Pre and Post-launch communications at TUI UK & Ireland
The market leading international leisure travel group, which counts Thomson and First Choice amongst its interests, launched Asperity’s Reward Gateway product as part of its wider benefits brand, Be Rewarded, in May 2009. The scheme offers a wide range of discounts and Cashback to over 16,000 UK-based and 100 Eire-based employees.
TUI’s Reward Gateway site adopted the name “Be Rewarded More”. The “Be Rewarded” brand was already established amongst TUI’s employee base and had a well-developed image. Extending the “Be Rewarded” brand to the Reward Gateway site was a key part of the marketing strategy.
Since May 2009, over 50% of TUI’s employees have engaged with the scheme, and have a combined spend of over £1.7 million on the site. Engagement has been achieved by a number of focused competitions, as well as continued messages by email, intranet, posters and flyers.
Be Rewarded More integrated Childcare Vouchers and Cycle to Work schemes, both provided by Asperity, in October 2009 and March 2010 respectively. The integration into Be Reward More has resulted in increased Childcare Vouchers takeup (200 new registrations in 5 months) and over 100 Cycle to Work applications in the first window. These salary sacrifice messages are included in the wider benefits communications framework, and have provided a useful tool for repeating the message of Be Rewarded More. Staggering the launches of both salary sacrifice schemes furthermore saw a positive effect on engagement and spend with more traffic to the site.
With the scheme now entering its second year, the communications will be taking a slightly different voice, being less introductory, and more educational about how to use Be Rewarded More effectively. Plans to deliver more focused and segmented competitions are also being drawn up as a way maintaining the good level of engagement.
“We wanted our voluntary benefits to fit neatly into our wider benefits programme, so the ability to fully brand and tailor the scheme was a decisive factor for us. The option to extend the scheme to our team in Ireland was also very attractive.”
Dione Mathias, Reward Manager for TUI UK & Ireland
