Our Top 5 Incentive/Rebate Programs From the Past 25 Years

As part of our celebration of 25 years working with the world’s top brands to help bring exciting purpose-driven promotions to consumers around the globe, we’re taking a look back at a few of our most memorable incentive/rebate programs from our history. The criteria for the following promotions in our “Top Five” list below range from promotion size, success, and uniqueness to new technologies, company ‘firsts’, and more.

Kraft Rebates and Fulfillment (2005+)

Program Overview:
Rebates, discounts and value added offers are key components to driving purchases of consumer packaged products. MRi worked with Kraft to provide fulfillment, rebate and sweepstakes services on a variety of promotional programs. We fulfilled millions of rebates and prizes, including, coupons, gift cards, branded clothing, cookbooks, appliances, trips, and NFL packages. These programs were run across the entire spectrum of CPG categories including snack foods, cereals, deli case, frozen pizza and many more.

Why we picked it:
These programs were memorable because of the scope and variety of products and services required. MRi provided flawless execution of hundreds of programs during our on-going, rewarding partnership.

Samsung Gift Card Rebates (2007+)

Program Overview:
Rebate programs drove cell phone purchases in the mid-2000’s. With the rapid advancement of technology, cell phone manufactures needed to add new features on new phone models to stay on top. Competition for cellular service on these phones was intense. Carriers partnered with companies like Samsung to provide consumers with free phones (through rebate offers) in return for cellular contract commitments. Mail-in rebates for Samsung products were available at multiple large carriers including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint and MRi processed them all in an age where digital rewards didn’t yet exist.

Why we picked it:
This program was all about teamwork and required an “all hands on deck” approach to keep the gift cards moving through our fulfillment process in a timely, efficient manner. MRi successfully distributed over $14 million in physical gift cards while providing Customer Service phone support handling hundreds of calls each day.

Bridgestone Employee Olympic Games Promotion (2016)

Program Overview:
Another one of our favorite incentive/rebate programs, for the summer Olympics, Bridgestone teamed with MRi to increase customer loyalty and incentivize employees to sell their featured products. The promotion included an OCR instant win promotion for customers, along with Bridgestone “rewards” for their employees so they could feel like winners as well.

To help ensure success, MRi created two employee trade promotions (one for Bridgestone Retail Sales Operations and the other for Bridgestone Affiliated Retailer Nationwide Network) to pair with the consumer instant win game. For each winner, the retail location who made the winning sale received a matching prize giving employees an incentive to actively increase sales of featured Bridgestone products.

Why we picked it:
This program was memorable because it helped bring the Olympic games to life for consumers and retailers. By targeting both employees and consumers the promotion expanded on Bridgestone’s sponsorship of the Olympic games while generating interest and purchase of Bridgestone products. It was certainly a memorable program for the MRi team to work on and made the Olympic games more fun to watch that year.

Exxon Mobil Retailer Rebates (Current)

Program Overview:
What could be more convenient than receiving a digital discount on your next oil change right when your car needs it. That’s what MRi created for the Exxon Mobil Retailer community and their customers using an online portal that we created. Installers order materials and sign up for coupon distribution, customers receive digital coupons and MRi tracks and reports all activity to ExxonMobil.

Why we picked it:
This incentinve/rebate program has been an important staple in the ExxonMobil customer and dealer incentive arsenal for the past 6 years making this MRi’s first comprehensive online portal program.

Quaker Chewy Dipps Llama Rama Offer Program (2020)

Program Overview:
The Quaker Chewy Dipps brand team was launching their latest innovation-Llama Rama- and looking to develop and execute a fresh and engaging national campaign to drive new product trials, sales at retail and generate overall excitement for the entire Chewy Granola bar portfolio amongst family summer activities.

With the purchase of 3 participating Quaker Chewy Dipps products, Chewy Dipps fans could receive an adorable Llama Rama beach towel. The Llama Rama offer program used MRi’s OCR technology to easily validate purchases. That’s not all, we also used “influencer marketing” to increase excitement, participation and sales during this promotion. It was fun to watch the Llama-Rama story being told on social media through posts by winning families and social influencers!

Quaker Chewy Dipps Llama Rama Offer Program (2020)

Why we picked it:
The use of influencer marketing proved to be the perfect tool to make this promotion have a huge reach and garner a high level of consumer interest and participation. The program was such a hit that Quaker’s initial redemption goal was quadrupled! In addition, 60% of form submissions opted in to emails from Quaker. Thousands of receipts were validated and towels awarded to customers. MRi and Quaker won a 2020 Gold PRO Award for this promotion, making it extra-memorable for all of us!

