Inflexion Private Equity has announced that funds managed by Inflexion have completed the buyout of Virgin Experience Days, the UK’s leading experiences business.

Virgin Experience Days offers curated experiences to consumers and corporates, from flying Spitfires to short luxury breaks, selling over 750,000 experiences annually. A high-growth business, revenue has doubled to £50m in three years, driven by a seamless tech-enabled customer experience and the ongoing consumer shift to sharing experiences over tangible goods.

Virgin Experience Days operates B2C and B2B divisions. Virgin Incentives, the B2B division, offers experience days for employee rewards and recognition programmes, with clients such as Barclaycard and Samsung.

As part of the buyout, Inflexion introduced leisure sector expert, Simon McMurtrie, as Chairman and the highly experienced Commercial Director, Matthew Briggs. Both will work alongside CEO Paul O’Brien who has led the business for over a decade. Inflexion will work closely with this team to create long-term sustainable growth.

Capitalising on our international reach, Inflexion will help accelerate sales into new markets with growing demand for personalised experiences, and support the re-launch of Virgin Incentives in the multi-billion-pound employee rewards and recognition market. Inflexion’s digital expertise will also help advance the company’s digital marketing strategy.

Paul O’Brien, CEO, Virgin Experience Days, says: “It’s been a pleasure leading Virgin Experience Days over the last 12 years, and I am proud of the successful business it is today. Inflexion shares our vision for growth, backed by their digital expertise and international reach; we look forward to a prosperous partnership.”

Tim Smallbone, Head of Enterprise, Inflexion, adds: “Virgin Experience Days is a globally recognised and respected brand with international growth potential. We’re delighted to back an ambitious management team in a sector where Inflexion has a strong track record, with businesses such as On the Beach, Reed & Mackay and Reward Gateway. This is the third investment this year for our Enterprise Fund that partners with high-growth businesses in the lower mid-market.”

The Inflexion deal team comprised of Tim Smallbone, Tom Pemberton, Shiva Tiwari and Robin Senivassen. Smallbone and Tiwari have joined the Virgin Experiences board on completion.

Inflexion is an award-winning UK mid-market private equity firm, investing equity of £10m to £150m in high growth, entrepreneurial businesses with ambitious management teams and working in partnership with them to accelerate growth. A mid-market specialist with bespoke teams and dedicated capital, Inflexion backs majority or minority investments in the lower mid-market, mid-market buyouts and provides minority solutions for larger mid-market companies through its dedicated Partnership Capital offering.

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How do you get the maximum amount of impact from an incentive program, asks Dan Kelly of Corporate Rewards.

Employee incentives are a great way to drive the performance of a team – offering a goal to work towards and rewards for staff can really help to drive continuing success. But there are some simple steps that employers should take to help maximise the impact of any incentive scheme.

Build Hype

Before the incentive program even starts, you should be trying to build interest among your team. Don’t just spring it on them as a surprise – let them know in advance what’s going on and why. That way, the incentive won’t seem like it’s just suddenly being dropped on them.

The idea is you build anticipation in order to make sure staff are enthusiastic going into the incentive, which is likely to make them more interested in participating and more motivated to work towards a goal.

This can really help to start your incentive off on the right foot, with staff ready and raring to go.

Identify opportunities to train

The incentive shouldn’t just drive staff towards a goal. It should also give you as the employer an opportunity to identify areas of weakness, and identify what steps you need to help train staff so they can improve their performance which, in the long run, benefits your business.

You might identify a problem throughout your team that needs to be addressed with a group training session; or you might discover smaller individual issues which can be remedied with one to one training or mentoring, such as refining sales technique, or reiterating how to use specific systems and processes within your business.

Reward throughout the incentive

While it’s a good idea to have a final grand prize, you should also be offering smaller rewards to staff on a daily or weekly level. This maintains excitement and interest, and also allows the reward element to be spread more widely across your employees. Acknowledging performance throughout the lifespan of an incentive can help to maintain momentum and motivation.

So consider offering rewards for the person with the highest sales during a shift, or the person who has made the most progress towards the incentive that week. The reward doesn’t need to be something big – a voucher or a small reward can serve as acknowledgement that the hard work being done.

