Research clinic: incentives
 My client would like to offer vouchers redeemable only for their own products as incentives for respondents. Is this acceptable?
 No. By offering own company incentives, the client is creating a sales opportunity from the research project because respondents are obliged to become customers to redeem their vouchers. Clients obtain a benefit from respondents’ participation in the research. They are not permitted to gain a secondary benefit by turning the respondents into captive customers.
I want to give vouchers to children as an incentive. How can I ensure that they are not used to buy inappropriate or age restricted items?
Incentives should be appropriate to the age group. In the case of vouchers, retailers are responsible for ensuring they do not sell products which are illegal for the buyer’s age. Responsible adults should be informed of the nature and value of the voucher when they give consent. Then the onus is on them to indicate whether they object to the incentive.
My client has provided incentives for recent projects in the form of vouchers redeemable for a wide range of goods and services. However, the issuing company has ceased trading and the vouchers can no longer be redeemed. What should I do?
You must take reasonable precautions to ensure that respondents are not adversely affected as a result of taking part in a project. If possible, you should contact the most recent set of respondents to find out how many have not yet redeemed their vouchers, allowing you to quantify the possible size of the problem. You should arrange with your client to provide replacement vouchers (from a different organisation) for those not redeemed. Your staff should be informed and given appropriate guidance on how to address complaints and issue a new voucher.
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