I spent the formative years of my life in a small county town on the edge of the “Lake District” in the North of England; the area is very much like a mini Switzerland with its mountains and lakes but without the “Gnomes “of Zurich and expensive vacation destinations.
Very insular in its location “Foreign News” and information to a young boy seemed very far away and very exotic, and so it stayed until my tenth birthday when a cousin who had just returned from his travels in the merchant navy presented me with some Marvel and DC American “Superhero” comics.
Never having seeing anything similar in local newsagents, I was obviously enthralled by the likes of “Green Lantern”, “Superman” and the “Flash” but strangely and although they were great fun, it was not the “Superheroes” that sustained my attention, it was the advertisements.
Towards the back of each comic there were six or seven pages of American advertisements depicting a snap shot of American life as it would have been for a kid of my age had I been born “Across the Pond”. I spent hours imagining what it would be like to actually stand in the middle of Disney’s Main Street or own an electrically powered mini Willis Jeep or even get my own superpower’s with X Ray Specs. The pages seemed to have an endless array of products and lifestyles that I actually wanted – no desired, but were unavailable due to my location, and tantalizingly out of reach.
It was at that moment I decided that at some point I would live in the United States.
Many years later and after innumerable trips to the USA that desire became reality, and I came to live in Miami Beach Florida enjoying the American way of life to the fullest. As you can imagine I have visited the Disney Parks many times and no longer need to own “ 100 – Super powerful Magnets for 79cents” but can now reflect on the power of the attraction.
Creating an incentive in which the participant is “Truly” engaged is the “Holy Grail” of any effective incentive program and can only be achieved by understanding – Behaviors – Culture – Perceived Value – Goals, to name but a few. Similarly global superstation can play its part, giving a clock in Chinese culture is thought to be taboo due to the word for “Clock” sounding like the word for death, also in many countries sharp objects are not provided as gifts as this implies the severing of relationships, but you will find that if you can “Nail” the incentive and reach the correct audience you can not only move mountains from a business perspective but as in my case a whole continent.
Tony
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