Recognise High Performance

While you should be offering a range of incentives so that as many people can participate as possible, there should be a final ‘star prize’ incentive, and the person who gets it should be the staff member who has had the most consistent levels of high performance.

Their reward needs to be something substantial to highlight that hard work and effort are rewarded. This is often something major like a trip, or access to a major event. The aim is to provide a prize that people will wish they’d won, giving an extra level of motivation going into your next incentive program.

Maintain Momentum

Following the conclusion of your incentive scheme (assuming it’s not a rolling program), it is important to try and maintain the momentum and performance level it has created.

Continuing to recognise performance and running small incentives can help to do this. The key should be to begin to build hype and encourage staff to work towards fun, attainable goals. This helps to create much stronger foundations for future incentives to be successful.

Incentives can be a hugely rewarding undertaking, not just for your staff but also for your business in terms of increased sales, increased performance, higher morale and reduced staff turnover.

Dan Kelly is a founding partner and Sales and Marketing Director of Corporate Rewards, which offers a range of services for employers looking to run incentive and motivation programs for employees and channel staff, working with some of the world’s largest companies such as Microsoft and Dell in his position as Sales and Marketing Director.

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Jonathan Grey, Founder and CEO of Ovation Incentives, the technology-led global rewards and recognition specialist, has been named as the new President of the Incentive Marketing Association Europe.

Grey has been an IMA Europe Board member since the inception of the association eight years ago and succeeds Brian Dunne, Managing Director of Action Solutions, as President. The IMA Europe is part of a global IMA network of over 500 agencies and suppliers committed to promoting, creating, and managing the use of incentives and recognition programmes to improve business performance.

Since founding Ovation 15 years ago, Jonathan Grey has been an active participant in the business communities that seek to promote standards and foster relationships in the gift card and business incentive markets in the UK and Europe.

Grey says: “It is a tremendous honour to be appointed to the role of President of IMA Europe.  Under Brian Dunne’s leadership, IMA Europe has grown from strength to strength with members from the Atlantic coast to the Ural Mountains actively engaged in developing standards and driving results for all our clients and colleagues.”

He adds: “In the coming year, I hope to build upon the solid foundations that we have laid down for our industry and continue our traditions of bringing together great people from all over Europe to connect, learn and develop the next generation of incentive marketers.”

Brian Dunne comments: “I am delighted that Jonathan will be taking over the reins and I look forward to supporting him and the rest of the board in the role of Past President.” Dunne will also continue to serve on the IMA Global Board.

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The entry deadline for the Institute of Promotional Marketing Awards 2017 is in less than three weeks on February 28^th – and agencies and brand owners who want to enter their promotional campaigns from 2016 are being encouraged to get their submissions together now.

The IPM Awards 2017 Call for Entries booklet plus top tips on how to write entries and examples of ‘best-in-class’ award-winning campaigns can be found in the awards section of the IPM website.

Richard Pink, the IPM’s Head of Awards, Judging & Entries, says: “Our judges are looking to reward campaigns that stood out in an incredibly competitive market during 2016, that worked hard for the brand and that delivered exceptional results. Tell us your stories and let us know why you deserve to win!”

The IPM is the industry body for promotional marketing, and its awards, which have been running for 40 years, have been created to showcase and champion the best work created in the previous year.

Any campaign which included a promotional element and which ran in the UK during 2016 is eligible for entry. Campaigns which ran outside the UK are also eligible, if they were created by a UK agency or for a UK-based brand or company.

To qualify, campaigns must have been running at some point during 2016; they can have started in 2015 and carried on into 2016, or they can have started in 2016 and run on into 2017. While the IPM would ideally like to see full results, Pink acknowledges that that may not be possible for campaigns which continued into 2017 (or which are still going).

He says: “Obviously, we’d ideally like to see full results, but we realise that, particularly with campaigns which are still live in January and February, that isn’t always going to be possible. In cases like that, we’re encouraging people to enter and explain clearly why they can’t provide absolute results. The judges will understand.”

Further information and advice on this topic is available on Richard Pink’s LinkedIn page.

