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October 11, 2010 CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill. - Gift cards continue to
be a top choice among companies for their recognition,
incentive and corporate gifting programs, and now a new
survey of advertising and promotional products leaders by
National Gift Card Corp. (NGC) further confirms the
popularity of gift cards for a wide variety of business
purposes.
NGC, in cooperation with the Advertising Specialty Institute
(ASI), conducted the survey among more than 170 ASI
distributors, including sales and marketing representatives,
business owners, and corporate executives from the
promotional products industry during a virtual trade show
hosted by ASI last month.
Among the survey's key findings:
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In an industry mainly focused on branded merchandise,
nearly one-third (32%) of respondents surveyed currently
purchase gift cards for their company and for their
customers. In addition, 41% of those cards are
co-branded or otherwise customized.
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Gift cards are being used to address a wide variety of
business objectives. Asked to rate primary objectives to
offer gift cards as incentives, the top five objectives
were to recognize performance (20%), increase/maintain
sales (16%), boost morale (12%), build employee loyalty
(11%), and to start or maintain business relationships
(10%).
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Prepaid cards, including Visa and American Express, and
cards for dining/restaurants were ranked the most
popular type of gift card (tied at 22%), followed by
department stores (11%), electronics and office products
(9%) and fuel and auto-related merchants (8%).
About National Gift Card Corp.: National Gift Card
Corp. (NGC) is the leading marketer and supplier of gift
cards for use in loyalty, incentive and rewards programs.
The agency offers more than 175 major retail, restaurant and
prepaid cards along with full-service marketing support,
secure online ordering, distribution, fulfillment services
and customized programs designed to reach each client's
specific objectives. NGC continues to develop innovative
technology solutions and delivers the best value to its
customers. National Gift Card is headquartered in Illinois
with sales offices in Florida and California. To learn more
about National Gift Card Corp., please visit
http://www.ngc-group.com
or call 888-472-8747.
About ASI: The Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI)
is the largest media and marketing organization serving the
advertising specialty industry, with a membership of over
26,000 distributor firms (sellers) and supplier firms
(manufacturers) of advertising specialties. Supplier firms
use ASI print and electronic resources to market products to
over 22,000 ASI distributor firms. Distributor firms use ASI
print and electronic resources, which contain nearly every
product in the industry from more than 3,500 reputable
suppliers, to locate supplier firms and to market services
to buyers. ASI provides catalogs, information directories,
newsletters, magazines, websites and databases, and offers
e-commerce, marketing and selling tools. Visit ASI online at
http://www.asicentral.com.
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