Access to Adventure Incentive Program

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Key achievements

• 
  11 %
  Incremental sales growth over previous year
• 
  60 %
  Increased participation year-on-year

The Challenge

In the United States, Unilever Food Solutions pinpointed an opportunity to gain a share of wallet over competitor brands.

It sold its highly-regarded bulk foods to the American hospitality industry through an extensive network of independently-run foodservice businesses. With the right incentive program, Unilever believed it could inspire these businesses to drive brand switching and buy more of its foodservice products. Providing business a real opportunity to reward themselves for a change in frequent purchases.

The Solution

When you engage a sophisticated, high-achieving audience, the reward selection, experiences and associated value are not important, they are a crucial element. The reward choice needs to inspire to create a mind shift to product ranges and brand.

Key rewards insights and opportunities were founded after profiling Unilever’s target market. Incremental created a powerful incentive marketing strategy and program to inspire sophisticated American foodservice businesses: rather than simply offering travel rewards, Unilever Food Solutions would offer its independent selling partners the Access to Adventure.

Not all incentive programs are created equal

A key idea underpins the annual Access to Adventure incentive program: it’s your chance to take the trip of a lifetime and discover money-can’t-buy experiences. The promise of adventure informs every part of this incentive program. To launch Access to Adventure Africa, every invitee received a launch kit featuring a high-value gift: a pair of binoculars to take on safari. The adventure itself spanned a helicopter flight over Victoria Falls, a wildlife safari with the Maasai Mara in Kenya, hot-air ballooning across the savanna, whitewater rafting, and much more. Plus it’s not only the business owners who travel; their partners join in the adventure too.

To structure this high-value incentive program’s buying period, Incremental utilised their unique Upside Only financial model. This model allowed Unilever to sidestep expensive upfront reward costs. Instead, extra sales generated by the Unilever’s independent selling partners paid for all the Access to Adventure travel experiences.

During the 12-month buying period, regular sales results were loaded into the Access to Adventure platform, these updates built consistent and powerful engagement.

Participants could track their actuals sales, projected final positions if current spending remained at the same levels and a sales planner to rank against targets, all aspects required to earn their Access to Adventure. A target tracker had a simple-but-powerful key mechanic, by ticking-off participant milestones enroute to their adventure of a lifetime, the knowledge of time to reward built high levels of engagement .

Incremental tailored the adventure’s educational experiences to ensure the high-achieving business owners remained engaged. Incremental curated the educational topics, and, with Unilever’s sign off, organised for international speakers to breath life into hot-button industry topics.

Results

Access to Adventure continues to build year-on-year: the number of companies participating builds; the number of people attending builds; and the sales for Unilever Food Solutions build too.

Thanks to this program, 270 participants – or 60% of Unilever’s entire United States participating base – grew sales by 11% year-on-year.