CIO Bulletin

We’re employee engagement and corporate reward specialists: Virgin Incentives

Most business owners have clear goals to reduce their costs whilst improving the quality, and sometimes quantity, of work coming from their employees.

In a competitive business climate, careful considerations need to be made when it comes to getting more out of your workforce. In order to become truly successful at your job as a business owner or entrepreneur, you need to understand the importance of being appreciated. When it comes to praising others for their hard work, you need to apply the fundamental principles of employee recognition.

If you are on the same page, then we have Virgin Incentives for you. They make every encounter extraordinary, both for your customers and your employees. They help US and UK companies build a successful employee culture that puts performance, engagement, and loyalty at the heart of their organization.

Virgin Incentives knows how wonderful it is for employees to feel appreciated, valued, and rewarded. Whether you have 10 employees or 10,000, they help you achieve it with adaptable corporate reward solutions built on an unmatched selection of experiential rewards.

Danni Rush, Chief Operating Officer, walked us through the company’s journey

Q. What is the story behind Virgin Incentives? Why was the company founded?

In 2021 we acquired Cloud 9 Living, a family-run business with 15 years of experience in inspiring gifters with hand-picked exciting experiences guaranteed to delight everyone. After our successful acquisition, we rebranded the business to Virgin Experience Gifts to join other Virgin U.S. operations, such as Virgin Hotels, Virgin Holidays, and Virgin Voyages.

Virgin Incentives is the B2B arm of Virgin Experience Gifts, working specifically with corporate firms for reward and recognition and employee and customer gifts. Whether it’s a birthday, a thank you, or a farewell, there are over 4,000 experiences that are perfect for unique and thoughtful gifts and rewards. From supercar driving experiences, golf lessons, or wine tasting tours—we cover all the gifting bases.

Q. What are the ways employers can use Virgin Incentives service to provide employee rewards and recognition?

We aim to support businesses in developing a healthy work culture that prioritizes employee engagement, loyalty, and performance. We believe that being recognized, appreciated, and rewarded is a wonderful experience for employees. We make that happen with incentive solutions based on an unrivaled choice of experiential rewards. If employers are looking to boost their team motivation or want to say well done, happy work anniversary - or just want to thank their co-workers, Virgin Incentives is the perfect reward choice! Firms can partner with us for employee engagement, reward and recognition for celebrating work milestones, employee birthdays, ad-hoc recognition, well done rewards, holiday gifting, sales incentives, team building or just to say a heartfelt thank you!

We understand that no two workforces are the same, so we’ll work with you to create the perfect rewards solution for everybody and make your rewarding life easier. Our solutions can match the culture and values of the employer, meaning no matter who you are or your aims, we can help to ensure your corporate rewards come to life through exciting new experiences.

Q. Can you talk a little about the various kinds of employee engagement and corporate rewards the company specializes in?

We specialize in corporate reward solutions based on an unrivaled range of experiential rewards – whether you have 10 employees or 10,000.

From culinary tours to once-in-a-lifetime fighter jet flight, adventure activities, driving experiences, spa pampering, to scenic cruises and so much more, if companies are looking to reward US based employees & customers with a wonderful new incentive, that is our speciality. We have over 4,000 experiences across the US and these never expire, so there’s plenty of choice of reward options and recipients can use these any time.

We also offer a Virgin Experience Gifts eGift Card. It’s the perfect reward, and employees can take care of how to spoil themselves. It’s a gift card which never expires, and once the recipient picks an experience, they can choose a date and time convenient for them to get booked in! Firms simply load from $5-$5000 onto the gift card, and can send straight to the recipient’s inbox.

We also offer a wide range of multi-choice collection vouchers that are perfect for giving people the freedom to pick their own reward. You simply pick a theme or price point and reward away, each multi-choice voucher includes a wide range of experiences for one or two people.

Q. In what ways do Virgin Incentives rewards programs help its clients?

Virgin Incentives help clients in many ways. Whether organizations are looking to boost team morale, improve employee engagement and retention, increase motivation, or introduce rewards & recognition programs for both in office and hybrid teams, our incentives can help. We pride ourselves in providing experiential reward options for employees, through reward & recognition, loyalty & long service, sales incentives, employee gifting, team building experiences and employee engagement solutions.

On the customer side, we can partner with clients to help them bring new customers in and keep them coming back for more with our wide range of acquisition and retention options. Clients can add a bit of Virgin magic to their next customer-related marketing campaign and make their brand stand out from the competition.

We work with many businesses across the US, for customer acquisition, incentives and loyalty programs for customers, referral rewards, goodwill, customer gifting and also partner promotions such as on-pack promos, prizes, raffles & giveaways. Whether clients want to grab the attention of new or old customers – we’re on hand for you!

Q. Would you like us to highlight something important happening in your company that we may have missed asking?

We’re excited to share that we’ve recently hired a new CCO, Carrie Keplinger for Virgin Experience Gifts in the US. Carrie has spent much of her career focusing on transforming the way people see and experience the world’s greatest destinations - so bringing new experiences to new people is right up her street, and we’re excited to have Carrie on board!

We’ve also expanded our experience range to include 100+ new experiences which can be gifted as a Spring/Summer incentive to employees and customers alike, these include stand-up paddleboard lessons in Florida, cocktail mixology class in Denver, one-way Seattle locks cruise, historic Washington DC donut tour, Niagara Falls tour with a helicopter flight in New York, a private Warner Brothers studio tour in LA, and an amazing visit to Madame Tussauds Las Vegas and a 4D experience.

Finally, our brand motto is, “screw it - let’s do it” - so we’re always innovating and driving our business forward. We keep our ear to the ground so we’re ready to react to new industry trends. We’re pleased to share that over the past year we have generated 184% more revenue compared to this time last year, so watch this space as we’re curious and identifying gaps in the marketplace and setting ambitious growth objectives!

Say hello to Danni Rush

Danni’s career has spanned several industries including travel, retail and outdoor education. Danni has immense passion for team engagement, having seen the positive impact that a highly engaged and motivated team can have on business performance.

Danni leads the customer experience, product development, corporate sales, partnerships and the people strategy and helped the business navigate through the challenging pandemic period to increase employee engagement ratings and win gold at the 2021 UK Employee Experience Awards. Danni’s corporate sales team has also recently won Employer of the Year award in 2022 and Inspirational Place to Work Award in 2022 by IMA Awards.