The IPM also has its own YouTube channel, which features videos from a number of this year’s judges providing their Top Tips on how to create the best possible award entry.

Brands and agencies do not have to be members of the IPM to enter, although IPM members get discounts on their entry fees.

The trophies will be presented at the IPM Awards 2017 Gala Dinner on June 7^th 2017 at the London Hilton on Park Lane.

The headline sponsor for the IPM Awards 2017 is SODEXO and its subsidiaries Protravel, Filmology, Fotorama and Entice. Other partners include Promotional Handling Ltd, Sykes and i-movo.

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The entry deadline for the Institute of Promotional Marketing Awards 2017 is in just 40 days’ time – and agencies and brand owners who want to enter their promotional campaigns from 2016 are being encouraged to get their submissions together now.

The IPM Awards 2017 Call for Entries booklet plus top tips on how to write entries and examples of ‘best-in-class’ award-winning campaigns can be found in the awards section of the IPM website.

Richard Pink, the IPM’s Head of Awards, Judging & Entries, says: “It’s time for brands and agencies to submit their Awards entries and help us celebrate the amazing talent, the hard work and the promotional successes of 2016! As the industry body for promotional marketing, the IPM is here to proudly showcase and champion your work over the past year, and ensure you and your peers receive the industry-wide recognition you deserve.”

The IPM has just run an online Masterclass on crafting the perfect IPM Awards entry, hosted by Richard Pink, which attracted nearly 100 attendees from agency, service companies and brands.

One issue which the Masterclass highlighted was a concern over results from campaigns which started in 2016 but which continued on into 2017 and either finished close to the February 28^th entry deadline, or which will still be running after that.

Pink says: “Obviously, we’d ideally like to see full results, but we realise that, particularly with campaigns which are still live in January and February, that isn’t always going to be possible. In cases like that, we’re encouraging people to enter and explain clearly why they can’t provide absolute results. The judges will understand.”

Further information and advice on this topic is available on Richard Pink’s LinkedIn page.

The IPM also has its own YouTube channel, which features videos from a number of this year’s judges providing their Top Tips on how to create the best possible award entry.

Marketing campaigns which ran anywhere in the world are eligible for entry to the IPM Awards 2017, so long as they included a promotional element and they were created and run either by an agency based in the UK or on behalf of a brand based in the UK.

Brands and agencies do not have to be members of the IPM to enter, although IPM members get discounts on their entry fees.

The trophies will be presented at the IPM Awards 2017 Gala Dinner on June 7^th 2017 at the London Hilton on Park Lane.

The headline sponsor for the IPM Awards 2017 is SODEXO and its subsidiaries Protravel, Filmology, Fotorama and Entice. Other partners include Promotional Handling Ltd, Sykes and i-movo.

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Price cuts are short term responses which can damage brand values, says Chris Baldwin of Sodexo. Instead, brands should build value with intelligent promotional activities. PROMOTIONAL FEATURE

With a fluctuating pound and ongoing political uncertainty, the pressure is on for UK brands who are facing potentially higher import and export costs to still offer customers value while protecting both their margins and their reputations.

Manufacturers who have already tried to compensate for the additional costs caused by the falling post-Brexit pound have faced criticism in the media and resistance from retailers happy to position themselves as the consumers’ champions. Tesco and Unilever’s row over Marmite and other iconic brands was put to bed at record speed but the issue itself looks set to run and run.

Cutting price is often seen as simple ‘quick-fix’ when trying to appear good value; but the problem with price cuts is that, unless they are part of a long term strategy aligned with the budget sector of the market, in the medium to long term, they damage a brand’s reputation and cheapen the identity as a whole. Put simply, the long-term consequence of price cuts is devaluing the brand.

Brands and manufacturers need to think instead of their long-term goals. A quick fix is very rarely the answer and will more likely create further problems down the line.

The price of loyalty

With a longer term strategy, such as a focus on loyalty, brands can instead start building up consumer engagement and retention. According to forbes.com, just a 5% increase in customer retention can boost a company’s profitability by a staggering 75%. This impressive statistic highlights just how important consumer loyalty is – and the huge value in repeat customers.

Experts say that it can be six to seven times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one, so the importance of loyalty is clear.