Conclusion

This is “number five” and our final post in our current series of “Top 5s”! We hope you enjoyed our top five incentive/rebate programs and our little trip down memory lane to help us celebrate our Silver Anniversary. Thank you to ALL our past and present clients for helping us achieve 25 wonderful years! It all starts with a big IDEA, and we look forward to continuing to develop even more memorable promotions. In the meantime, take a deeper look at some of our most recent promotions on our case stories page.

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Systems and Network Administrator

About Us

Marketing Resources, Inc. is a leading promotional marketing agency that specializes in purpose-driven promotions. With over 25 years in the business, MRi helps brands Identify, Develop, Execute, and Analyze promotions and marketing projects that consumers love. We’re a team full of committed, passionate, solutions-driven, hands-on, and innovative individuals who collaborate to bring success to our client’s programs.

Overview

The System and Network Administrator plays a critical role on the MRi Digital team, and overall in the success of our company. They are responsible for the day-to-day administration and technical support of complex Linux servers, Virtual Infrastructure and Systems Management, and maintenance and support of end-user systems. You’ll be working closely with our teams on client projects and making sure our internal systems are updated and secure. 

Our ideal candidate will be proactive, have great organizational skills, not shy away from communication with our teams, think through and help solve different problems, and gain an understanding of our business to help our team achieve amazing results.

In this role, we’re looking for that person who does not accept average.

You will help us create the best digital, promotions, products, and campaigns to achieve our client’s marketing goals. MRi takes pride in our ability to constantly push the boundaries of development in the digital promotions space, and you will take an active role in working closely with our client services, business development, creative, and project management team to guide, develop, and deliver exceptional work for our clients and partners.

Our ideal candidate will be proactive, have great organizational skills, not shy away from communication with our teams, think through and help solve different problems, and gain an understanding of our business to help our team achieve amazing results.

Responsibilities May Include

  • Design, install, configure, upgrade, maintain, monitor, and tune performance of Linux-based servers and infrastructure, both internal and client-related promotions.
  • Provide support for problems and issues that come up from our clients, vendors, and internal teams.
  • Examine and audit various server logs and determine if any corrective action is required.
  • Review releases of new operating systems and evaluate the implementation in the enterprise.
  • Install, configure, and maintain server firewall and other security software.
  • Identify and provide technical resolution for potential security breaches, then establish and monitor security and apply appropriate fixes.
  • Implement and maintain technical solutions for disaster recovery and business continuity of enterprise and client systems.
  • Select the ideal server hardware for the company’s needs and administer physical server hardware, including repair and replacement of parts as necessary.
  • Monitor and maintain proper end-user system security by ensuring operating systems and software are up-to-date and applying patches as necessary.
  • Maintenance and support of all end-user service accounts including Office365, Google Workspace, hosted VoIP accounts.

The Essentials

  • 1-2 years of experience in Linux server administration in a small to midsize environment.
  • Bachelor’s degree or minimum 4 years of related work experience.
  • Able to effectively plan, deploy and administer Linux servers in an enterprise environment.
  • Strong familiarity with Linux OS, Windows, macOS, application, and hardware troubleshooting.
  • Familiarity with VMware ESXi and XenServer/XCP-NG, DigitalOcean, Amazon AWS, and Docker.
  • Networking and Storage – Familiarity with pfSense (*BSD pf) firewalls, Ubiquiti network gear, Synology NAS equipment, iSCSI, NFS, SMB, and AFP file protocols.  TCP/IP, UDP, and VLAN. configurations to manage networking and storage.  
  • Ability to compose thorough and clear documentation on routine tasks, standard operating procedures, and other documents beneficial to team members.

You’ll stand out if you have experience with

  • Debian-based Linux or Ubuntu operating systems, roles, services, concepts, security, permissions, middleware, and facilities required. (e.g. SMTP, NFS, SMB, iptables, LVM, LUKS).
  • Amazon AWS S3, EC2, and ElasticBeanstalk required.
  • Samba4 as an Active Directory Domain Controller, Administering Active Directory through. the use of GPOs and OUs.
  • Supporting Windows and macOS systems.
  • Scripting concepts and methods with competence in at least one relevant language (e.g. Bash, Python, Perl, etc.)
  • Internet clients/servers/protocols, including HTTPS, SSH, MTAs (e.g. Postfix).
  • An ability to explain complex technical processes in a more simplified version to team members, clients, and partners.
  • Experience with IT project management practices and techniques.
  • Strong written and oral communication skills.

The Perks

  • Medical insurance options
  • Dental insurance
  • 401(K) plan with company match
  • Flexible remote work policy
  • Paid sick days
  • Generous vacation and paid holidays

Interested in applying?

Send Resumes to resumes@marketingresources.com