with DVDs

Enhancing P-O-P display at retail can be a slippery affair, especially when it involves bar soaps. But New York City-based Unilever found a way to do that while also educating its network about best practices in co-op allowances by tempting brokers with Sony DVD players and gift certificates.

The overall goal was to sell in 7,000 display units during the second quarter promotional period. (The lofty target equaled the entire sell-in total for the previous year.) Individual brokers who met their goals were promised a Sony DVD player or five $100 Sony gift certificates. Each display unit contained six to eight cases of soap products from brands such as Caress, Dove, Lever 2000, Shield, and Suave.

The effort ultimately sold in more than 13,600 displays, nearly double the target number, and helped drive a $1.2 million dollar increase in net dollar sales of bar soaps (to $14.4 million) in the period. East Rutherford, NJ-based Harco, Inc., handled.

HOGAR A HOGAR

CATEGORY: Consumer Offer
PROGRAM: Mexico Within Your Reach

Stamford, CT-based Mott’s knows exactly who to target when offering incentives to drinkers of its Clamato brand: Mexican-Americans in the Southwest.

Over an eight-week period last summer, fans of the tomato and clam juice cocktail in 10 Southwestern markets received 10-minute phonecards good for any calls to friends and family in Mexico or the U.S. (The card’s PIN was found under the cap.) The offer ran on neck hangers on 64-ounce bottles and was supported by case cards, shelf talkers, and tags on radio spots. Dallas-based PanaVista, a unit of Ryan Partnership, Westport, CT, handled.

Card activation exceeded 11 percent as Clamato sales jumped 14 percent compared to 1999 figures — including a 27-percent increase in the promotion markets. “Hispanics spend an awful lot of dollars on phonecards, and it’s very important for them to maintain connections with their homeland,” explain Mott’s product manager Marcel Nahm.

DEAR PRUDENCE

CATEGORY: Safety Award
PROGRAM: Safety and Attendance

Safety came first — and successfully so — for Giles & Ransome, a sales and service company for the construction industry that pocketed an IMRA award for a comprehensive awareness program.

To ensure that workers operating heavy machinery practice safe work habits and, therefore, avoid injuries that keep them off the job, Bensalem, PA-based Giles & Ransome offered points-rewarding safety classes for more than 400 employees in 12 locations. Employees who took the classes and collected specified point totals earned award checks to use as payment for various brand-name products including Sony CD players and Motorola walkie-talkies. The incentives were highlighted on posters at all participating locations. Results for the one-year program showed a 117-percent increase in attendance at meetings and a reduction in lost-time claims. Merchandise redemption totaled more than $110,000.

“We had limited success with other programs, so I would have to say that the cash-money offer single-handedly made this one a success,” says Mike Barnasevitch, Giles & Ransome’s risk management director. The Marketing and Sales Group, Inc., York, PA, handled, with an assist from Dudash Novelty, Philadelphia.

TRAFFIC STORM

CATEGORY: Trade Show Traffic Builder
PROGRAM: Everybody’s a Winner

Rochester, NY-based Bausch & Lomb drew crowds to its trade show booths this year after it teamed with Park Ridge, NJ-based Sony to run a sweepstakes.

Attendees at six major optometry shows received a gamecard enticing them to stop by the Bausch & Lomb booth, where a Sony reader uncovered which of four prizes they had won.

“People were lined up for hours just waiting to swipe their cards,” says Eileen Pines, tradeshow coordinator for Bausch & Lomb Vision Care. “We were the busiest booth at the shows. It didn’t make a difference if they won the top prize of a Sony home entertainment center or a key chain.”

Bausch & Lomb saw a 25-percent increase in traffic at the shows, which helped the company add much-needed contact info to its customer database. MJM Incentives, Inc., also Rochester, handled.

PIZZA TIME

CATEGORY: Consumer Offer
PRODUCT: Buy Celeste Pizza … Win Sony Stuff

Once a switcher, always a switcher? Aurora Foods hopes not. The St. Louis-based company is after all the product switchers out there — especially women 25 to 40 with children between 10 and 20 years.

To encourage trial for its Celeste Pizza brand among competitive loyalists, Aurora ran an instant-win game in 5.1 million Celeste Pizza-for-One and 780,000 Celeste Fresh-Baked Rising Crust packages. The grand-prize winner scored a Sony home entertainment center, while others earned points that could be redeemed for a variety of Sony products. In a continuity overlay, customers who collected 10 non-winning gamepieces received a voucher good for one CD, two cassettes, or a VHS tape. P-O-P displays and FSIs supported.

“The primary strength of the sales incentive was the universal appeal and flexibility of music,” says Jamie Sheffield, Celeste Pizza product manager.

Pizza-For-One posted a four-percent sales bump during the three-month promotional period; Fresh-Baked Rising Crust Pizza also saw a rise in sales. St. Louis-based Phoenix Creative handled.

THE 21ST ANNUAL John Caples International Awards was the show that almost wasn’t.

Last year’s bash left the organization broke, without even enough money to launch a call for entries. The Caples, you see, doesn’t have the backing of a large organization, a dues structure or even high entry fees to support it. Entry fees are kept low, according to Caples founder Andi Emerson, so all agencies, companies and freelancers will be able to compete.

The event floundered, looking for support, if not sponsorship, until DraftWorldwide chairman/ CEO Howard Draft and Columbia House chairman/CEO Richard Wolter pledged some $20,000 between them. One hopes the 22nd Caples will start earlier and with fuller coffers.

The Caples Awards are named for John Caples, who created what may be one of the most famous lines in direct response copywriting history: “They laughed when I sat down at the piano, but when I started to play!-“

As Emerson puts it, he “felt that those who did the actual work deserved the honors-so Caples Awards are given to the individuals on the winning creative teams. John said the marketing problem should beget the creative solution.”

Special Recognition In addition to the first-place winners-some of whom are identified on page 51-as well as those who placed second or third, the Caples grants four special awards.

The best-of-show prize is named after Max Sackheim, widely regarded as one of the most innovative direct marketers the industry has ever had. The honor went to Wunderman Cato Johnson’s campaign for the U.S. Postal Service, which targets business customers by praising and teaching the profitable benefits of direct mail. (Incidentally, Lester and Irving Wunderman were trained by Sackheim.)

The courageous client award went to the Crippled Children’s Society for a blunt, aggressive TV spot aimed at raising money for crippled children. A wheelchair-bound punk rocker-like character with a speech impediment does an impersonation of most people’s preconceived notion of the mentally handicapped. He ends sneering, “That should be worth a few bucks.” The agency is New Zealand’s Goldsack Harris Thompson Advertising.

The Irving Wunderman award is given to an individual for his or her body of work over the course of a decade or more. This year, the award was presented to Randy Belcher of The Martin Agency. If you’re wondering why Randy Belcher, we have but one thing to say to you: Geico Direct TV spots.

Liebenson Chosen The Andi Emerson award is given to an individual who has contributed outstanding service to the creative community in direct marketing. This year’s went to DraftWorldwide executive vice president Sid Liebenson. In addition to being the chair of the Caples International Committee since 1991, Liebenson has taught direct marketing at Northwestern, DePaul and the DMEF Collegiate Institute. Moreover, he has served on the advisory board of DePaul’s DM program and as a trustee of the Chicago Association of Direct Marketing’s Educational Foundation.