Risk and reputation

Savvy consumers will look always for value – but rarely at the expense of quality. Resorting to price cuts will only serve to cheapen a brand’s identity, creating the impression of poor quality. If a brand wants to be seen as still delivering quality products, and so drive customer interest, while still achieving margin targets, it would be far better to get clever about tapping into the consumer psyche.

Clever brands think of their objectives with every consumer campaign, whether the activity involves creating a buzz with coupons offering the opportunity to ‘try me free’ at launches, or driving repeat purchase and building loyalty with ‘Money Off Next Purchase’ offers or encouraging one-off purchases with well-aligned, inspiring prizes.

Manufacturers need to focus on what their brand associations are and offer something completely complementary to these. Something tangible like a prize or a getaway adds value to a product, balances risk and increases the opportunity to connect with the customer in further marketing and social media communications.

Sodexo’s Savvy Cynics report found that over a third of consumers interviewed were more likely to buy a product that was part of a promotional campaign, which clearly demonstrates that the potential impact of a well-planned campaign is massive.

Just the ticket

For clever brands who have researched and developed their strategy, focused in on their target audiences and settled on their key objectives, the trickiest part can be deciding which prize mechanism works best to excite and reward their customers – should marketers opt for adding value with physical prizes that have great product synergy or should they be exploring something a little more personal, like a tailor-made holiday experience?

Research suggests that the Millennial generation of consumers does find far more value in an experience than in a physical thing, with three in four of them saying they are willing to spend more on events and experiences than ever before.

Events and experiences doesn’t just mean winning exotic holidays, or dream trips to sporting events; cinema offers another tried and trusted option. Brands can partner with the latest blockbuster film via competitions offering tickets as prizes to create a real buzz around a product, while shrewd brands may also consider aligning with film in a more general sense, offering longer-term promotional activations giving people discounts on cinema tickets for example. Linking with individual films or with the cinema in general can be hugely attractive – over 70% of 16-24 year olds cite cost as a reason why they don’t visit the cinema as often as they would like.

Consumer cred: adding value

The key to keeping consumers on side is not offering them something for less, but rather something more. Price cuts and BOGOFs can only go so far before a product starts to lose value. They can also put customers off with confusing price points that seem to fluctuate throughout the year or, worse, make more consumers into promiscuous shoppers.

By keeping prices relatively stable but supporting brands with value-added promotions, marketers can maintain or even increase long term brand value and avoid cheapening brand image.

Added-value promotions also allow marketers to capitalise on a range of opportunities to raise the profile of their products, boost sales and be seen by consumers as offering something a bit extra. Clever promotional marketing campaigns can see help manufacturers align with the latest trends, whether in cinema, travel, music, sports or consumer goods while maintaining a healthy brand image.

Promotional marketing gives a brand the opportunity and environment to display its personality and drive engagement and conversation with their target shopper, or potential shopper, in a way that a BOGOF simply cannot.

Chris Baldwin is Director of Consumer Programs at Sodexo. The Sodexo family, which includes the Promorati brands Protravel, Filmology, Fotorama and Entice, is Headline Sponsor of The IPM Awards 2017.

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Promotional and loyalty travel specialists Inspire has opened an office in Brazil following demand for travel-related sales promotions in South and Central America.

The company, which is headquartered in Bramhall, Cheshire, launched its Brazil operation at the end of 2016 with offices in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

Inspire creates travel platforms and programmes for businesses looking to offer incentives for customers and employees, and will use its new base in Brazil to target the South American market with its solutions.

Peter Pantelides, Managing Director of Inspire, says: “We’re continually looking for business growth opportunities and identified Brazil as a key location to base our first operation in South America. We were aware of a high demand for travel-based sales promotions and already had strong contacts in the area, so we’ve pooled our knowledge with their outstanding relationships to form what we believe will be a strong offer to the market.”

Inspire, which has seen its turnover increase by 15% in 2015 to £17.7 million, expects the new arm of the business to generate in excess of £1 million worth of revenue within the first year.

