Literally thinking outside the box.

Upping the ante on premium incentives in the financial services industry.

“Forget about the box for a minute…”

It’s about halfway through a team ideation session on a new program for high-end referrals in the financial services industry. This is a group used to five-star incentive travel.

Of course, the pandemic makes that impossible.

This challenges the team to develop a different sort of incentive with the same intention – make the best-of-the-best feel valued and recognized.

The team starts with a smart strategy – a box…as a gateway to an extraordinary experience. Here in the session, the strategic director is nudging the team to spend more time focused on the total experience.

“Box”-style incentive programs have become popular over the past several months. This program needs to go further.

The team develops a laundry list of high-end experiential ideas. The program gets a custom name to give it “stand out” value. The box itself feels a cut above and is banded with gorgeous chromes and colours. The velvet-feeling envelope inside is personalized. A premium print piece hide inside. Each page is part of the experience and allows the audience to choose from more than a dozen extraordinary experiences – including driving experiences, a year of barber visits and made-to-measure business attire.

The program is framed by a digital “thank you” card for mortgage specialists across the bank, expanding the footprint and impact of the program.

“I think we need a mic drop moment…,” adds someone during the ideation.

Minutes later, the team has proposed one final exclamation point to the program – a VISA gift card worth thousands. The proposal turns out to be an exercise in logistics itself. It’s no simple task to acquire gift cards at that value.

The recipients certainly feel the love, declaring the program to be exceptional and that they felt very rewarded. “This program is getting better and better…” reports one of the recipients.