Today's Tidbit... IGA's Football-Themed Incentive Program of 1942

Football sells. It grabs headlines and attracts attention, so many businesses align themselves with specific players, teams, and leagues. Others avoid paying licensing, royalty, or endorsement fees by associating themselves with the sport in general, such as when the Independent Grocers Alliance or IGA developed a football-themed incentive program in 1942, hoping to promote the sale of various grocery products.

Since I worked for several decades for a marketing services firm that pioneered the sales incentive business, the IGA brochure seemed like a fun item to review in these dog days of summer. Plus, the brochure has fabulous period artwork that is worth sharing.

Wiki tells us that IGA had 3,000 independently owned retail locations in the U.S. in 1930 versus less than 800 today. Today, most IGA stores are in smaller towns that do not attract the attention of the regional and national behemoths. Still, IGA was among the nation's leading retailers in 1942, so any promotional contest they ran had a widespread impact.

The primary purpose of a sales incentive program is to sell more stuff, and they work by incentivizing retailers to sell specific stuff, specific amounts of certain stuff, or the most stuff. Since some IGA retailers were larger than others, the contest had tiers. The little guys competed with the little guys and the big with the big, resulting in three competitive tiers based on the retailers’ annual purchase volume: Scholastics, Collegians, and Professionals.