I came across this article a few months back while researching a project I was working on. It seems to relate:

According to Perks.com, “a study conducted for the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company demonstrated that while the performance of a group of participants rewarded with cash and another group rewarded with tangible incentives improved during the program, the increase shown by those receiving tangible rewards was nearly 50 percent more than those of the other group.”

Further research suggests that the reason behind these counterintuitive findings is the way the brain processes information. “Offers of non-cash rewards, such as those offered in the Goodyear program, are visualized or imaged by the right hemisphere of the brain. Such images or mental pictures trigger emotional responses which can be quite powerful. Conversely, offers of strictly monetary rewards are processed by the left hemisphere, which lacks the ability to create images. When a monetary offer is received, the brains lefts hemisphere assesses the information and determines whether the offer is sufficient, relative to the time or effort required to earn it. The emotional response is what drives behavior, not rational thought. With cash, its reduced to one issue: How much?”

I’m guessing that really large prizes tend to be reduced to a monetary value, while the smaller “incentives” have so little monetary value that the focus shifts to the experience itself.

Thoughts?

Good post, but as always there are exceptions to the rules. Nissan Canada decided to launch the Cube in Canada via a contest centered around social media and is giving away 50 of the cars. The contest is in the final stages of judging right now (and full disclosure: yes, I’m in the running).

There was a voting portion of the contest whereby people could vote on people’s online “canvas” and since the voting portion has closed, there has been a drop in contest activity on Twitter, blogs and Facebook, but the contest has managed to serve it’s purpose. Lots of positive press, and lots of Canadians now know about the little boxy car from Nissan.

I won’t post too much via comment, but feel free to send me an email if you’d like to know more and head over to http://www.hypercube.ca for a look at what people did to get the word out. Off to explore your site a little more.

So yeah, give me the Starbucks gift card over the slimmer chance of winning the flat panel LCD HDTV