PHOTOS: GOOD EARTH GIFTING → Spring 2024 | Ignitemag.ca | 43 Your top performers will hopefully be wowed by your incentive destination, but meaningful mementos can ensure they forge an authentic connection with your organization long after they return home. Here’s how to curate thoughtful gifts for your next incentive program. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE Ensure gifts will resonate by selecting items with broad appeal tailored to your group, suggests Janet Holliday, president and CEO of The CE Group, a DMC in San Antonio, Texas, whose clients have included several Canadian companies and associations. “The more we understand your demographics the better. Nothing makes us feel worse than giving people things they don't want. They don't need another tchotchke, luggage tag or leather portfolio,” she says. “We make sure everybody coming to our city gets a great first impression and are sent off with a lasting impression. The gifting becomes part of the storytelling.” INCORPORATE A THEME AND A GIFTING TIMELINE Themes ranging from destination-specific to wellness to luxury can enrich gifting programs and inject a sense of anticipation into the experience from beginning to end, says Holliday. “We make sure our gifting brings out our culture and local community, and we marry storytelling with the items for incentive groups who have seen everything and done everything,” she explains. For example, one group with a San Antonio Road Trip theme received a CD with Texas tunes before departure. In town, they got a whimsical sculpture representing one of their activities crafted by a local artist from a Texas licence plate. Back at home, a ‘yellow rose of Texas’ paperweight made by local artisans awaited. Kathy Ngo, director of operations at Good Earth Gifting in A well-executed gifting program can enhance the value and ROI of an incentive trip by Wendy Helfenbaum Pickering, Ont., has done biodegradable golf balls for sports-themed events, and massage balls or yoga mats made from cork for wellness themes. For a forest bathing experience in BC, she tucked warm socks made from local organic cotton into a washable lunch bag. When Erika Wien, director of business development at Fraser & Hoyt Incentives in Halifax, had a luxury theme to deliver, she asked for the size of attendees’ beds and had Frette linen sheets delivered upon their return. Allison Gillis, Fraser & Hoyt’s manager of travel incentives, suggests using gifts to announce future events. “For a group in Hawaii going to Switzerland the next year, we left Swiss chocolates on their pillows on the night of the announcement,” says Gillis. SUPPORT LOCAL VENDORS Discovering a destination through its food, drink and art is always a hit because guests can enjoy items onsite and not have to travel with them, says Allison Craig, owner of San Antonio in a Box. She gathers unique local treats such as tamales, chocolate, handcrafted candles, soap, salsa and pecan pie. “We can customize the size and packaging and can send out sample boxes so planners can decide what to include,” says Craig. DELIVER AN EXPERIENCE “People like the idea of making their gift, so we might do a leather-making activity with a local company to make a bag or a boot lounge where attendees personalize their gift,” says Holliday. That Added Touch MOTIVATE & CELEBRATE I N C E N T I V E S A N D R E WA R D S