Benjamin Ahrens, International Sales Director at Inspire, adds: “We have seen a huge interest and excitement from potential clients in the region already. It’s early days, as we are a ‘new product in town’; but, following market research, we are confident that our offering will be a huge success. We anticipate our ‘Free Flight Voucher’ campaigns to be of particular interest, as it’s a brand new concept in this part of the world which has received promising feedback during market research. Inspire has already delivered a number of similar campaigns for the likes of Samsung, Carrefour, Philips and Santander, which achieved exceptional results for our clients, so we’re excited to be able to offer these services to clients in South America for the first time.”

Inspire now has operations in over 20 countries, inclduing Germany, the UAE and Russia, and works with more than 250 global travel partners, including Expedia, Kuoni and Thomas Cook. Recent growth has been driven by the success of the company’s flagship product, The Inspire Travel Card (pictured). Launched in 2005, the Inspire Travel Card works as a physical or digital gift card which can be preloaded to any amount for recipients to use when booking travel through Inspire’s dedicated ABTA, IATA and ATOL licensed agency.

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Virgin Experience Days has launched its 2016 marketing Christmas campaign, with an animated film which aims to remind people of the everlasting magic of memories.

Set to the track ‘Adventurers’, by singer/songwriter, Holley Maher, the film features a young couple exchanging Christmas gifts.  The man is puzzled when he receives an empty photograph frame – but then realises his present also includes a Virgin Experience Day gift pack.  A short animation then zooms in on some of the couple’s adventures together, memories now framed on the mantelpiece and never forgotten.

The advert, featuring the strapline ‘What memories will you create this Christmas?’ launched on the online retailer’s web site last week and will feature in a digital, social and YouTube campaign including the hashtag #ChristmasToRemember.

The campaign builds on the current UK lifestyle trend towards ‘doing stuff not buying stuff’, after Virgin Experience Days saw a pickup in demand for experience gifts as the UK turns its back on material things.

The same basic creative approach will be used across both Virgin Experience Days’ consumer-facing communications and its business-to-business operations.

Tim Watkins, Virgin Experience Days Director of Sales & Partnerships, says: “The Christmas campaign highlights experiences as the new riches.  As a nation, we’ve reached ‘peak stuff’ and consumer priorities are changing from ‘buying stuff’ to ‘doing things’ as we spend more on holidays, entertainment and eating out to service a lifestyle. Naturally, this trend is reflected in our corporate sales activity, with customers and employees increasingly choosing experiences over gift cards for material goods. Forward thinking businesses have identified this trend and we’ve seen a marked increase in incentive programmes focusing on experience benefits and rewards.“

The animation, developed in-house by Virgin Experience Days Lead Designer, Craig Francies, has been created using Modo. It can be viewed at https://www.virginexperiencedays.co.uk/christmastoremember and on the Virgin Experience Days YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-hq7Asvv00

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Loyalty and promotional travel expert Inspire has recruited Geanette Howard as a Business Development Manager, taking its headcount to 110.

Howard has 15 years’ experience in the voucher and rewards industry, having started her career at Whitbread before progressing to Boots and, most recently, SVM Global.

Keith Herman, managing director of Inspire, says: “Geanette’s appointment demonstrates our passion for providing companies with benefits and incentives that will make a true difference to their business. Having worked with such a wide variety of businesses, her experience is unrivalled and I’ve no doubt that she’ll be instrumental in our growth as we continue to not only meet our customers’ needs, but also exceed their expectations.”

Howard will focus on expanding the client base of Inspire, which now has operations in over 20 countries, through the provision of its flagship product, The Inspire Travel Card. Launched in 2005, the Inspire Travel Card works as a physical or digital gift card which can be preloaded to any amount for recipients to use when booking travel through Inspire’s dedicated ABTA, IATA and ATOL licensed agency.

In 2015, Inspire saw its turnover increase by 15% to £17.7 million, thanks to a number of successful campaigns with Nivea, Samsung and MasterCard. This year, the company is on track to achieve £20 million in revenue and has invested over £100,000 to revamp its services in order to offer a more streamlined customer journey and efficient usability.

The firm has also created the Inspire Travel Card for Charities and has been working for three years with Family Fund, a charity that provides grants for families raising disabled or seriously ill young people to take much-needed family breaks.

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